Why WordPress is Your Ultimate Internal Resource Tool

With a framework and functionality suitable for nearly any industry, we’re now seeing a large portion of the internet powered by WordPress. According to VentureBeat, 25% of the internet is now run by WordPress.

Since one of the best features offered by WordPress is its potential for organizing data in categories and hierarchies, there’s also a collection of unseen intranets being powered by WordPress.

What you can do with WordPress is limited only by your understanding of how it works. If you’re not a programmer, though, you rely on theme developers to create themes that tap into that functionality. It’s not enough to grab a theme that looks good and run with it. WordPress is inherently versatile, but how a theme is created will determine how it can be used.

Thankfully, not all theme developers are churning out the same old themes with slight color variations. Some developers are creating masterpiece themes and plugins that do more than just look good. They’re developing intranet themes and plugins to make information accessible by teams thereby making it easier for businesses to onboard, train, and perform HR tasks.

The right WordPress theme can be used as an internal resource for:

  • Storing data, documents, and media files
  • Having an accessible staff phone directory
  • Uploading meeting notes
  • Housing research and other documents staff might need to access
  • Creating a navigable, quick link resource to files hosted elsewhere

Information is only useful when it’s accessible

No matter what business you’re in, you probably have massive amounts of information (or documents) your staff needs to access. Many businesses use services like DropBox, Google Drive, Box, Infusionsoft, LeadPages, Basecamp, and more. With documents and media files spread out between multiple accounts, it’s hard to keep track of them all. It’s even more difficult to determine which files are the latest, since it’s rare to see small businesses using a naming convention.

Businesses are often unaware of their need for a highly organized internal information and resource repository, so information remains scattered across multiple hard drives, file sharing websites, and servers. When long-time staff members leave, so does the map to those files.

How does your marketing staff know where to find specific files? Do they have to hunt around or send out email blasts to ask if anyone knows? If you’re using a spreadsheet to keep track of your internal resources, you’re probably driving your staff crazy. There is a better way.

Use WordPress to help your staff navigate resources

Imagine being able to navigate through your company’s files with intuitive navigation, instead of having to sift through folders on a DropBox account created over time without using a naming convention. That’s what’s possible when you use WordPress as an intranet solution.

Instead of using a spreadsheet that requires endless scrolling to find the location of your important resources, use WordPress to create a navigable intranet of information connected by a carefully planned menu – just like a regular website. Instead of being publicly accessible, your intranet can be password protected, accessible only by your staff.

If you’re using a centralized communication system like Dialpad, you can even use your intranet to create shortcut links to important aspects of the system including help files, and contact information for troubleshooting. The point is to create centralized access to the resources your staff needs so everything is streamlined in one place.

WordPress provides precise organizational potential

Using the inherent power of WordPress, you can organize your files by categorizing them in multiple ways using tags and applying multiple categories.

If you have to use WordPress to store some of your media files, you can use plugins like Enhanced Media Library to further categorize your files so they’re easy to find, sort, and link on your pages.

The possibilities of document and resource organization are endless with WordPress. By creating an intranet for your staff with this powerful platform, you’ll make their jobs a whole lot easier. Your files will be so organized, the next time you go to a conference and someone wants to see your demo video or your business plan, as long as you have internet access you’ll be able to find what you need on the spot.