WordPress WOW: Eight Top Sites using WordPress as a CMS…
Posted on 05 April 2008 by Scott Frangos
Where’s the Blog? Answer: maybe nowhere on your WordPress website. As a WordPress developer and consultant, it never fails to amaze me how creative and wide ranging the websites developed on the WordPress platform have become. And, how companies are sometimes using it to power their websites without even using the blogging function.
We’re going to look at some companies doing just that, but first what is a “CMS”? Well, it stands for Content Management System, and if you’ve used a shopping cart online where a lot of the pages in the cart are automated, then you’ve seen one at work. The same kind of automated system to build dynamic pages can be set up and built on the WordPress platform. We’ll leave the administration details for another post, but here’s one key concept in using WordPress as a CMS:
Above, using the Settings>Reading (in WordPress 2.5) options to set up a static front page, with another page designated for blog posts is the key to using WordPress as a CMS. We’re take a closer look in future posts — be sure to post any good examples here in the comment section.
Now Let’s take a look at WordPress CMS Website Solutions (click to view example sites larger):
1) Comacho Cigars - WordPress has grown beyond a Blog Baby
Yes… it really is WordPress running the entire site… but where’s the blog?
It’s there (above - click to enlarge), they’ve just chosen to rename it Camacho “Press Room”.
2) Furniture Warehouse - Blog Completely Gone?
Here’s one that works simply, and directly for the Furniture Warehouse to showcase professional photos of their merchandise. There is no blog showing. I like it because it’s straight forward, but I think they are missing the added SEO, social awareness, and customer engagement factors that a blog section (call it “Furniture Talk”) would bring.
3) AstroDaija.com - CMS Website & Blog
An online service professional’s website that functions as a CMS website with a blog section.
4) WordPress Goes Postal - Deliver Magazine
Yep… it’s official, the Post Office digs WordPress, and their site delivers it all up in a very professional magazine style layout. Things are so calm at the Post Office lately.
5) Ford Autoshow Site - Voted “Most Likely To Not Be Recognized as WordPress”
Voted? Yep — by one person… me. This one seems least likely to be recognized by anyone as a WordPress installation, but it is. It’s been totally re-concepted for corporate use, with the blog taken out and replaced by the “Most Recent Topics” section that begins halfway down the front page (below):
6) Tribulant Software - WordPress as an eCommerce Site
Why not use WordPress as the CMS for your web store? Tribulant does, and sells WordPress software, among other things.
7) sfumevlana.org - An online society using WordPress as a bookstore, blog and website
Here’s an example of a combination CMS website with a blog section, and an ecommerce store built with a plugin for WordPress, so it’s all administrated in one convenient location. They’re one of our clients at WebFadds.com.
8) Voted Most Creative - The Fully Featured Web 2.0 Site for Colour Lovers
It’s an application, it’s a laboratory, it’s a social community, it’s a trend setter, it’s WordPress CMS with a blog. That’s right… it’s Colourlovers.com.
There you have it… WordPress is a CMS solution, and a good one at that — there are currently over 1,800 plugins to add functionality to it. Time to convert your old school site into a dynamic CMS website solution on the WordPress platform.
About the Author: Scott Frangos is Managing Editor for WebHelperMagazine, and as Managing Partner for WebFadds.com he installs and develops Blogs and CMS website solutions based on the WordPress platform, for a variety of clients. He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife, Pepper, and their three dogs: Wisdom, Spirit, and Steggman.
Tags | application, automated system, blog, blogged, blogging, blogs, client, cms, cms website, content, content management system, customer, customers, develop, developers, development, ecommerce, furniture warehouse, install, layout, look, magazine, magazine style, page, photo, professional magazine, professional photos, professionalism, seo, shop, shopping cart, site, sites, style, styles, trends, web, website, websites, wordpress
What a great blogg this is. I could not agree more with what I have read here today. I too have made similar experiences to what I learned here and now run a successful online business. But I am forever reading bloggs to learn more about what is “out” there.
Is no surprising why wordpress is used in many sites like those listed here, is not only a very handy CMS but its SEO facilities and super friendly search engine capabilities (even without making a thing, just by default) make it leader in this field.
Hi - thanks for the comment… I visited your site and enjoyed your work — strong, attractive graphics. - Scott
I also like the Ford Autoshow Site :)
I have looked at all these sites in turn and as i have not been active as such when it comes to wordpress this has started the ball rolling for me the potential is amazing this will certainly keep my idle hands busy.
Thanks for sharing.
Yeh, we have build a lot of websites using WordPress, including our own at http://www.velvetbluse.com
One thing that we like about WP is that the backend area is very intuitive and is even easy for the least savvy of internet users.
I used Akismet and Karma! Like them both! Thanx for the site!, I opted to wait until the full version is ??? http://www.jnhwkj.com/dabiaoji.htm
thanks nice post
I like the stuff here and good information that you have provided.
I will probably recommend this to my friends and I shall add your reference to my collected works.
I really like using wordpress as a CMS on smaller sites. You should check out http://www.aflavor.com this is an ecommerce site built on wordpress and yahoo stores. All the content are posts in wordpress and you would know the site is on WP accept for the rss feed on the home page.
Insightful. I like this. Will try to see whether the information provided herein is useful or not by the specific outcome after putting into use in real world practice. Thanks.
Hey…
I ran into a post on digitalpoint saying you where looking for examples of sites using wordpress as a cms.
Check out zero mowers and let me know what you think. It’s running wordpress and a bunch of re-coded/hacked/stitched together code, but I think it came out alright. And it almost validates! Strangly, it did validate when it was running on my computer, then I transfer it to my host, and now it won’t validate (go figure).
This is very useful information, so thanks!
I’ll be sure to put a post on my site to give my visitors more ideas for their Wordpress blogs.
I don’t think wordpress the best CMS because most huge site mostly use Drupal like : NASA, Ubuntu, Yahoo, Nokia, Disney etc, even the Obama administration choose Drupal as their CMS
thank you very good
Hi Johni - Thanks for your comment. Ford Motors, CNN, New York Times, Comacho Cigars, the US Postal Service, and Moo.com, to name a few are large companies using WordPress as their Content Management Solution. And, way back in 2007, WordPress won “Best Open Source Social Networking CMS” from Packt Publishing.
This post is great. I like it so much.
Thanks for sharing. I will keep folowwing you blog.
Great information! Thanks for sharing.
This is indeed very interesting.
Ford, CNN NYT.. I actually think it’s pretty cool.
Nice post Scott.
Great Post Thanks.