To set up Wordpress for both CMS and Blog:

1. Create a Page and call it “Home”. This is your default home page.
2. Create a Page and call it “Blog”. This will show in /blog/.
3. In Settings -> Reading, choose to show “Home” as the static page for Pages, and “Blog” as the static page for Posts.
4. In Settings -> Permalinks, change the “Common” rule to /blog/%postname%.
5. Ta da! Your pages will be created as mysite.com/page/ and your blog posts will appear inmysite.com/blog/post/.

After 7 years of using handmade PHP pages on LearnIrishGaelic.com, I finally moved the site over to a Wordpress installation.

What this means is that I have one of the most mature web application at my fingertips. Adding a new page no longer means creating a new PHP page, and worrying about how to update my navigation menus.

What’s better, I read Brian Yerkes writing about how to use Wordpress both as a CMS and Blog. This means that the main part of your site can be static pages, while Wordpress still handles /blog/ as a blogging application. Follow the settings above to get your own CMS powered by Wordpress, while having a blog section.