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WordPress is the Best Overall Website CMS and Publishing Platform

October 3, 2011 by Frank Goley, Business Consultant

Website Search Engine Optimization and Web Marketing

There are a ton of web content management systems (CMS), and publishing, development and design platforms to choose from, both open source and paid. I have tried them all, and I find that WordPress is the superior choice. Here is why…

WordPress is a User Friendly CMS

WordPress when it is set up and customized correctly is very easy for any skill level person to handle content on a website once it is in initially developed by a professional. Changing and adding content is a cinch. Even changing and adding pictures and videos is easy. You can even add more navigation structure simply as well.

I find so many of the other content management systems out there to be very user un-friendly, complicated, and in many cases, don’t work well. Why fight with your CMS or screw up your clean website design, or mess up your nice search engine optimization when using a website publishing platform? You don’t have to and WordPress is simple to learn and quick to use.

Customization of WordPress is Key

To get the real benefit from WordPress, the publishing platform must be customized to the website project and the end users. This is why it is good to first start with a professional website design company that has a lot of expertise and proficiency in WordPress. WordPress is an open source platform that offers a “generic” web design, development and publishing platform, but for it to be effective and useful, it must be further customized.

There are a bunch of plugins for WordPress that cover a lot of the customization but there are also tweaks needed in the web development process itself that need to be done so you have a completely customized solution and a stunning website that doesn’t look like the regular WordPress themes that exist. You can achieve sophisticated website design and development customization and produce a stunning looking website (i.e. high design) that is very SEO friendly using WordPress. The trick is finding a web developer and designer that specializes in WordPress website design.

Recommended WordPress Plug Ins

Here is a list of the most common plug ins we use when customizing a WordPress Website and Blog for a client. This is a “standard” for us. We add more as needed to customize the website and blog for the client’s specific needs and issues. You need to understand how to manage and optimize the resources on WordPress very well when using so many plug ins; otherwise, your website and blog will be slow to load, and you will be frustrated as a CMS user in the back end use of WP. Plugins offer great customization, but they add resource load so you must manage and weigh both as you build out the website and blog.

Add to Any: Allows sharing your website content throughout the internet. Automatically adds the Add to Any button to your website pages and blog posts.

Admin Bar Removal: Removes excess code of the new Admin Bar in the WP platform, front and back end, so that the memory load is minimal on the user’s computer.

Akismet: Protect your blog from trackback and comment spam.

All in One SEO Pack: Makes your WordPress website completely SEO maximized. Recommend the Pro Version.

Anti Feed Scraper Message: Prevents your RSS feed from being scraped without attribution. Adds a customizable message with a link back to your website so that if a blog post is copied and pasted on another website/blog, you at least have a back link and some attribution.

Breadcrumb NavXT: Adds breadcrumb navigation links so the website visitor knows their navigation path at any time and can easily navigate a page intensive website. Also adds fantastic SEO value.

Contact Form 7: Great customizable contact form generator and manager. Very flexible.

Did You Pass Math?: Restricts comment spam by throwing the commenter an easy math question to solve.

Google XML Sitemap for Videos: Creates an XML sitemap for all the videos on your website or blog.

Google XML Sitemaps: Creates a sitemap so the search engines index and crawl your site.

Hyper Cache: Cache system that improves a WP website’s performance and saves resources. Pages will load quickly and cleanly for the web visitor. Adds SEO value.

MHR Custom Anti Copy: Prevents blatant copying of your valuable website and blog content. Can be customized so your forms and payment buttons still work correctly.

Newsletter Pro: Forget paying for an email service like Constant Contact. Build your newsletter delivery system seamlessly into your WP platform. Allows for customized design and high customization of email campaigns.

Permalink Editor: You can customize the WordPress link structure to allow the addition of prefixes or file extensions to your page URLs. For instance, your URL can appear as .html, instead of the typical WP link structure. You can customize site wide, or on a particular page or post.  

Subscribe 2: Great email notifying system when you post new content on your website or blog.

WordPress Database Backup: On demand back up of your WP database. You can never be too careful.

WordPress Hashcash: Blocks spam robots.

WP Print: Displays a print version of your post or page.

WP reCAPTCHA: reCAPTCHA anti-spam solution.

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