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Why WordPress is an Excellent Choice for Your CMS
WordPress is an open source content management system (CMS) that has become one of the most used platforms on the web. It has become the CMS of choice for businesses, bloggers, designers, and online marketers for a variety of reasons that I’ll discuss in this article. As a marketing company in Saint John, New Brunswick, my business uses WordPress extensively and we’ve been getting great results.
WordPress.com Vs WordPress.org
For business owners who are not so tech savvy, a distinction has to be made between WordPress.com and wWordpress.org. WordPress.com is a free blogging platform much like Blogger or Tumblr or Posterous. It is hosted and controlled by WordPress. It’s great for someone who wants to write an interest blog in their spare time or post a few stories and pictures of their kids for their extended family and friends. It is not the best option for serious businesspeople and bloggers who want to monetize their site.
That’s where WordPress.org comes in. It is a free content management system that can be loaded on your own servers at your own hosting account and controlled by you or your developer. When I ask “Why Use WordPress” I’m talking about WordPress.org.
Why Use WordPress?
- Google likes WordPress. As a marketer, I need a platform that is structured in such a way that the search engines can read it and rank it as quickly and efficiently as possible. WordPress is structured for on page optimization so Google and other search engine crawlers can see what is important to the site and to the page and put it in the right category to get ranked more easily.
- The structure is not only optimized for Google, but it is naturally set up for an intuitive user experience. Information can attractively presented in a logical and easily consumed manner.
- It loads fast, which is also great for both search engine optimization and user experience.
- We already mentioned that you can use WordPress as a self-hosted CMS so you can maintain control of your site and its content.
- WordPress is easy to use. The dashboard in the admin area is clear and easy to follow. Small changes to text and features can be handled by people with little to no coding experience.
- WordPress is flexible. It can be a simple blog with a few simple and easy to use features…or a full blown site with multiple pages and plugins.
- There are plugins for everything. You (or your developer) can install plugins to control the code and inner workings of the site, or insert ads or coordinate with social media sites like facebook and Twitter to enhance the user experience on your site.
Like any platform, there are pros and cons. Some people complain that the structure is too familiar with so many people using WordPress, but companies like Dream Driven Designs in Tampa can create very different sites on the platform…and some degree of familiarity makes people more comfortable on your site. Familiarity can breed trust and make them more willing to pull out their credit card.
Why Use WordPress for your website? I believe it is the best options available for businesses and organizations to get their message out to prospective clients, improve their online image, and most importantly, increase their bottom line.
Roderick MacKenzie
Freedom Ability Marketing
Our goal w
as to create a simple but professional blogging theme that would be easy to manage, quick to understand and easy for visitors to navigate. It has a professional layout with built in social media profiles, feed-burner email subscription form, featured article slide, custom background images & colors, custom header images, sidebar, three footer areas, six different post formats and featured image support. WordPress 3.0+.
Download: Business Pro Blogger
Demo: Preview Theme
I have tested the theme for the following browsers:
- Internet Explorer:
- 6.0, 7.0, 8.0 – All features work as designed.
- Firefox:
- 3.0, 3.5 – All features work as designed.
- Safari:
- 4.0+ – All features work as designed on both Windows and Mac
- Opera:
- 8+ – Works as designed, except for rounded borders and shadows
- Chrome:
- 2.0 – All features work as designed.
The theme is XHTML 1.0 compliant. Please feel free to pitch in with comments and bug reports.
Welcome to our Free WordPress Theme SimpleBlogger.
SimpleBlogger is an easy to use, lightweight yet advance WordPress theme that can be easily customized to make your own. You can choose your background color, background image and custom logo. It comes equipped with Facebook, Twitter, a built in email subscription form, multilevel drop down menu, threaded comments, etc.
It has 3 footer widgets, sidebar widgets and a featured posts slideshow. All features can be easily updated from the theme settings page without any complications, hence the name SimpleBlogger, it’s designed to be used by anyone out the box. WordPress version 3.0+.
Download: SimpleBlogger
Demo: Theme Preview
I have tested the theme for the following browsers:
- Internet Explorer:
- 6.0, 7.0, 8.0 – All features work as designed.
- Firefox:
- 3.0, 3.5 – All features work as designed.
- Safari:
- 4.0+ – All features work as designed on both Windows and Mac
- Opera:
- 8+ – Works as designed, except for rounded borders and shadows
- Chrome:
- 2.0 – All features work as designed.
The theme is XHTML 1.0 compliant. Please feel free to pitch in with comments and bug reports.
WordPress is a very easy to use, popular and free Content Management System (CMS); so what is a Content Management System or CMS, it is a software system which provides website owners the ability to write, collaborate and administer their website without the need to know any programming languages.
There’s no need to know any HTML or PHP, everything in WordPress or any good CMS’s should be pretty much laid out. The truth is we would like to think all CMS’s is great, but that’s not true, before our wordpress days, we tried many different CMS’s but we fell in love with WP from the first time. Currently we still experiment with new software whenever they are requested but this is definitely the way to go for anyone who wants a start a website that they can easily manage and keep updated for years to come.
A Quick Run Down of How it works
All content managements systems have two main parts working together, they consist of the file system and the database. In this case we’re using a MSQL database and the files are in PHP. To give you a quick run down of how it works, the file system doesn’t store anything pertaining to the user information and content, that’s the purpose of the database, the file system is a like a skeleton frame doing all the work while the database stores all the information like the brain.
One great thing about using a database is that your information can never be accessed by anyone, it is password protected and stored else where, only information that you release through your CMS will be visible to visitors.
Reasons why people love worpdress
- perfect for small businesses, blogs, publishing companies, hobby sites, affiliate marketing, e-commerce websites, custom projects, etc
- Any type of website can be designed using wordpress
- 10% of all websites on the internet use wordpress (news release Mar 2011).
- It is easy enough for a beginner and still advance enough for any techie
- Easy to setup, it is famous for it’s five minute installation.
- Google loves WordPress, so does all the other Search Engines
- Unlimited amount of pages and posts
- Ability to store media and content online securely for future use.
- Thousands of free plugins available to search from within the administration section
- Easy to upgrade to new versions
- Easy to install new themes
- Easy to find web design support for wordpress
- the software is free
If you’re thinking about investing in a website, invest in quality website and get a wordpress website. 10 years ago everyone had static websites, those days are over, web 2.0 platforms have changed the way how businesses operate, everything is dynamic and can be changed with a single click.