WordCamp Whistler – Tris Hussey on How to Use WordPress as a Basic CMS for Your Website

“My name is Tris and I hate to code”. Tris does a quick poll – how many of us create websites with WordPress? Well, some people don’t do it. When the design and the content are together in the code – updating can be less than fun – therefore, websites aren’t updated, a simple change breaks links, etc.

Note – Tris had already written a blog post as a precursor for his talk, you can check it out here. Tris loves to use the WP template system to create websites. The content remains the same. Is this the right solution for you? May or may not work for you.
- Need easily updated content
- User control
- Flexible design
- Static info and a blog
- SEO tuned
- Fast initial build out

STEP 1 Make two pages
- Home page
* Call it whatever you want
* Use Lorem Ipsum text if needed
- Blog page
* Static page
* I like to call it “Blog” it’s really up to you
* No content, just a title.

STEP 2

STEP 3 Menus
- This ties into Morten’s talk very nicely

That’s pretty much it for the basics – the next thing is – tweaks, themes and plugins.

Tweaks – make your permalinks pretty – .htaccess will have to be updated – you want the titles of your pages and posts to be the URL of your permalinks. Create a good title for your WordPress blog and a nice tag line!

UPDATE – 2:07 PM – I’m feeling way better and I’m very focused on Tris’ talk.

Tris’ list of plugins
- All in one SEO
- WP Supercache
- WP Backup
- Google Sitemaps XML
- Akismet
- Cforms
- WPTouch & WPMobile

You want Google to index your posts, not your blog title!

Picking a template
- This is the hardest part
- Finding a non-bloggy template important
- Newspaper style
- Magazine
- Navigation

Themes
- Arthemia
- Digital Remix
- Thesis
- Revolution

Tris is now taking questions, which I think everyone appreciates. I ask about stats plugins (given that mine isn’t working, the WP-Stats) and Tris suggests Woopra AND Google Analytics. No, you can’t really change themes per page.

Rebecca’s afternoon sesions dayblog is here. Don’t forget to check on it. Those of you who COULDN’T make it for one reason or another, sorry that you’re missing on an excellent event. Honestly, it’s been fantastic!

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Related posts:

1. Congratulations to Tris Hussey and Sheila Christie on their engagement
2. WordCamp Whistler – Andy Peatling on BuddyPress
3. WordCamp Whistler – Morten Rand-Hendriksen on WP in alternative configurations
4. WordCamp Whistler – John Biehler on how to “sex up” your blog with photos
5. WordCamp Whistler – Dale Mugford’s talk on WordPress on the Go