If you are here, I bet you’re going to learn at least one
new thing from this article!
This post lists just a portion of a lot of things that one
can do with WordPress. I believe WordPress is going to go beyond boundaries in
a good way and that should be it. Beside being used a blogging platform,
WordPress is capable of a lot of other things, functionalities and features.
Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress told, according to a survey, 69% of
WordPress users use it as a CMS, 20% chose it as a hybrid blog/CMS, only 6% as
a blog and 7% for an app platform.
Yes, it’s 6%. That’s the percent of WordPress users who
specified their use of WordPress as a blog.
Majority of users use it as a content management system,
which is a system used to manage content on the web. WordPress is popularly
known as a blogging platform, but evolved to be a CMS over years. Shall we dive
now?
Different Kinds Of Websites You Can Make On WordPress
Besides a WordPress Blog, you can create many other kinds of websites using WordPress. Here is given a popular list of those websites.
1. Build A Coupon Website
Those who think of WordPress as just a blogging
platform, think again. WordPress is a content management system and holds the
capability to do amazing things beyond pure “blogging” thing. Building a
coupon website using WordPress can be done within minutes. The fact that
WordPress is an open source script welcomes developers to contribute by
developing plugins and themes. That’s why we always have a plugin to
perform a particular function.
How To Build A Coupon Website?
Clipper is a premium WordPress coupon theme, it has
been built specifically to allow WordPress users to build a coupon website
within minutes. It offers a ton of options and preferences to its
users. You can set it up the way you like. To set up a coupon website, where visitors are
able to access coupon codes, copy and use them is just as easy as is installing
any other theme in your WordPress site.
In A Nutshell
| 1. | Purchase Clipper theme |
| 2. | Install and activate it |
| 3. | Configure it according to your preferences |
| 4. | Start adding stores and sharing coupon codes |
Done
Also Read: Create A Coupon Website Using WordPress
2. Let’s Build A Discussion Forum
Automattic, Inc. is
the company behind WordPress. It was founded by
Matt Mullenweg, popularly known to be co-founder of
WordPress. Automattic manages
to run several projects including WordPress, Jetpack plugin, Akismet,
bbPress, et cetera.
bbPress is
a forum script. It does also have a plugin that allows a WordPress site to be
turned into a discussion forum. Installing and activating this plugin
will create a new forum page into a separate directory. You can add this
directory link to your navigation and let visitors easily access this page
through navigation menu. It is known for its ease of use and lightweight.
The thing about bbPress is that it is a plugin, can be
integrated in a WordPress theme. Though, unlike its competition including
Vanilla (a forum software) it does not have plenty of useful features, but it
is definitely great because it comes as a separate plugin and individual
software too. You can install it in your WordPress site, configure
relevant settings and have a discussion forum in action, right away.
A Couple Of Points That Need Clarification
| 1. | bbPress is a sister project of WordPress |
| 2. | It comes as a separate script as well as a WP plugin |
| 3. | It does not reside in WordPress Core though |
For those of you, looking to know what a bbPress discussion
board looks like, here are a few examples:
Examples mentioned above are no doubt demonstrating
intelligent use of bbPress. These sites have integrated bbPress plugin. Example No.1. i.e. Dall’Uva
has self-hosted WordPress, integrated with bbPress, further has an
eCommerce Store aside.
That’s what we call the real use of WordPress.
How To Use bbPress (WordPress Way)
There are two ways of using bbPress; former is
Via WordPress Plugin, later is installing the
Script separately. I’m describing the former
process in a nutshell.
1. Install and activate
bbPress (plugin)
2. By default, forum is installed in example.com/forums
3. You can configure various settings via Settings >
Forums
3. Create A Portfolio Website
There are hundreds of marketers, programmers – you name it –
and artists in general, who do not have their portfolios set up online.
Digital world is ever-expanding, and there’s no ‘perfect time’ to get on the
board. If you’re a creator of things, do good work and want the world to
see it – getting your portfolio online is the way to go! Especially designers
must step in this thing. There are many web services which allow web designers,
artists, programmers, etc. to set their custom portfolio page via their
website.
