When Not To Use WordPress as a CMS
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WordPress can be great as a simple Content Management System. Search engines love it, it’s easy to use and can look great with little effort.
The problem with WordPress as a CMS is that if you want to create a database of information or a site with more types of content that pages and blogs (like forums, user profiles, etc), WordPress just doesn’t cut it. It’s DNA is still just a blogging platform.
And that’s fine. It’s great for small, simple sites. For example, if you are putting together a website for a small business that will only have a few static pages with information, maybe a blog and contact form; then WordPress will do this just fine.
If you want to build a community with thousands of pages of content, with user generated content, with different types of content, then WordPress is not very suited for this. Sure you can hack WordPress to behave like a true CMS or add lots of plugins to add cool features, but it’s just not meant to do it.
There are huge sites that do employ WordPress as a pseudo-CMS and they do it well. Their advantage is that they have programmers who can make things work. Most niche bloggers starting out don’t have those kinds of resources and need to rely on free tools and plugins.
On sites where you will need 1000′s of pages of content and different types of content at that, you might as well start banging your head on the desk repeatedly now because that’s what you’ll end up doing if you try to build a massive site with WordPress.
When I launched my niche site, Webinar Central, last year, I initially used WordPress as the backend. The site worked great, it looked great but it only sort of did what I wanted it to do. I almost got to the point where I was ready to pay a programmer to get done what I needed done.
Instead, I learned how to use Drupal at a more advanced level and realized I could do everything I wanted to do with Webinar Central with it and do it with much less work.
So, I relaunched the site using Drupal in January and now things work much better, the site does exactly what I want and it’s a lot less work to maintain.
If you’re thinking, “Well, I’m just going to blog,” then I would go with WordPress. But if you have the goal of turning your site into something more than a blog and turning it into a community, consider a different CMS’s. Many Niche blogs are branching out into become full fledged niche websites. If you stick with WordPress, you may find trouble doing that.
Don’t just think about the short term, think about your long term niche blogging strategy. If you plan for your site to be much bigger than a blog, then give some thought to a different Content Management System.
I chose to use WordPress for Niche Blogging Today because it’s light and will do everything I need to do at this stage. That might change in the future, but until then I’m happy with the setup that I have here.
What CMS would you guys recommend?
