The time when WordPress was used strictly as a blog platform is long gone. WordPress has evolved into a mature CMS that gives designers and developers the right tools to create amazing non-blog websites for their clients. As proof for that stand these 10 beautiful websites powered by WordPress.

FernWoodCoffee.com

Visit website

Herout-Caves.com

Visit website
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By now, you should know that I’m a WordPress fan. While most people regard it as a simple blogging platform, some see beyond that and realize that WordPress is a very capable CMS.

While working with it as a website CMS will not allow too many customizations for entry-level developers or users, in the hands of a pro WordPress is ready to perform miracles.

The advantages of WordPress powered websites

There are quite a bunch of advantages when developing websites using WordPress as CMS, but the most important are:

• Productivity – A lot less time spent on development, which guarantees a lower cost and still high quality;
• Ease of use – Both client-side and developer-side. The amount of tutorials, plugins and support groups available out there is a divine gift;
• Updates – The WordPress community is very involved in keeping the project up to date and bug free and the updates are so easy to apply.

It’s enough to run a search on Google and you’ll see how many people praise the power of WordPress but instead of using words, this time I’ll use results.
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Today I’ve received an email that made me think about this subject. Somebody asked me to confirm that a design agency that I’ve never heard of before, has done the design you see on Blogsessive. Obviously, I replied and told him that Blogsessive is a custom design done by yours truly, and any agency (with one exception) that would proud themselves with Blogsessive’s theme would be a fraud.

After hearing the price for which that agency was going to create something similar, the following thoughts started taking shape:

• Why would you proud yourself with the work of someone else?
• Why think these things would not surface?
• Why roll out a low-ball quote for something that’s worth much more, or that you cannot deliver, but still state you can.

Before getting a custom design for you blog, here are some things you should consider.
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One technique that is most common with WordPress magazine or news style themes is the display of an archive of the latest posts by category, as simple titles or with post excerpts. This is useful for the previously mentioned theme styles, but not only. It can be used to set up custom blog homepages, 404 pages, landing pages or even a special archive page.

This tutorial will help you build a ‘Latest Posts by Category Archive‘ in a very easy way. The widths in the CSS styling presented below have been calculated based on the default WordPress theme, assuming that is the most common theme available to anyone.

If you are looking for a plugin to generate such an archive, please check out: WP Plugin: Latest Posts by Category Archive.

Setting up the page template

Open up you favorite code editor and create a blank document. Save the document as ‘category-archive.php’ (or any other name you’d prefer) in the default WordPress theme directory (wp-content/themes/default).

The first step is to asign our new template a name and a page-like structure, so based on the default theme’s page template, the code you should paste in your new document is:

< ?php
/*
Template Name: Category Archive
*/
?>

< ?php get_header(); ?>

<div id="content" class="narrowcolumn">

	< ?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
	<div class="post" id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
	<h2>< ?php the_title(); ?></h2>
		<div class="entry">
			< ?php the_content('<p class="serif">Read the rest of this page &raquo;'); ?>

			< ?php wp_link_pages(array('before' => '<p><strong>Pages:</strong> ', 'after' => '</p>', 'next_or_number' => 'number')); ?>

		</div>
	</div>
	< ?php endwhile; endif; ?>

	<!-- Category Archive Start -->
	<!-- Category Archive End -->

</div>

< ?php get_sidebar(); ?>

< ?php get_footer(); ?>

The template above will make sure to display the page name you set up, and also, any additional content you might want to add before the archive, from you WordPress page editor. We will be adding our ‘latest posts by category’ code between the ‘Category Archive Start’ and ‘Category Archive End’ comments.
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As some of you might already know, back on January 17th, the folks at Automattic have launched WordPress.TV, a website they plan on turning into “Your Visual Resource for All Things WordPress”.

This is a definitely a great project that will undoubtedly become a WordPress resource hot spot. On what do I base my belief? On the amazing community of people around this extraordinary blogging (and not only) platform that is WordPress.

It’s enough to check out their support forums and see the kind of involvement that people show, how willing they are to help, solve problems and answer questions. So yes, I think that the WordPress TV will be a success.

The reasons behind this launch are simple. The WordPress community needs a place where video information (news, tutorials and so on) finds its way to people, after passing through a certain quality filter, where it will be kept up to date with ad/spam free.

By the looks of it, after only one week of existence, the community response is amazing.

So, in case you’ve missed the launch (but not only for this reason), in this post I’m going to guide you to 10 must-see videos on WordPress.TV.
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