wordpress: building a "topics" site

By Scot Hacker   ·   Updated Jun 3, 2011   ·   Print Print

Introduction

A news site often publishes many related articles on the same topic, such as "Healthcare Reform." While these disparate articles may be linked to one another through a tagging or category interface, it's ideal if a site can maintain a stable, easy-to-remember URL that gathers related content under a single umbrella. Having a "topic page" like this helps readers, who now have a single definitive source to bookmark for a given topic, helps with search engine optimization, and helps the publication generate traction on particular areas of coverage.

Please see the Topics Sections portion of KDMC's The Transition to Digital Journalism tutorial for more on the significance of Topic Sections.

This tutorial has two goals:

  1. Provide instructions to fellows in KDMC training programs on using the demonstration Topics Central CMS we provide for demonstration purposes.
  2. Show developers how to create a Topics Section-oriented site with WordPress. We even provide a downloadable Topics theme!

Filed under: Web Development, WordPress

Comments

1) Colleen Wilson, March 10, 2010 at 4:08 p.m. [Link]

I would appreciate seeing example sites using these or similar tools. Particularly, I'd like to see a demonstration of the WordPress custom topic theme in action.

2) Scot Hacker, March 17, 2010 at 3:10 p.m. [Link]

Colleen - Unfortunately, the demo site we use with our workshop fellows is filled with test content, so we don't link to it publicly. We'll definitely post links to any sites that deploy our system in production.

Rav - The link you posted shows standard WordPress categories, which you get for free with any WordPress system. It does not demonstrate the "Topics" system discussed in this tutorial (or am I missing something?).

3) Pramit Singh, September 1, 2010 at 4:36 a.m. [Link]

I am planning to create a topic guide section on Bighow. Since we developed our own CMS, a bit of programming is required. Time to hit the books and start making it. Curation is going to be very important in times to come.

4) Dries Bultynck, September 8, 2010 at 12:28 p.m. [Link]

Are you looking for the code to show some categories? Check de WP dev guide here http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/get_categories

5) Rob Gui, August 8, 2011 at 4:46 p.m. [Link]

About a year ago I found that using while Wordpress was an excellent platform for blogging, it also had many advantages when used as a conventional website.

I say this because to use it, you do not need HTML programming skills or knowledge.

When using tools such as Dreamweaver, though they are excellent tools, unless you are building websites on a regular basis, the cost of such programs is too much for most.

So this is where Wordpress really has the advantage.
Quick to create pages and also faster to be indexed in search engines.
Yet I soon came to a problem.

I wanted to create 1 website that would host many different pages and each page needed its own individual theme/design.

Now I could have used the Wordpress Multi-site mode but in the past, this has given me problems when it comes to updating plugins.

New version of Wordpress force you to make active across the network those plugins and some plugins that you pay for will not allow mutli-site mode or charge extra for a plugin that does.

So one option was to have separate Wordpress installations for each site I wanted to have it’s own theme. Now that was going to cost me a load of money when you think about the hosting.

The other option was to buy a Wordpress Sales Page Theme.
Now this was a problem because all the Wordpress Sales Themes I found were very limited. You could only create 1 style of sales page and then lost the ability to have a blog.

Then I found “WKS-Tool”.
It’s a Wordpress Theme creator that runs inside the Wordpress Admin panel.

Basically, you are able to create a Wordpress Page and then customize the page with the graphics you choose for headers, backgrounds, fonts and more. In fact it does so much, I can’t really list them here or this article will go on and on.

I’ve now used the WKS-Tool for over a year and have been very happy with the results. I can also use it on more than 1 site as the developer does not make you buy a new copy for each Wordpress installation you have.

You can find the WKS-Tool at http://www.wks-tool.com
Finally, one other very handy Wordpress plugin I use all the time is the “All In One SEO Pack”.

It’s free and really does help your seo rankings in the seach engines.

6) Scot Hacker, August 9, 2011 at 12:28 p.m. [Link]

Rob, are you involved with the WKS project in any way?

7) Andrew Morre, August 22, 2011 at 4:30 a.m. [Link]

Great post,
Helped me a lot.

Tks again,

Andrew

You must be logged in to post comments.