Content Management Systems

& Web Analytics

Features & facts of WCMS and

WordPress
What a CMS Does

 Control Content
 Allow Content Reuse
 Allow Content Automation and Aggregation
 Increase Editorial Efficiency
Core controls functions of CMS
 Permissions
 Who can see this content? Who can change it? Who can delete it?
 State management and workflow
 Is this content published? Is it in draft? Has it been archived and removed from the public?
 Versioning
 How many times has this content changed? What did it look like three months ago? How
does that version differ from the current version? Can I restore or republish an older
version?
 Dependency management
 What content is being used by what other content? If I delete this content, how does that
affect other content? What content is currently “orphaned” and unused?
 Search and organisation
 How do I find a specific piece of content? How do I find all content that refers to X?
How do I group and relate content so it’s easier to manage?
Target Site Type
 Different CMSs are targeted at different types of sites. The range in intended
end results is vast.
 A “website” could be any one of the following:
 A small, static marketing site for a dental office
 A multinational newspaper publishing hundreds of articles a day
 A single-author blog for a technology writer
 An intranet for a medium-sized accounting firm
 An extranet for the dealers of a farm implement manufacturer
 The product documentation library for a software developer
 The course materials and syllabi for a small university
 An online community and social network for owners of Porsches
Systems Versus Implementations
 It’s important to separate a content management system from a CMS
implementation.

 An implementation is the process by which a CMS is installed, configured,

templated, and extended to deliver the website you want.

 Unless you build your CMS from scratch, you are not the only one using it.
Other organisations are using the same software to solve different problems
and deliver different types of websites, so it’s not going to be preconfigured
to do any one thing particularly well. This means a necessary step is the
initial effort of adapting the CMS to do exactly what your organisation and
circumstances require from it.
Open Source Versus Commercial
 Open source CMSs are generally well tested, feature rich, and have a large
volume of contributed code and modules.
 The availability, responsiveness, and accuracy of community support is usually
quite high, but varies widely.
 The software is free.
 Community support is often plentiful.
 Contributed code is often available to solve common problems.
 Developers and contractors are usually highly available.
Drawbacks of open source WCMS
 Ubiquitous usage results in large amounts of malware, penetration attempts,
and security patches.
 Community support for especially complicated problems will often run short.
 Professional service-level support may not be available.
 Usage of open source software may violate an organisation’s IT policies.
 Open source software (not just CMSs) is heavily weighted toward the PHP and
Java technology stacks.
Technology Stack
 The stack includes the following:
 The CMS itself
 A programming framework
 A programming language
 A database server
 A web server
 An operating system
Management Versus Delivery of WCMS

 Management
 is about security, control, and efficiency. It’s composed of functionalities like
content modeling, permissions, versioning, and workflow.
 These are features that ease the creation of content, enable editorial
collaboration, and keep content secure.
 Delivery
 is about optimisation and performance.
 The features involved in delivery depend highly on the capabilities of the CMS.
 These capabilities are currently evolving quickly in the marketplace. Until recently,
delivery simply meant making content available at a public location. Today, the
modern CMS is highly concerned with the performance and optimisation of the
content it delivers.
Installed Versus Software-as-a-Service
(SaaS)
 More and more IT infrastructure is moving to “the cloud,” and CMSs are no
different.
 While the norm used to be installation and configuration on your server
infrastructure, vendors are now offering hosted or SaaS solutions more often.
Features to consider in Saas
 Is it appropriate for your industry?
 How much control do you have over the system?
 Who can develop the website?
 If you part ways with the vendor, what happens to your content?
 Are you considering the CMS on its merits, or just because it’s SaaS?
Build Your Own
There are several common justifications for this, including:
 An in-house CMS doesn’t require a license fee (clearly, this is rendered
moot by open source options, but it’s still quite common in project
justifications).
 You will be experts in the usage of the resulting system and will not
have to suffer the learning curve for an existing system.
 You will only build the needed functionality, avoiding software bloat
and unnecessary complication.
Uni- Versus Bidirectional Publishing
 Some CMSs are like printed newspapers—they’re intended for a small
group of editors to create and publish content to a large group of
visitors who can’t directly respond.

