My Website Wish-list

I have been looking and looking for the perfect CMS (content management system) website solution for about year to manage my growing content and to save time.

I wanted to be able to give my desired CMS website an original, alterable and professional look. It needed to be functional and easy to use for the visitor. I wanted easy maintenance, because I am not an expert. After a thorough research I was surprised by what I found to be the most desirable CMS website solution for my non-existing programming experience and high expectations.

Here is my Website Wish-list - finally fulfilled!

Host Anywhere
It would not be dependent on where it’s hosted, nor would it be dependent on a hired web designer to be able to add or change content.

Easy to Edit
My easy to edit CMS website would be accessible from any computer in the world, to add and edit content as I wish without having to own expensive software. I want to be able to build and manage my website myself, whenever and wherever I want to, and without a computer science degree.

Scalable
My adjustable CMS website would be able grow with my needs, and it would be able to incorporate things later that may not be needed in the beginning, like a shopping cart, a forum, live chat, contact forms, surveys, audio, video, or anything else I may desire in the future.

Search Engine Friendly
My search engine friendly CMS website would have to be found by people, but I just don’t have the time to become a SEO expert. The success and future of my website still will depend on whether or not people will find my content as they search on the internet.

I wanted to rest assured, that every time I added a new page or article, a unique and page specific title tag would be automatically generated.

The description tag too, would have to be completely unique, and automatically generated from the text of the new content.

Since a header tag and keyword tags are a part of every good webpage found in the search engines, those two items would also have to be automatically generated with no extra effort unless I wanted to interfere and adjust tags manually.

I also needed a content management website solution where if I wished in the future, I could add extra content to my site using RSS feeds that come from other subject relevant websites. Any new content created on my CMS website would automatically generate its own RSS feed, for users to subscribe to and other websites to display on their sites.

Automatic Notification
Another wished-for feature that I did not have with my static sites before: automatic site-maps in Google. This means that every time a new page is created, an XML site map can be automatically generated, then Google is pinged to come get it! At the same time Google is pinged, dozens of news services too, can be automatically notified new content had been added to the website so that they can come visit and index it immediately.

Content and Design Separated
A safe, adjustable and easy to manage CMS website should also use CSS, which will keep the content completely separate from the design. This would allow for easy backup, and even more important, allow for easy design changes. Since I did not use such a thing before (used to build my sites with Yahoo SiteBuilder), I greatly appreciate this ’simple’ feature since it saves me so much time besides keeping my contents safe even if I temporarily messed up the looks while learning and experimenting.

Open Source
In an ideal world, a CMS website so great and functional would still not cost a fortune. If it were perfect, then it would be free, and even supported by a community of thousands of designers and developers. And it is, believe it or not!

WordPress
The reason I had to look for such a long time is probably because this wish list of things that my CMS website should have just wasn’t realistic before. While all these things might take place individually with the proper systems in place and a lot of effort, time and money invested, there really hasn’t been an easy to learn all-in-one solution that I would have been able to put together and manage by myself.

With the recently upgraded WordPress and its built in ability to use a static page for your homepage, and for any additional pages, I found what I wished for in a CMS website solution. And the WordPress software is even free!

You should download the free software from wordpress.org and then upload it to a hosting service. A free online version of WordPress also exists on wordpress.com, but with limited features. If you will want to use templates that can take your WordPress to a higher level, and if you will want to be able to monetize your website by adding Google Adsense or other ads, you should use the hosted version of WordPress available at wordpress.org.

There is a friendly crowd of WordPress users ready to help you at the WordPress Support Forum.

WordPress Web Hosting
You will find several good web hosting solutions for your WordPress site at WordPress Web Hosting. My site is hosted at Bluehost - these guys provide auto-install for WordPress.

WordPress Tutorials
WordPress software is free, and if you’re a do it yourself person like me, an excellent WordPress tutorial program is available from Sherman Hu, one of the top WordPress authorities.

Sherman’s tutorials can take you start to finish, through installation and customization, as well as the code modifications for search engine friendliness.

WordPress isn’t just blog software anymore… it’s how you make the most functional, easy to handle and good looking CMS website!

CMS website, content management, website building, do it yourself, wordpress, hosting