Use Wordpress as a CMS and Blog – The Best Way

posted in Wordpress

So, you are just like me (one week ago) and are wondering how to set up Wordpress as not only a blog for a website, but also as a content management system for the site. Wordpress by default **sort of** allows you to do this, by creating pages and posts alike. However, one problem that I ran into was that I needed the frontpage to be a normal homepage, without all of the blog posts.

After searching Google for a while, and visiting a number of sites and blog posts about this topic, I was not happy with what I found. Many of the instructions were pretty long winded and when I actually tried a few of them, they never worked. They also went into some source files to make changes which is often the last resort when customizing Wordpress.

So, after asking Aaron Russell (an experienced developer) how he would do this , I was able to set up a website using Wordpress as a content management system and a blog in a few easy steps, while keeping using one template for the homepage and a different one for the blog page.

Here are the simple steps that Aaron provided that will make this extremely easy to do! You can finally use Wordpress as a content management system and a blog without too much stress at all!

  1. Install Wordpress into your root directory as normal.
  2. Create a new ‘page’ called "Home".
  3. Then, create a new page called "Blog". Make sure the slug is "blog"
  4. Go so Settings > Reading and change the ‘Front page displays’ to Static and select your new pages, "Home" and "Blog"
  5. Go to Settings > Permalinks and change to a custom structure. This can be any structure you want but should begin with ‘/blog/’ – for example, you will normally want it to be like this ‘/blog/%postname%’ (if this does not work, you may have to fix the permissions on your .htaccess file. (check out Permalinks over at Wordpress’ support forum.
  6. That’s it – you’re done! How easy was that!
  7. Now, obviously you need to make sure that you have a link set up somewhere on your site to go to www.yourdomain.com/blog/

I know that this is not really anything new to a lot of people that have been using Wordpress as a CMS and a blog for some time, but there seems to be a lack of really simple instructions available for those trying to do this.

I hope that this quick tutorial has helped you to get your site rolling and now you can spend that valuable time customizing your site and getting the content together!

Now that you have your CMS and Blog ready, you need to start thinking about all of those great plugins you will need before you turn the site over to the client.

Here is a top 10 from Blueprint Design Studio of Wordpress CMS Plugins

  1. Cforms II – This is far and away the best contact form plugin there is. The reason? configurability. You can easy build literally anything with it. We’ve built out employment application forms, wedding checklists, and more for clients. It also drives our own quote form. There’s also built in spam protection, via question and answer or captcha. by delicious days
  2. WP e-Commerce – Unlike cforms, this plugin has no competition. It provides an easy to manage storefront and shopping cart as an integral part of your wordpress installation. It includes the ability to sell digital downloads as well, which is great for photographers, musicians, and authors. By default it includes support for PayPal, although the $29.99 fee for the authorize.net module will pay for itself in lower fees for most serious e-Commerce sites. by Instinct Entertainment
  3. Search Everything – Since most of the sites we develop focus more on their static content than on their blog posts, this plugin is essential for allowing users to search your entire site without leaving your site and relying on google. by Dan Cameron
  4. Google Sitemap Generator – The biggest benefit of using wordpress is the manual labor you save because the software already knows where all of your content is. This Plugin submits a comprehensive index of your site to google, yahoo, MSN Live, and Ask.com every time you update your site. It’s a huge boost to your site’s SEO . by Arne Brachhold
  5. Subscribe2 – Subscribe2 is a newsletter plugin for your site. It allows you to create newsletters and manage subscribers within your WordPress Dashboard. It also allows you to email subscribers when you post a blog entry, which allows you to have a permanent copy of the newsletter that you can refer people to. plugin homepage
  6. Event Calendar 3 – There are a ton of event plugins out there. This is the best & most integrated one we’ve used. It provides an iCal feed, in addition to the standard RSS feed. Since the events are created as Blog posts, it’s easy to integrate them into your site. by Alex Tingle
  7. Page Links To – by far the simplest plugin on this list, This plugin allows you to create “pages” that link to something else. It’s the easiest way to add links to your main menu, without mucking around in code. It’s good for adding a link to an external photography portfolio, for example. You could also use it to link to sections of a page, rather than an entirely seperate page, which could be useful for linking to sections of a restaurant menu, or other small sections of a larger page. by Mark Jaquith
  8. TinyMCE Advanced – I’ve posted a lot about using this plugin. It was referred to me by Jim Burke from TSG Real Estate, who needed a way to easily add classes to blockquotes, tables, and images. The plugin also does a great job of making tables work well with WordPress posts. plugin homepage
  9. XSPF_Player – As much as I’m not a fan of auto-playing music on websites, This MP3 player makes it easy to manage playlists, cover art, and artist links. It’s a great way for music venues to highlight upcoming shows. Used in conjunction with Event Calendar, you can make the track link lead to the post for their upcoming show, all of which is easily manageable from your wordpress dashboard. by Boriel
  10. pageMash – I just posted about this, but it’s worth mentioning again. This plugin makes it very easy to put your pages in order, without having to edit every page individually. by Joel Starnes

