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13 plugins that will make WordPress into a CMS

January 14, 2008 – 10:55 am | by Miriam Schwab

Recently I posted about why I think WordPress is a CMS. This led to a pretty interesting discussion in the comments on the topic, but it was unresolved.

Here’s some more fuel for the fire: I just came across Josh Byers’ blog, thanks to his amazing Custom Admin Branding Plugin. He has a post there that lists the plugins he uses to transform WordPress into a full-fledged content management system (CMS). Aside from the fact that it’s good to know about the plugins he mentions, it’s interesting to note that by adding a few plugins, Josh feels that his WordPress sites can be considered CMSs, as opposed to just blogs.

Here are some of the plugins that he says he uses to make WordPress into a CMS. Visit his blog to see the rest of them, and read his concise descriptions of each one, and why he uses them:

• Custom Admin Branding Plugin - this plugin is his creation
• Clutter Free
• Custom Admin Menu
• Custom Write Panel
• Dashboard Editor
• Post Template
• Search Everything

Here are a few more tweaks and plugins that I think help make WordPress into a great CMS:

• The WordPress static home page option – obviously. The fact that the home page of your blog can be a static Page by selecting a single option in the admin changes WordPress from a blog into a CMS. I don’t know why people always ignore this.
• Page Links To Plugin: gives more flexibility to WordPress Pages by allowing you to link them to other pages, like category pages.
• Role Manager Plugin: better and more precise role management in WordPress
• Future Posts Calendar Plugin: this plugin is a savior. It gives me an overview of the days when posts are scheduled to be published, so I can make sure that posts are spread out evenly across the week, instead of all of them ending up on Tuesday (for example).
• Admin Drop-down Menus Plugin: also a life saver (not the candy). Can you imagine getting to the Write Post page with just one click, instead of clicking on Manage, waiting, and then clicking on Post? Will, this plugin turns everything into drop-down menus, so submenus are just one click away.
• All in One SEO pack, Google Sitemaps Generator Plugin and Meta Robots WordPress plugin: just upload and activate these WordPress plugins, and you’ll have a serious SEO advantage over so many other sites.

I think that the whole argument over whether WordPress is a CMS boils down to the lack of an exact definition of what a CMS is. So, according to my definition of a CMS, which holds no weight whatsoever, WordPress meets the criteria.