WordPress CMS has arrived

I work for a non-profit and most of my freelance clients are non-profits. Money is scarce but needs are many. Most organizations need a full content management system. They need an events calendar, a multimedia gallery, a press release section and a dozen other content types. But they can’t afford it.

I used to handle this with a mishmash of plugins for calendars, downloads, videos, etc. But the problem was each solution was discrete. For instance, it was difficult to associate a video with an event. This is because, for all its advantages, the WordPress core simply is not a CMS. It basically has two content types: post and page. Yes, the functionality of custom fields helps boost the performance of these two types. But custom fields are cumbersome and user un-friendly.

What WordPress needed was some sort of content construction plugin that would allows users to create their own types of content beyond the post and page.

A few months ago, I discovered a new plugin that does just that. It’s called Pods. Pods is a very efficient framework that sits on top of your WordPress installation. It allows you to easily create content types and then theme those types.

Over the next couple weeks I’m going to post a series of tutorials on different ways you can use pods. In the meantime, head over to their site and download the plugin.