You will also want to download the "Role Manager" plugin here

Others discussing Wordpress as a Content Management System and Blogging Platform:

Andy Peatling
http://apeatling.wordpress.com/2006/11/23/five-wordpress-cms-enabling-plugins/

Web Helper Magazine
http://www.webhelpermagazine.com/2008/04/wordpress-wow-seven-top-sites-using-wordpress-as-a-cms/

Sizlopedia
http://www.sizlopedia.com/2008/07/27/free-wordpress-cms-themes/

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39 added so far, add yours!

    Hello Brian,

    Excellent post, simple and easy to follow. Ive been using wordpress for a little while now and this post still gave me tips. Especially the list of plugins theres a few there I will be downloading.

    Take care Brian

    Mali

    Mali’s last blog post..Photoshop Fantasy Face.

    Ahh, this is the blog post i’ve been intending to write for the past few months! I guess I don’t need to now!

    I recently redeveloped my business site http://www.boltonwebdesign.co.uk using Wordpress as a CMS.

    I’ll have to hurray up and get some of my other related post ideas written ;)

    Shaun Barnes’s last blog post..Top 10 Flickr Photos – July

    Thanks Mali

    Shaun,

    Sorry that I beat ya to it! I ready your post about switching jigsawinternet over to boltonwebdesign. Wise move…google loves wordpress sites a lot so you will do well I’m sure.

    I created this post after finding so many posts on other blogs that just didn’t help at all. Their process to achieve a cms and blog just didn’t cut it. So I asked Aaron Russell for his advice, and he hit it right on.

    No problem Brian, i’m far too lazy in getting blog posts out anyway, it may even never have happened! ;)

    It’s a good post, it would have saved me some time had you written it before my redesign so i’m sure it will help others!

    Shaun Barnes’s last blog post..How Will A Blog Benefit My Business

    Interesting post, Brian. I’ve been wondering whether to change my front page from a blog to a static page explaining my services with blog links for a long time. I’m not sure how you can choose two pages in Front Page Displays?

    Rob Cubbon’s last blog post..New logo and identity designed

    D’oh. Oh, I see now. You have to differentiate between a page for the front and a page for the blog. Apologies. How would you impose this on a blog that was already up and running? I would be difficult, I think.

    Rob Cubbon’s last blog post..New logo and identity designed

    Rob,

    I don’t see any reason why it should be difficult to add this to an existing blog. Simply do the steps and I think it should work fine!

    Hi Brian, thanks for the info. I may try this method for another site I’m setting up in the near future.

    I just installed cForms II as well…quite an impressive wordpress plugin…

    Andrew Kelsall’s last blog post..How shocking can a Jpeg be?

    Hi Andrew,

    Yeah, cforms is an amazing plugin. It takes a little bit of time to understand the full depth of how much you can customize it but once you do, it is the perfect plugin.

    It’s also my experience that simple instructions have been near impossible to come by for setting up Wordpress as a CMS with a static front page. In the end I purchased a theme which had this structure already. I think it’s great that you’ve published these guidelines which make any Wordpress theme adaptable in this way. Thanks, Brian.

    Tracey Grady’s last blog post..10 great articles on website inspiration

    Tracey,

    I had such a problem finding help on it. The way I described above is just so simple to do that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t found info like that. I read so many posts from others that said things like “put this line of code in this index page, install wp to a separate directory etc etc…”. Aaron Russel saved me and answered my question right away when I asked him.

    Hi Brian, thanks for this “to the point”, and comprehensive post. It’s likely to become highly linked for this type of situation !

    I did the few steps, and it worked… until I decied to change my theme !
    I switched from the standard Kubrick to the ‘Structure‘ theme by Justin Tadlock, and then the /blog/ URL didn’t display anything anymore.
    When I added /blog/2008/ , the posts for the year appeared…

    I switched back to Kubrick, and the post reappeared. I tried some other themes, such as ‘Visionary’, and the posts disappeared.
    Anyone on this thread has experienced the same issues, and found a solution ?

