WordPress 2.7 is on the way and today I uploaded the beta1 version of the new release to this blog.

The upgrade went well and everything on the blog seems to behave as before. Plugins are still working, widgets are still displaying, theme is hanging together fine.

There’s a new dashboard interface which will take a bit of getting used to but an exciting new feature is the ability to have a sticky post on the front page.  This means you can have one post at the top of the page and all subsequent posts will scroll below it.

I haven’t yet explored all the new gizmos but what I do know is that I’ll have to redo my WordPress tutorial (again!) as soon as WordPress 2.7 gets released in full (sigh).

Read more about 2.7 here:

http://wordpress.org/development/2008/11/whats-your-favorite-thing-about-the-27-beta/

As WordPress grows more popular and ever more powerful, using WordPress as a CMS is now becoming mainstream.

First of all, what is a CMS? The letters stand for ‘Content Management System’ which is a fancy way of saying ‘website’. Yes, you can make a WordPress blog look and feel like a traditional website. A WordPress blog doesn’t have to look like a blog at all.

How? Well, first of all you need to decide what you want your CMS to look like. This is no different from designing a website. On some paper, sketch out what your front page will look like, where you want your navbars and where those navbars will lead. On a traditional website the navbars will likely lead to other static pages. So, make a list of the pages you’ll need to create.

Then choose an appropriate theme. If you’re using a free theme from WordPress, choose something minimal and simple. It’s easier to add features to a theme than take them away.

The front page of your blog will probably be a static page, one that is always displayed as the landing page of your site. This page could be a hub page with links to other pages, just like a conventional website, if you like.

Many themes have tabs or buttons that navigate to pages. If you’re going to have a lot of pages it will be better to avoid a theme that has a horizontal menu of pages because you’ll likely run out of horizontal space. If you’re going to have a lot of pages put your navbar vertically down one side.

You’ll soon find that there are a lot of ways you can do this. The easiest is to use a ‘Pages’ widget. This will automatically update as you add another page. You can specify the order of pages down the list if you want. And you can organise your pages into a hierarchy by specifying parent pages.

Strip out all the bloggy looking widgets from your sidebars. But be prepared to be open to ideas because WordPress provides some very powerful and flexible ways you can harness widgets to do what you want. Categories is one example.  By applying one or more categories to a page you get an alternative and more intuitive way of navigating your blog.

And if posts and comments are not appropriate, then you don’t have to include them. Just organise your blog as a network of pages and you’ll be fine.

The great beauty of WordPress is that, as you add pages, it automatically updates menus and links. You’ll never have to worry about broken links again and your CMS will grow gracefully as you add ever more pages. That’s got to be worth it!

If you’ve got a website (or even if you haven’t!) there are a lot of advantages to having a WordPress blog as your content management system (CMS). Many of the top Internet marketers are doing just that and their lead is now being followed by business start-ups and budding entrepreneurs.

Here are the top five reasons for using WordPress as your web platform:

1. It’s the lowest cost way to get a web presence. You only have to spend a few bucks on a domain and get a hosting account and you’re in business. The WordPress software is free, the blog themes (design templates) are free and the plugins are free. And you don’t have to pay a web designer to get it up and running for you.
2. It’s the quickest way to get a web presence. The design work has been done for you, the coding’s been done for you and all you’ve got to do is to get typing.
3. A WordPress blog doesn’t have to look like a blog. If you want to have what looks like a conventional website, that’s easy. You can make a WordPress blog have a static front page and have your other pages accessible from navbars down the sides or across the top or down the bottom (or all of the above!)
4. WordPress is flexible. If your needs change or you fall out of love with your blog’s design you can easily change it. Your precious content will be preserved. You can move your content around, delete pages without leaving broken links, or add or remove widgets at will.
5. The search engines love WordPress blogs. Put up a few pages of content and keep building out your blog and you’ll get indexed in Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Search (and all the others) in no time.

In fact, it won’t take you months or cost you megabucks to get your business online. You can do it in a few days, all by yourself, with WordPress!