When is a blog not a blog? When it is a site that is managed like a blog, that’s when.

Want to know a little secret? My most profitable site is not a blog. It’s just a regular site. You know, the kind that has existed for years, long before the word blog was invented. I almost never update it. I hardly ever even think about it. I certainly don’t post daily or weekly like I would do with a blog. But if I had to do it all over again, I would build it as if it were a blog. I still wouldn’t update it very often or think about it very often. But when I needed to, it would be oh so much easier to do than it is right now. So unless I plan to do some extra-special, hoop-jumping, programming wizardry on my next site, I’ll create it using WordPress as if it were a blog.

But it won’t be a blog.

It will be a regular site that just happens to use WordPress as its foundation. And you probably should too. In the old days, I would have recommended something like Drupal or some other CMS (Content Management System) to you. And then you would have asked me 5,000 questions about how to use it. Keep in mind that a CMS is supposed to make life easier for non-programmers, but just using them can be a daunting experience.

WordPress is pretty darn easy to use. It might not be as easy as 1-2-3, but it’s not much harder than that. And it actually comes enabled with an option to make it work more like a regular site than a blog. It’s not completely designed for it, and some tweaking needs to be done - usually to your theme (design) - but it doesn’t take much tweaking.

Normally, when using WordPress as a blog, any time you write a new post, you are writing just that - a post. But you can also write pages instead of posts in WordPress, and these are handled differently than posts (they aren’t displayed in chronological order for example). And if you tell WordPress to use one of those pages you wrote as your home page, it will! So if you want a 10-page site, write 10 pages and assign one of them as the home page. Easy, right?

Like I said, it’s not quite as simple as that, and the biggest issues almost always center around making changes to the theme you choose. Frankly, unless you’re ready and willing to learn about HTML, PHP, and CSS, I’d probably recommend that you hire someone to make the theme changes for you. Since you might be doing that anyway in order to get a custom theme for yourself, it probably won’t cost you any more than you would have paid in the first place.

You might want to check out this Essential Keystrokes post, as it gives yet another view of someone who went through this process. You might also want to check out Drikatruu Jelly. That theme is one I’ve already mentioned that I like, and the site shows you how you can use it as a template for a WordPress CMS. If you are feeling like tackling the project yourself, it might be the way to go.

So if you want to build a site, but you don’t want to be a blogger, you might want to consider using WordPress as a CMS. If you plan to create some mind-blowing site that requires lots of custom programming, then this probably isn’t the way to go. But if you want to just a build a regular site, put some pages up, maybe throw some affiliate links around, and then let it stand on its own, this might be a great way to make that happen. When you do need to add a page, or change something you’ve written, it will be a breeze to do it through WordPress’s admin panel. And over the years, that ease of use will be something you’ll come to appreciate very, very much.

(from Smash Mouth. "AllStar" Astro Lounge. Interscope Records, 1999.)

Posted on December 3rd, 2007 by DazzlinDonna
Filed under: WordPress