    Hi Roald,

    Did you ensure that the “Reading” settings were not changed once you changed themes? It needs to have the frontpage as the new “Home” page you create, and the Post page needs to be “Blog”…also then check your permalinks settings…it is possible that this got removed also.

    Other than that, I’m not sure what could have messed it up.

    Wow – I had been searching for how to do this for a long time. Thanks so much for this – perfect!

    Hi Brian, your solution working nice but… I have problem:
    when I click on “Older Entries” on page http://www.example.com/blog/ for listing older page of my blog posts on page http://www.example.com/blog/page/2/ I got: “Not Found”
    I have workaround for that, remove “Older Entries” link from template and replace with archive blog posts… but this is a not nice solution for me.
    Is anybody having any solution for this?

    What a wonderful post. You put so much thought into it. The instructions are so simple. I really like what you have done with your blog, and I think it’s wonderful that you took the time to provide this kind of feedback to others.

    We’ve been contemplating redoing our blog and would like to get set up on a wordpress blog. Thank you for this article..it was very helpful. If you ever need any digital photography for your site just shoot me an email. I’d be happy to help you out:-)

    Awesome post man!
    Thanks for all the help!

    Cayo Medeiros aka. yogodoshi’s last blog post..Crie, converta, combine ou edite arquivos .pdf

    Отличный пост, прочитав несколько статей на эту тему понял, что всё таки не посмотрел с другой стороны, а пост как-то очень заинтересовал.

    Thank you for such a succinct tutorial! Worked like a charm.

    Beverley’s last blog post..Why Your Organization Needs To Be Online

    Thanks very much for the information – very useful.

    Thank you for this post.

    But now in order to get a real CMS, there are 2 problems:

    1 – the HOME item appears in second place in the navigation, so when someone comes to the HP, it’s confusing… how do you change this ?

    2 – if I want a real CMS, I want a navigation with submenus as well and ideally, the submenus items appearing under each menu items ( Am I clear ? ) do you know how to do that ?

    Thanks
    Vincent

    Hi Vincent,

    1. I usually just edit the source file of the theme for this….header.php. You should be able to give the pages an order also in the page edit screen. So, giving home the #1 spot, it will show up first.

    2. Yeah, you should be able to find a tutorial on that online somewhere, how to create sub menus in wordpress…. css-tricks.com might have one

    I’ve been using Wordpress for many of my blogs as CMS and it works like a charm. Great info, keep it coming.

    Dan’s last blog post..Parking in Whistler Headaches

    I’m definitely trying Wordpress as CMS. I’ve invested a lot of time in using Joomla, but its just too slow once you add all those plug-ins.

    Robby’s last blog post..Learn Forex Training- Forex Training In India

    I can’t tell you how grateful i am for this post…it’s saved my sanity, i’ve spent 2 day faffing bout with various methods and you sorted it in 2 mins. Thank you i my sanity and my hair to you

    I tried following the steps and getting 404 error when navigating to localhost/blog.
    Any ideas?

    @Sarthak, add a new post and publish it, then the 404 error will go away when you click the Blog link on your site.

    @Enci
    I tried doing that but no luck. I changed the permalinks to defaults and then the links work. But when I create the permalink as custom structure like/blog/%postname%, it fails. On my localhost there is no blog physical directory.

    Appreciate any help

    Beautiful post. Alot easier to digest than the majority I’ve read lately. My only question is can cms templates be installed on existing wordpress blogs? I’ve had nothing but problems trying lately since most “tutorials” give setup instructions for new blogs.

    Brian – would it be feasible for someone to use WP as the CMS and then have TWO (2) blogs on the same domain?

    Its a musical duo and they want to be able to blog separately.

    http://www.domainname.com/blog1
    http://www.domainname.com/blog2

    Thanks for your help. The article is very easy to follow. Thanks.

    Thank you for this post Brain.

    Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. :) Cheers! Sandra. R.

    {Читаю {ваш|этот|} блог, и понимаю, что {ничего|нифига} не понимаю. Все так запутано. :)

    I have created my CMS site in wordpress but now i need to apply blog functionality to my site. i followed steps given above but it displays all post data on one page one by one. also not allowing comments form on blog page. Please guide me if i m doing something wrong.

    @netuser, It might be a theme issue. By ensuring the you’ve set up clean permalinks as described above, and you’ve edited the “Reading” settings correctly, it should work.

    The blog section should now be http://yoursite.com/blog/ if you set it up correctly

    Thanks for your reply!
    As we have already set custom structure for our site using permalinks setting. also we have applied custome template to our site due to which we are getting post listing but enable to get Posted By , Add comment form for each post. so please suggest.

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