 Unidirectional (one-way) publishing means your organisation is always

pushing content “outward” to the consumer, often blindly (meaning
the user is anonymous, and not logged in or otherwise identified).

 Bidirectional (two-way) publishing means the consumer can

sometimes push content “backward” to the organisation (by posting a
comment, for instance).
 Content coming back from the user is known as user-generated
content (UGC).
WordPress
 WordPress.org powers around 60% of all websites on the internet.

 It’s important to not confuse WordPress.org with WordPress.com. WordPress.org

is a free open source CMS originally designed for blogging, but now it’s used by
all sorts of websites / online stores. WordPress.com is a blog hosting platform.
WordPress - Pros
 Offers the flexibility and freedom to build any kind of website (online
store, auction site, membership site, etc).
 It does not require any technical skills or coding knowledge.
 There are thousands of WordPress themes and plugins available, both
paid and free. These let you add all sorts of useful extras to your site,
like contact forms, photo galleries, and much more.
 WordPress is well designed for search engine optimisation (SEO). It’s
easy to create SEO-friendly URLs, categories, and tags for your posts.
You can also choose from plenty of SEO plugins to help you do more.
 WordPress offers a lot of extensibility which is what makes it an ideal
CMS platform for both beginners and developers alike.
 WordPress lets you download all content in XML format, making it easy
to move to a different system when needed.
WordPress - Cons
 You’ll need to set up your hosting and domain name, and you’ll be
responsible for managing things like security and backups.

 Because WordPress offers so many options and so much flexibility, it

can sometimes feel a little daunting when you’re getting started.
 WordPress - Pricing
 WordPress is free. However you will need a domain name (around $9 – $15 per
year) and a hosting account with a web host that can run WordPress (normally
from $7.99/month).
WordPress Dashboard
 Top Admin Bar
 Screen Options
 Welcome to WordPress
 At a Glance
 Activity
 Quick Draft
 WordPress News
 Admin Sidebar Menu
Working with WordPress
 Wordpress installation
 Themes
 Activate themes
 Posts vs Pages
 Blogs vs Website
 Create & Edit Posts/Pages
 Attach media
 Widgets
 Add multiple users and access control
 Version control
 Plug-ins
 Customise/Implement themes
What do you need to do to get started in
WordPress and end up with a website that’s
ready to impress visitors straight out the gate?

•Step 1: Choose a Domain

•Step 2: Purchase Web Hosting and Domain
•Step 3: Install WordPress
•Step 4: Find a WordPress Theme
•Step 5: Install Your WordPress Theme
•Step 6: Configure Your WordPress Theme
•Step 7: Publish Your First Pages
•Step 8: Create a Menu
•Step 9: Configure Your WordPress Settings
•Step 10: Install Essential WordPress Plugins
Step 1: Choose a Domain

This is a web domain:

This is a web domain:

It will serve as the URL inside your visitors’ address bar when they visit your
WordPress site. Make sure it is:
•Relatively short
•Easy to remember and type out
•Matches your brand name or is directly related to it
Unless you have already purchased a domain for your website, it’s best to do so when
you purchase your web hosting plan (especially since some plans will include a free
domain).
Step 2: Purchase Web Hosting and Domain

Web hosting does exactly what it says: it “hosts” websites. In other words, web
hosting companies own and manage giant web servers located in data centers
around the country (and, sometimes, the world).

In terms of choosing a hosting plan, you should think about what you actually want
to do with your website.

