As you have learned already in this series of Monster Articles, the advantages of using a Content Management System are massive. What we need to do now is get our heads down with a particular Content Management System and look at why you would choose this CMS, what it is used for, how it can be customised and where to get it! Wordpress is one of the most popular CMS around. It started out as a humble blogging platform but over time has advanced to provide many other features that any site would be proud of! It is now used on over 70 million sites online. This is a testament to Wordpress’ usability, interactivity and customisable nature.

Wordpress began as a blogging system way back in 2003. Since then it has built a huge community of users and won numerous industry awards. In the beginning it was a single page where blog posts could be added. Now you can add multiple pages, which can be static, or contain mini blogs of their own. The administrative backend of Wordpress is simple to use and extremely user friendly. This makes it extremely good for first time web designers looking to create a professional looking site with the minimum of coding, graphical editing or testing. There are some extremely prestigious clients using Wordpress, ranging from Volkswagen to Sony to CNN to Jay Z!

Wordpress has a huge community. This is of great use to anybody designing a site using the platform. Solutions to problems can be found easily on forums, knowledge bases and wiki sites all relating to Wordpress. It’s like having a whole technical support team at your fingertips. This community provides many of the plugins and themes for Wordpress that are freely available all over the Internet. This means you can build your site, but then improve it day by day with the minimum of fuss. If you wanted people to have a more advanced text editor for their comments, go and download one free of charge. Need to make your site more search engine friendly for SEO purposes? Ask for an SEO plugin that can take you step by step through the process. All of these exist to help you create amazing sites with the minimum of disruption. With over 18,000 plugins on offer you can always find what you need!

If you want to change the look of your site, search for free Wordpress themes. Themes allow you to create a professional looking website using a template that somebody else has designed, implemented and created for the community! You can also use Widgets in any theme that supports them to customise your content even further! Again there are thousands on offer from calendars to news feeds to member lists to chat room boxes.

One of the most attractive features of Wordpress is the built in comment system. This allows your users to interact with you! When you post a new piece of content on your site and your users flock to view it, they can then leave their own comment in reaction to the content for you to read. Interacting with your users is very important in modern websites. Wordpress makes this easy. You can delete comments that you feel aren’t relevant. Set approval options so you can check the comments before having them published and reply directly to your users’ comments from the admin panel.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Wordpress also integrates a user registration system. This allows people to register with your site. This means you can contact them with the latest updates and any communication they make with you will all be logged under the same name! This gives you a great way of analysing important users and seeing what different users think of content. Also it means that you can apply permissions to different users. If you feel one person always makes relevant points, give them automatic commenting rights. If you feel a different person is just wasting space in the comment box, make their comments invisible until you approve them. This versatility would never before have been available to a beginner web designer.

Wordpress is easy to install and easy to upgrade. Both can be done through the Domainmonster.com Control Panel where you can manage all of your domains and web hosting packages. Getting it installed on your Domainmonster.com web hosting is a one click operation! Select Wordpress from the one click installer list and moments later you can start adding content to your site. We will even direct you straight to your Wordpress administration panel to get you set up. We take care of all the database naming and setup so it really couldn’t be simpler! With a wealth of knowledge about this CMS online and so many free add-ons, it is hard to look elsewhere for a blogging site for getting your views online. All of this for free makes Wordpress one of the best CMS out there!