Why not just use HTML to create web pages, like everybody else? I have a few good reasons.
The first thing that I fell in love with was how easy it was to make a website that had real functionality without having to be a programmer. In a minute I’ll extol on Wordpress’s content management capabilities.
The second thing I fell in love with was how easy it is for my clients to add their own content. In the past, if your website was all html you either needed to know how to code new pages or you needed to get the person who created the website for you to do it. In that case, you had to spend more money and wait on that person to do things for you. Now, with Wordpress, once it is set up adding new content is just like using email or a wordprocessor. Just click Publish and the content is on line. So easy!
Back to content management. Content management refers to idea that the website’s content (what’s inside?) is organized in a manner that makes it easy for visitors to navigate to what they are most interested in seeing. To make that happen we need 1) ways to create a variety of flexible menuing options and 2) ways to ‘tag’ content so that the navigational tools bring up the right content. Wordpress makes it super easy to perform both of these tasks.
Need an example or three?
Let’s say you are a graphic designer. You want to put your portfolio online. You have a variety of types of work that you do. For instance, logos, illustrations, book covers, marketing packages, and advertising. That would be one obvious way to organize your site. You might also organize it according the types of people who visit the site. For instance, you might emphasize certain parts of your portfolio when business owners are looking and different parts when it is book publishers or authors.
Maybe you are a horse (or dog, cat, or llama) breeder. You’ve got horses at stud as well as offspring for sale. You might organize the site according to sire (for people looking to breed) or dam, or yearlings, 2 year olds, 3 year olds, or older horses who are under saddle (for people looking to buy). People in either category will want to see pedigrees, pictures, and video clips.
Perhaps you are a gardening enthusiast and want to share your enthusiasm via a blog. You write about your own gardening exploits and offer tips to readers. People might be interested in finding out what you’ve written about shade gardens, or perennials, or attracting butterflies.
It is all about making your site easy for people to browse through, and get to what is important to them, without being overwhelmed by too much information at once. That’s content management.
It is also about making all of that happen without html or programming… and that is Wordpress!