•Creating a small internal and private company site? WordPress.com hosting should
be fine.
•Running a blog? Shared hosting is a good place to start.
•Launching a new business venture and want to collect leads and/or
payments? Cloud hosting is a smart choice.
•If you anticipate heavy traffic for your established business or e-commerce
company to start, then go with VPS(Virtual private server) .
Step 3: WordPress installation

 If you are using Windows, then you require installing WAMP (Windows,
Apache, MySQL, and PHP).
 If you are using Linux, then you require installing LAMP (Linux, Apache,
MySQL, and PHP).
 If you are using MAC, then you require installing MAMP (Macintosh, Apache,
MySQL, and PHP).
 Or you can also install XAMPP, which is Multi-platform and came with (Apache,
MariaDB, PHP, and Perl).
 WordPress is compatible with PHP 5.2+ and MySQL 5.0 +
Working with WordPress - WordPress
installation
 First, you required extracting downloaded WordPress and upload into your
localhost or web server project folder.
https://wordpress.org/download/
 You required to open your web browser and navigate the URL of the
WordPress folder path (In case of localhost URL will be
http://localhost/wordpress_project_folder_name).
 WordPress installation requires an empty MySQL database, so you needed to
create it before.
 WordPress Setup wizard will ask you initial information about the website
WordPress Dashboard
Step 4 :Find a WordPress Theme
A WordPress theme is a pre-designed and pre-coded interface template for
WordPress. Basically, it saves you the trouble (and money) of having to design your
own website from-scratch or to pay someone else to do it for you.

When you log into WordPress for the first time, WordPress will automatically assign
their latest theme to your site.
Step 4 :Find a WordPress Theme

 Website template

 Already designed

 Multiple page templates

 Build-in features

 Can be customised
 Step 5: Install Your WordPress Theme
Inside WordPress, go to the Appearance tab and click on “Themes”.

G o to Appearance – Themes.

At the top of the page, click on “Add New”. This will take you to the WordPress repository from within WordPress.
Use this option so you don’t have to do any manual installation.
Step 6: Configure Your WordPress Theme

Upon activation, you’ll want to spend some time configuring your theme. You can do this under the Appearance tab and then click “Customize”.

Click on Customize to open the WordPress theme customizer.

Step 7: Publish Your First Pages
There are two types of “pages” you can create for your website:
• Pages: static posts
Remain stable

• Posts: dynamic pages

Updated frequently
1. Page
2. Post

These are blog post “pages” that will only exist within the blog on your website,
unless you designate the home page to serve as the blog feed
 Blogs and Pages
• The interface is consistent regardless of whether you’re creating a page
or a post.

• There are different settings you need to apply to each, but the main
area in which you work remains the same, which makes it a workspace
that’s easy to get used to.
Step 8: Create a Menu
Whereas when you hit the “Publish” button on a Post and it goes straight
onto your blog, a Page needs to be added to your site’s navigation (or
menu) if you want it to show up.
Step 9: Configure Your WordPress Settings

General
Step 9: Configure Your WordPress Settings

Writing
Step 9: Configure Your WordPress Settings

Reading
Step 10: Install Essential WordPress Plugins

Installing WordPress plugins is the final step in the WordPress setup process.

They can help you:

•Integrate a social media feed into your site.

•Resize and compress images.
•Block spammers and hackers.
•Create a forum.
•Add a payment gateway.
•Translate your site.
•And much, much more.
Absolute plugin essentials every
WordPress site needs
 Google Analytics plugins: Tracking visitor activity on your WordPress site is essential. However, getting
the Google Analytics tracking pixel on your site isn’t always that straight-forward. These plugins will take
care of it.
 SEO plugins: These plugins are great as they provide guidance on what you need to do on each page or
post to optimize it for search.
 Caching (speed) plugins: People don’t have much patience anymore and you don’t want your site to test
that, so you’ll need one of these plugins.
 Image optimisation plugins: Every website uses images, whether they’re your own high-resolution
photography or really cool stock photos and illustrations you found on the web. If you want to keep them
looking sharp and loading fast, you need one of these.
 Security plugins: With WordPress being so popular around the world, it’s often a common target for
hackers. A security plugin will help you create a stronger defense against them.
 Contact form plugins: If you’re publishing a site to the web, then you most definitely want people to not
only visit it, but to engage with you through it. A contact form is an essential piece required for that
interaction to take place.
 CRM plugins: Find out everything you need to know about your website visitors. For example,
with HubSpot’s WordPress Plugin, you can see all the pages someone has visited, live chat with your
visitors while they are browsing your website, and send them marketing emails — and all of that for free.