It seems that WordPress must be one of the most popular CMS tools available at this time. Obviously this has a lot to do with how easy it is to work with. Installation is a snap, they boast a 5 minute install, and I have to say it’s pretty accurate. Though, it might take a few minutes longer if you’re new to the process. That said I’ve never heard anyone claim the “5 minute” install was very inaccurate.
From here you start to wonder what kind of sites can make with WordPress? This question is tainted by the blog label. Since it started as a blog, WordPress.com us a blog hosting site, and it’s primary use is as a blog. Everyone’s first thought is that WordPress is a blog.
Really, WordPress is a Content Management System, or CMS. Originally conceived as a blog, it’s really just a site manager that stores site content as either posts or pages. Posts are elements that are added often, think of these as blog posts. Pages on the other hand represent content that is more or less fixed, think of this as a static web pages.
Working with these two types of elements there is a broad range of web sites that can be created. Not just blogs.
WordPress provides several methods of organizing site content. Categories, which are, well, categories. Categories allow you to sort content into groups that can be searched, filtered and displayed together. Categories also allow you style types of content differently.
Tags are another organizing tool that provide a free form method of, well, tagging content. Think of tags as keywords attached to content to provide a more detailed description. Use tags to build on the broad areas of content created by categories.
WordPress also provides a system of taxonomies. Think of taxonomies as a specialized tagging. Or, categories of tags. The taxonomy system is not activated by default. To use this you’ll need to activate this feature using the functions.php file. See this tutorial here: http://justintadlock.com/archives/2009/05/06/custom-taxonomies-in-wordpress-28
What types of sites can you make with WordPress? It’s hard to say how much you can do with WordPress. If you’re new to WordPress, I would that you probably do a lot more than you think you can. The tool is very flexible. The Admin panel is also incredibly easy to pick. So it’s pretty is to create a site and pass it to a client to manage with minimal instruction.
Here’s an article on sites using WordPress as a CMS: http://www.webhelpermagazine.com/2008/04/wordpress-wow-seven-top-sites-using-wordpress-as-a-cms/
Looks like I’m not the only one that thinks WordPress is a great CMS tool. Looks like Pakt Publishing awarded WordPress first place Overall Best Open Source CMS. WordPress beat Drupal and Joomla. Which are dedicated CMS tools. Here’s a link if you’d like to read more about this: http://www.packtpub.com/award