Wordpress is one of the most widely used and supported CMS and/or blogging platform on the web. Within moments you can be up and blogging about your favorite topics, or simply use Wordpress as a pure, easy to use Content Management System. Most features are self explanatory and the learning curve is modest, this makes Wordpress very popular with novice level web users and advanced veterans alike.
Wordpress Blogging Features
- Easily set your blog to become your landing page
- Decide to publish a post now, later or save as draft
- Option to post quickly from your dashboard
- Great text formatting options
- Integrate images and other embedded media
- Allow or disallow comments for individual posts
- Editing posts is simple and easy
- Tags and categories can be added
- Fast learning curve
- Upload images from your desktop
- Add an image gallery for photo collections
- Control spacing, text wrap and placement of images
- Format text in different size, style and colors
- Easily add hyperlinks and rich media
- Edit in visual or HTML mode
- Option to make a post private
- Easy to customize posts
- Functions are clear are self-explanatory
Wordpress' Content Management Systyem (CMS) is straighforward and easy to use. A media library manager is included to store images and rich media, and the post editor edit allows extensive customization through a visual interface with the choice to edit the HTML for advanced users. If you've dealt with systems that convert new lines to line breaks before you know why they have a bad name: if you have any sort of HTML they butcher it by putting tags after every new line indiscriminately, breaking your formatting and validation. Wordpress intelligently avoids places where you already have breaks and block-level HTML tags, so you can leave it on without worrying about it breaking your code.
Wordpress CMS
- Manage your media library for adding rich content to future posts
- Edit your text with a visual editor
- Easily resize, position and caption images to design your content
- Color and style text layout
- Embed video files and flash
- Optional HTML editing for advanced users
- Choose different templates for your pages
- Edit your template and CSS styles (advanced users)
Wordpress gives you the option to create as many pages and subpages as you would like. Managing which pages are to serve as parent pages are very easy to set up. You can create a website several links deep with relative ease. Pages allow you to manage non-blog content easily, so for example you could have a static "About" page that you manage through Wordpress.
Page Features
- Easily create multi-layered sites
- Select different templates for each page
- Choose parent and child pages to customize your navigation
- Pages can be highly customized with text and rich media
- Advanced users may modify and create their own template files
- Save pages as a draft and publish them at a later date
- Enable password protection for specific pages to limit public access
- Make a private page viewable only to its author
Like pages, you can have as many posts as you'd like. In addition you can give passwords to individual posts to hide them from the public. You can also have private posts which are viewable only by their author.
Post Features
- Intelligent text formatting options
- Customize text and rich media to make your articles stand out
- Publish a post immediately or save it as a draft
- Password protect certain posts to limit public viewing
- Comments may be enabled or disallowed for individual posts
- Categorize and tag your posts to add depth of content
Wordpress allows users to pick and choose parent pages, quickly assign child pages (also called subpages) and specify the order in which they appear. There are also options to allow readers to browse by category and tags.
Navigation Options
- Choose the page display order of pages
- Quickly assign subpages to organize your website's structure
- Options to install sidebar widgets for category and tag navigation
- Create, organize and edit numerous link lists and blogrolls
- Automatic post archiving
- Allow users to browse posts by date
If you're an avid blogger or web journalist, you will enjoy the option to save both pages and posts as a draft instead of being forced to publish right away or lose your data. You may also change the status of a post from draft to "pending review" to further organize your articles.
Draft Options
- Drafts will not show up on the live version of your website
- Both pages and posts can be saved as a draft
- Enjoy direct control over when your pages and posts are published
- Write as many posts in advance as drafts and release them at a later date
- Choose a draft or "pending review" status to organize your unpublished posts
- Keep or delete drafts as needed
Out of the box Wordpress comes with very robust tools such as an integrated blacklist and open proxy checker to manage and eliminate comment spam on your blog, and there is also a rich array of plugins that can take this functionality a step further.
Spam Protection Features
- Askiment plugin is included with each Wordpress install
- Customize comment filtering to your needs
- Allow or disallow comments for individual posts and pages
- Option to require readers to log in before being allowed to comment
- Option to hold all comments for approval before being published
- Password protect posts, or mark them as private to control viewing
- Built-in user registration system allowing people to register and maintain profiles and leave authenticated comments
Images add beauty and variey to any webpage, Wordpress provides a built-in gallery creation feature to make large collections of images easy to display. Manage and create multiple galleries easily, adding or trimming graphics as desired.
Image Gallery Options
- Create image galleries easily with images from your Wordpress media libary
- Display your photo collections for friends and family to see
- Upload images from your computer or from a URL to add to the gallery
- Choose the number of columns for your gallery
- Automatic thumbnail creation for all images
- Add captions to gallery thumbnail images
- Specify the desired size of thumbail images
- Direct viewers to an image's individual display page or opt to direct them to its source URL
- Numerous free plug-ins available to add interactivity and flair
You can give passwords to individual posts to hide them from the public. You can also have private posts which are viewable only by their author. This is a wonderful feature to keep prying eyes out of posts intended for a more exclusive audience.
Options for Private Posts
- All posts and pages have options to enable password protection
- Change post and page access passwords quickly and easily
- Option to tag a post as private, making it viewable only by its author
- Use password protected posts and pages to limit access to a select group of individuals
- Make a special section of your site accessabe to family and friends while keeping the public out
- Create private website pages for clients
- Make a VIP area for your blog
Wordpress allows you to create, maintain, and update any number of link lists and blogrolls through your administration interface. This is much faster than calling an external blogroll manager. Cross-browser bookmarks make it easy to publish to your blog or add links to your blogroll with a minimum of effort.
Link List Options
- Add other blogs to your blogroll list to provide easy linking
- Add link list categories to organize your link collection
- Feature your link lists on your sidebar
- Add navigation options by featuring your link lists
- Edit, update and add descriptions for your links
- Link lists and blogrolls make it easy for your visitors to browse your friends blogs and your favorite sites
Wordpress' highly advanced user system allows up to 10 levels of users, with different levels having different (and configurable) privileges with regard to publishing, editing, options, and other users. This allows even greater visitor interaction when commenting isn't interactive enough.
Guest Permissions
- Wordpress has a built-in user registration system that (if you choose) can allow people to register and maintain profiles and leave authenticated comments on your blog.
- You can have types of users that can only post drafts, not publish to the front page
- You may, at a later time, allow specific users to post articles to your blog if they establish trust
- Create an E-zine or online journal, have friends and like-minded viewers write articles to help your website grow
- Change, edit or revoke a users level of posting privilege and access to your site as needed
