Oracle of ONE1

I have noticed that many novice WordPress users try to build their site using Pages. This fights the WordPress system. These users are not using WordPress as a blogging platform but as an entry-level Content Management System. Now I know we use words such as ‘view a web page’ but page here has a different meaning.

One thing I push, is that 99% of the site’s content should be in posts. Write content to posts. They are much more flexible and easier for a developer to work with.

Pages have their place on a site but are limited to non-hierarchical, never-changing, organizational metadata (information about data). So what goes on a page? About, contact, history, jurisdiction, terms of use, privacy statements, and a sitemap. All the boring stuff.

Posts, on the other hand, can belong to multiple categories and have unlimited tags. Categories and tags automatically create the navigational structure of the site. The power of going with the flow is that most of the structure is done for you instead of needing to be created by you.

This article introduces experienced and novice web designers to WordPress. WordPress has its own way of structuring data and it is much easier to adjust yourself to the natural structure of WordPress than it is to twist WordPress to your way of thinking. Adjusting yourself will make WordPress a surprisingly effective and efficient means of fulfilling your needs.

WordPress has extensive documentation that covers all aspects of creating, populating, and maintaining your blog or website. Please do view that documentation as it is always the most complete and current.

Don’t start your design with presentation, start with the structure and come back to the presentation later. First, make certain that everything you wish to do can be done by WordPress. WordPress is an advanced blogging system but it is not a Content Management System. A CMS offers far more flexibility to build the structure but it pays with added complexity.
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