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Using Wordpress as a CMS
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If you are considering starting your own blog, or even your own business website, you are going to need a program that allows you to upload and change the content displayed on your site, including text, pictures and certain HTML features. These types of programs are known as Content Management Systems, or CMS. Probably the most popular CMS in use today is Wordpress. This open source software program uses shortcuts, templates, plugins and other easy to use features that make uploading, changing and manipulating the content on your website simple. Using Wordpress as a CMS is a great choice for anyone who wants to alter their web page’s content quickly and easily without having to rewrite HTML code by hand, and since Wordpress is open source software, it can be tweaked and adjusted for personal customization. The basic process of creating a blog post with Wordpress is as follows:
1. Log in to your Wordpress console
2. Click 'Write a New Post'
3. Type a title in the 'Title' box
4. Type text in the 'Post' box
5. Click publish
Of course, there are other options such as adding images, creating links, creating tags (keywords) for your post, selecting a category to post into, etc... But these are the basic steps. Pretty simple huh? In addition to being extremely easy to publish content, let’s take a look at some of the other advantages of using Wordpress as a CMS.
One of the major appeals of using Wordpress as a CMS is the presence of widgets and plugins. Widgets and plugins are compact features that can add a number of different applets to your website that allow for any number of functions. Best of all, you never have to write out the code for these widgets by hand, they are available via template design, just like the rest of Wordpress. While it may be a bit crass to refer to Wordpress as content management for dummies, the ease of use offered by Wordpress combined with an almost complete lack of a learning curve makes this program a popular choice for people who just want a no-nonsense way to manage their web content.
Using Wordpress as a CMS does have its drawbacks, however. Almost all of the current criticism against using Wordpress as a CMS comes from apparent security vulnerabilities. Security problems are common in open source software since the code is made public to anyone who wants it so that personal customization can be undertaken by those who wish to. Along with personal customization, open source software also lays bare all of their security issues, as well, although fixes are available for some of the most glaring weaknesses. In the past, hackers have used Trojans and backdoor files to attempt to exploit websites that use Wordpress. Other security vulnerabilities have focused on recent polls that have shown that a staggering number of blogs that use Wordpress aren’t protecting their sites well enough to adequately ward off potential hackers. On the bright side, as soon as an exploit is found, there are often thousands of open source software fans working on fixing the problem. The lesson here is that when using Wordpress as a CMS, you should maximize your security features, as well.
There is no doubt that Wordpress is today’s most popular CMS software and thanks to the fact that the program is open source, new variations and improvements are constantly being issued. You don’t need to know much of anything about designing a website to use Wordpress, but you do need to offer a degree of security, otherwise, you are opening your site to possible hacker activity.
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