Content Management The Easy Way With UcoZ [Review]

Have you ever tried to build a content rich community with Joomla or Drupal? They’re both a fairly advanced CMS (Content Management System) that requires at least a little bit of web development knowledge. Yet, Joomla & Drupal can be difficult to use even for experienced web developers. Well, now there’s a new CMS on the block called UcoZ, which has proven to be simple enough even for the newest of newbies.

In their own words:

“UcoZ is a modern free website management system which works according to the principles of Web 2.0 and allows creating of the most complicated projects with extraordinary simplicity and ease. UcoZ System does not need to be downloaded and installed, all you need is to register, and the system is completely at your command.”

I was kind of skeptical when I first tried UcoZ because I was sure that it would be a lot of work to get it going & I wasn’t up for that. To my surprise though, I was wrong; once I got going, I didn’t even want to stop.

UcoZ is very professional, quick & easy set up. To make it even better, UcoZ allows you to add content either via the control panel (back end) or right from the site. Personally, I feel that building a blog community on UcoZ could be a great way to market yourself & your content.

First I just want to point out that UcoZ has 19 pages of custom themes to choose from (227 total), many of which are comparable to a professional WordPress theme. Just to give an idea of what I mean, here are thumbnails of a few of my favorites (click for large image).

Though it’s nice to have the WordPress type themes, I wish they had more of a variety as far as the way the themes are setup. Most of the themes are either one or two columned themes & I was actually looking for one that had more of a unique variation such as an iframe (one window) type theme. In any case, they’re still all very nicely designed themes.

I’m sure you’re wondering if you can use your own domain & the answer is of course. You can transfer an existing domain to UcoZ or you can attach an existing domain without transferring. The differences between the two options is all explained to you in the control panel of course.

The UcoZ control panel has a lot of customization options (as you can see below). You can customize your theme, manage comments, import RSS feeds, create custom smileys, create/manage a banner rotator, promote your site, backup projects & a lot more.

It’s very easy to view and/or change active & inactive modules in the control panel. Each item on the menu (seen to the left) opens up the options for that module, when clicked. But just as you can add & edit content on these modules from the back end, you can also do that right from your UcoZ site.

For most modules you can: edit and remove entries; create, edit or remove categories; create & customize filters; change module settings; & design/customize each module (edit the HTML).

Right now I’m working on a possible site, http://charnitafance.ucoz.com/. I say possible because I’m known for starting sites but not finishing them due to social media overload. If you take a look you can see I haven’t added too much but the content I did add, I was able to add right from the actual site that you’re seeing (not the control panel).

UcoZ gives you the ability to upload files from the control panel or by ftp access, though they recommend using their “File Manage” for uploading several files. I also love that I can change the color of the control panel. There are six colors to choose from: blue, green, gray, pink, orange & black.

Are you good at CSS coding & like to customize your sites? No problem because UcoZ give you access to do that as well (as you can see below).

I love how easy it is to add blog entries, news entries, photos, etc to the main pages. There’s a link at the top of each page (as seen below) that allows you to add content on any page you’re on. The content that you can add of course depends on what module you’re using on that page. Wouldn’t it be so much easier of WordPress allowed this?

I really like the fact that you can choose to make content public or private. You can also attach images if you’d like. Another great thing is that you can enter the author info manually. So, if you’re not the original author, you can give credit to the person that is. If you are the author though, you can simply click on “I’m the author” and you’re info will be automatically added to each field.

There’s also an easy-to-use editor that makes creating the content even easier. You can add content to categories. Also, it allows you to use either BBCode or HTML; that’s something I haven’t seen anywhere besides an occasional forum. You can even use javascript, which is also a big plus.

So as you can see, UcoZ has a lot to offer & though there’s so many customization options & features, UcoZ makes it as easy as possible for you.

Even though most people aren’t willing to leave their established WordPress blog(s) behind & start all over on a site like UcoZ, I really think it’s a great choice if you’re looking to start a new blog. Plus, if you’re wanting to start a blog community, then it’s an even better choice.

I know I’m definitely thinking about what kind of blog community I can build on mine. What do you think?

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