Wordpress for Business Consulting Web Site

[vilmosz]

Hi, everyone. Nice to be part of the Bluehost community. I own several domains here -- one hosting plan. I'm moving into consulting and have set up one of my subdomains to be my website. This is where I'd like to describe my services, etc. In addition, my industry is a rapidly evolving, high profile one, so I would like to provide news and comment for the purposes of marketing/demonstrating my expertise and providing information to prospective clients as well as others interested in the same topic.

I just installed Wordpress on the subdomain so it is the home page. I am using the inove theme. I would like to customize it so that it meets my needs -- i.e., home page describing services, inside pages would include a blog, as well as a page about industry news and another page with names and descriptions of vendors servicing this industry.

Wondering if I should in fact just install a simple web site template rather than wordpress. I am excited about the potential and flexibility of wordpress but don't really know where to begin to make sure it does what I need it to do.

Thanks in advance.

[redsox9]

From what you describe, it sounds more like you need content management system (CMS) software like Joomla or Drupal. It is possible to set up WP to do what you describe but CMS software allows you to build a site to include everything that you want (and can include blogging capabilities if you want to post new content day-to-day).

[FCarentz]

This is a tough question really. There are a LOT of variables for you to consider and for us to need the answers to before one can really give you a good answer.


Wordpress can do what you are looking for, although a CMS combined with WP might be the better way to go.

WP is, after all, a blog software and not truly meant for being used as a CMS, even though people use it as such constantly, so there's no reason you shouldn't.

However, given your description, but depending on your comfort level for learning some of these Blog/CMS solutions here's what I would recommend.

Joomla, if you aren't familiar with it already, has a bit of a learning curve. Drupal has an even steeper curve from what I understand. While I cannot speak to drupal, I can tell you that Joomla is very robust and can handle quite a lot of scenarios you might run into while developing your site. However it also has what I consider to be a lot of set up when starting out of the box, even for someone familiar with it. So depending on your familiarity and time constraints I would recommend Joomla (its what I'm currently using)

If you want to get set up quickly, and don't mind a bit of reading I would recommend modxcms.com for your CMS and then use WP for your sites blogging area. The only trouble you might run into here is themeing the CMS to match the blog. Modx is primarily known for its ease of integrating into your theme. Its a very light CMS that is primarily employed by designers just because its so easy to turn your design into a template and still have the dynamic features of a full blown CMS. Whereas if you dont know your way around how WP themes work, you might not be able to incorporate your personal design into a WP template.

But, with this second option of ModxCMS & WP you get the best of both worlds, a blog system (and a good one) being used for your blog, and a CMS being used for your main sites information.

In the end, like I said at the beginning, there are a lot of personal variables here, but I would go with the ModX/WP combo myself.

Let us know how you resolve your dilemma.