Guest Post – Rich runs a extremely useful blog which anyone running a WordPress website needs to check out, He is also a great Web Designer and can be found at his own website RichInDesign.info

 

What is WordPress & How to use it!

WordPress although primarily a blogging platform originally over the years have developed into so much more. With the use of newer advanced WordPress themes with customised widgets and barrage of useful plugins it has been transformed into the most popular content management system on the planet .

Why is it so popular and what is it that separates it from the rest? quite simply support that’s easy to find and the vast depth of free software available, there are a lot of open source platforms out there but none come close to offering the support you need from a blitz of forums, posts and websites totally dedicated to bringing you free goodies.

I myself provide some useful tutorials and suggestions on my own blog Richindesign.info. And you will find many many more similar websites..

So why does it transcend other blog platforms? WordPress offers you the option to make static pages to give you option to pull away from the blog platform giving you the ability to create a more traditional website and allows you to combine that with a blog if you chose. This gives you the benefits of both worlds allowing you to pull in traffic with your posts and keep it separated from the static pages you aim to keep your main services and content within. Or more importantly just giving you more of a chance to be found in the Search engines by providing multiple access points to your Website. The seo benefits of WordPress provide huge potential for bringing in traffic but I wont cover that today as its a vast subject and not the focus of this post, however once again you may find useful information on my aforementioned blog or others

So know you what it is how do you create a site with it? well first you will need an eye catching theme, the beauty of WordPress sees 1000′s of themes readily available for free and some really impressive premium themes for as little as $5.

Some great free theme Resources are:
http://theme.wordpress.com/

http://wordpress3themes.com/
Themes are easily installed manually or via the uploader within the Appearance section of the dashboard (seen below)
Wordpress construction is set into two categories, Posts & pages the full guide to setting this up is better covered here Setting up your WordPress layout.
Pages are static content designed to create the feel of a traditional website, e.g. service pages etc, or even as a squeeze page to better promote your posts.
Posts create dynamic content aimed at pulling in traffic on different subjects of your genre and create more of a community using RSS feeds, comment systems and subscriptions which is great for affiliate marketing and list building for SEM purposes

(Dashboard example below)

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The user friendly Dashboard is where you control everything within your WordPress website from the creation of content to structures of the URL’s it has a broad range of features to play with and you will quickly learn them as you go along by searching for resources that guide you in how to do so

Its all about the plugins!. There are some great plugins to really make your Blog / Website pop with WordPress’s massive plugin directory which holds around 90% of the plugins in use today all completely free and easily installed which provide some advanced features for both you and your visitors. Plugins come under many categories including , Social media and other user engaging features, Analytical for you to track your websites traffic and SEO to better your sites performance in the search engines. There are also some very unique premium plugins available if you just cant find the right one to perform the task you seek

All in all WordPress is an extremely powerful tool that would be advantageous to take use for your CMS platform. Its ever growing user base and developers means it is only going from strength to strength further separating it from its competitors which makes it a highly recommended Platform from me an many other developers

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