Wordpress As Cms (WordCamp Ireland Talk)

WordPress as a CMS

WordPress as a CMS “WordPress started as just a blogging system, but has evolved to be used as full content management system and so much more through the thousands of plugins, widgets, and themes, WordPress is limited only by your imagination. (And tech chops.)” WordPress.org/about/ frankprendergast.ie 2

WordPress.org / WordPress.com ● This talk will focus on a self hosted WordPress install (WordPress.org) ● Recommend self hosted for increased control frankprendergast.ie 3

Quick Overview ● Concept: WordPress / CMS – Content Types – Navigation ● Tips: – Permalinks – Where to find Themes – Onsite SEO – Contact Forms – Analytics frankprendergast.ie 4

WordPress is a CMS ● CMS = Content Management System ● Presentation & Structuring of content to create the familiar experience of a Website ● Simple Example: 'Static' Pages + Blog/News frankprendergast.ie 10

Posts & Pages Containers that hold content. ● Posts ● Pages – reverse chronological – defined hierarchy – blog – static site content frankprendergast.ie 11

A tip for Pages ● Pages (generally) don't require comments ● Open up Page.php ● Check for and remove: <?php comments_template(); ?> frankprendergast.ie 12

Categories & Tags Categories & Tags are labels do not impose structure but provide views of related content ● Categories ● Tags – A post must be – Tags are optional associated with at – Pages can be tagged least one Category – Tags are unstructured – Pages - no categories – Many specific tags – Categories can be hierarchical – Few broad categorisations frankprendergast.ie 13

Our site structure frankprendergast.ie 14

Page Order & Hierarchy frankprendergast.ie 15

Page Order & Hierarchy frankprendergast.ie 16

Static Front Page ● Set a page as your home page and specify another page to be your blog ● Settings > Reading frankprendergast.ie 17

Permalinks ● Settings > Permalink ● One I use: /blog/%post_id%/%postname%/ frankprendergast.ie 18

Permalinks ● http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks ● Make sure to end your structure with either %post_id% or %postname% so that each permalink points to an individual post. ● For performance reasons [...] it is best to start your permalink structure with a numeric field, such as the year or post ID. ● Some people just use %postname% frankprendergast.ie 19

Navigation Hierarchy ● When planning your site – create clear hierarchy ● Determine best navigation approach – Top nav + side subnav – Folding sidenav – Fly out menus ● Find appropriate theme / navigation plugin combination frankprendergast.ie 20

Navigation Hierarchy - My Plugin ● Developed for me by John Blackbourn – http://johnblackbourn.com/ ● WordPress Better Navigation – Widgetised – Displays Page Tree ● With or without top level ● Expand children / all descendants of current page frankprendergast.ie 21

Don't Link to Current Page ● Jakob Nielsen http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20031110.html ● Analytics – Example: up to 20% of users clicked on the link for the page they were on ● Theme Dependant – check your site ● Plugin: http://frankprendergast.ie/resources/remove- link-to-current-page-in-wordpress/ frankprendergast.ie 22

Themes ● Free & Premium ($19 - $150 - ??) ● http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ ● http://themeforest.net/ ● http://www.elegantthemes.com/ ● http://www.woothemes.com/themes/ ● Most have a CMS category ● From pure design to all kinds of functionality frankprendergast.ie 23

xkcd.com frankprendergast.ie 24

SEO / Headspace ● Headspace 2 – my favourite SEO plugin ● Page Titles – keywords, attention grabbing, relevant ● Description – elevator pitch to get clicks frankprendergast.ie 25

SEO / Headspace frankprendergast.ie 26

SEO / Headspace For HeadSpace Titles to work as expected - In header.php find title tag eg default theme: <title><?php wp_title('«', true, 'right'); ?> <?php bloginfo('name'); ?></title> And replace with: <title><?php wp_title(''); ?></title> frankprendergast.ie 27

SEO / Headspace Post / Page headspace settings frankprendergast.ie 28

Contact Forms ● Contact Form 7 – Popular, quite simple, fairly flexible ● cforms II – Quite complex, incredibly flexible ● Gravity Forms (www.gravityforms.com) – Not free ($39 single license), very flexible, simple & support available frankprendergast.ie 29

Web Stats / Analytics ● A good web statistics package gives you information on how people find & interact with your site and allows you to improve ● Google Analytics is free & excellent ● Headspace allows you to add Analytics & other stats packages easily frankprendergast.ie 30

Analytics frankprendergast.ie 31

Analytics frankprendergast.ie 32

What to do... ● Develop clear content / navigation structures ● Create static pages & hierarchy ● Set static frontpage ● Find a theme to suit your needs ● Use Pretty Permalinks ● Do some basic SEO ● Implement a contact form ● Add Analytics frankprendergast.ie 33

Honourable Mentions ● Maintenance Mode (plugin) ● WP Super Cache (plugin) ● Subscribe to Comments (plugin) ● Feedburner & Email Sub (setup & plugin) – http://tinyurl.com/email-sub-rss ● Google Webmaster Tools frankprendergast.ie 34

Where to next? ● Development areas: – Page Templates – Custom Loops – Custom Themes frankprendergast.ie 35

Thank You So Much! xkcd.com

http://frankprendergast.ie	194
http://www.blogcodi.net	14
http://www.slideshare.net	13
http://translate.googleusercontent.com	1

Wordpress As Cms (WordCamp Ireland Talk)

by Frank Prendergast on Mar 07, 2010

Accessibility

Categories

Tags

Upload Details

Usage Rights

4 Embeds 222

Statistics

Wordpress As Cms (WordCamp Ireland Talk) — Presentation Transcript