For as long as a decade, website and blog visitors have been expecting those sites to be repositories of larger documents and more sophisticated content like audio and video. As a result, the simple structure of hypertext markup language (HTML), used to design ordinary web pages, is breaking under the strain of organizing the content.

Today, web developers are using so-called “content management systems” that separate content from formatting codes. One popular choice is the free system called WordPress.

When you build a WordPress site, a database stores the text and media files that visitors will read. You choose the appearance of the site by selecting one of several thousand “themes” that control the design of the entire site. You can change themes with a mouse click.

When a web browser requests a WordPress page, WordPress assembles the page by filling up a design template with the necessary content and images.

WordPress has other advantages over HTML. Through the use of categories and “tags,” or keywords associated with each individual segment of text, you can create ways for visitors to filter the content on the site more flexibly.

In an HTML site, for example, if you want an article about a rock band to appear under different page headings, like “concerts” and “musicians,” you have to insert that content in both places.

In WordPress, you assign the same content to multiple categories, or add a keyword tag.

When a visitor clicks on the tag or category, they will see all the posts associated with those selections.

A good example of how WordPress efficiently unlocks the content in a site is the JewishSacredAging.com website that I recently redesigned (full disclosure!) for local Rabbi Richard Address.

Rabbi Address (http://bit.ly/9KrsW2) is a nationally known expert on issues of spirituality in aging. He conducts congregational workshops on aging issues for the Union for Reform Judaism. A network of psychologists, educators, physicians, and others contribute essays to the site every month, but for years the content was difficult to access, because you couldn’t cross-reference articles with common themes by different authors, or see all the articles by a specific author.

After the WordPress redesign, visitors now have a significantly improved ability to access that content, and even interact with the authors by posting comments on each article.

The contributors will also be able to post their articles directly to the site, instead of emailing the articles to Rabbi Address. “People have commented on how visually attractive the new format is, and I can agree that it presents Jewish Sacred Aging in a more mature and serious manner,” Address said.

I liked the results so much that I completely redesigned my own website (www.lubetkin.net) in WordPress, and it has allowed me to consolidate a great deal of content into a single interface. The search, categorization, and tagging make it really easy to find things, including the CompuSchmooze blog that supplements this column.

WordPress comes in two flavors, both free. There is a “hosted” version at WordPress.com, where you can set up as many WordPress sites as you like. The hosted site has limited options for themes and functionality, and gives you a web address like “compuschmooze.wordpress.com,” so if you want to use a domain name you already own, you will have to consider the other version, the “self-hosted” version.

The self-hosted version involves downloading and installing WordPress on your website and configuring some more technical options. It does offer the ability to use more versatile features called plug-ins—not available in the “hosted” option—that can enhance the site’s functionality.

You can learn more about WordPress at www.wordpress.org (for the self-hosted version) or www.wordpress.com (for the hosted version). . steve@compuschmooze.com