Behance (by
Adobe),
Dribbble and
The Likes are there to help.
But having a separate website either solely with purpose of
showcasing your work or otherwise is great for leaving an impression over
prospect clients/employers. What do you say? I don’t find anything wrong that
way! The bad thing about showcasing your hard-done work at somebody
else’s website is that there is clear competition. Now that your prospect
client/employer is finally seeing your work, you certainly wouldn’t want
him to get distracted by others’ work, or do you? That’s why portfolio website
is a better option.
There is a great number of portfolio themes for WordPress.
Head over to
ThemeForest,
you’ll find great themes there. Pick one, purchase and simply use it just
like you would any other ordinary WordPress theme. There’s no rocket-science
required.
4. Build A Photo Gallery Website
A lot of photo gallery websites are there running on
WordPress script. The fact that they’re leveraging WordPress like hell is
hardly known to most. If you’re a professional photographer, there are
WordPress themes available to turn a site into a photo gallery kind of
experience. This is the solid way for photographers to showcase their
work. Now that you’ve worked hard to get that snap from your favorite
angle, it’s time to present it to your audience in a good way.
There are free as well as paid WordPress themes available.
Of course, free is tempting because it’s free. But don’t you forget to
Read This before using a free theme, once you’re done
reading this.
ThemeForest is a popular marketplace, especially their
WordPress themes are always recommended. You can find a photo gallery theme
for yourself there.
If there’s any confusion how to proceed, the next thing is
to purchase your favorite theme, and use it as an ordinary theme.
5. How About A Directory Website?
An online web directory is not a search engine, does not
list websites by keywords; instead it lists websites by categories and
subcategories. The websites listed there are usually not crawled by search
engines and put there by humans manually. Before search engines even existed,
directories were there to help users get relevant information and find specific
websites. There are niche-focused directories available too, meaning the
kind of directories that feature a particular list of websites like a directory
for shopping sites.
Creating a directory website is not something that general
population might be interested into, but I listed this anyway as it is one of
the untypical and lesser-known uses of WordPress. Again, there are themes and
plugins for this purpose too. All you need to do is obtain the theme, install,
activate and configure it accordingly your preferences. That’s it.
6. Classifieds Website With WordPress
Classifieds are a form of advertisements usually found in
either online or offline newspapers. These are short advertisements as they are
charged by line. These are cheaper ads, typically by individuals having
something to buy or sell. Advertisements in a classified paper are arranged by
categories like “For sell – Kitchen“, “Wanted – Opportunities“;
hence, such a paper has come be to named as a classified.
There are publications both online and offline with a
section/page particularly assigned to contain classified ads, also newspapers
solely for this purpose. For newspaper websites with classified as a feature,
WordPress has got great tools to help.
If you want to create a classified website using WordPress,
use
FlatAds, a classified WordPress theme.
Also Check Out this Theme:
ClassiPress Theme
7. Build A Review Website
I see a good amount of review websites and they earn a great
deal of money by simply writing reviews about products they have and bought and
used (though not necessarily). Although, this requires investment in first
place, but is definitely good for long-term income. Put yourself in a
shopper’s shoes – You’re deciding to add that web hosting service to your cart,
you’re spending hard-earned money. You certainly wouldn’t want to be
disappointed by the performance of this product, later. Hence you research about
the product and try to know about this product by reading reviews.
That’s how it is. A website created exclusively for the
purpose of publishing un-biased reviews is highly required, in my opinion. And,
it’s also got a lot of potential in the long run.
WP-Review is a nice WordPress plugin. What it does is
that it adds review schema to the post. Review schema is a markup that tells
search engines to display review summary from SERPs. It is great for sites with
a lot of non-review content, but certainly is not for review sites as a whole.
8. Need A Membership Website
Member-specific websites are created to give users certain
access to content, website in part or in whole. Such websites typically offer
subscription plans for users to choose from. Creating a membership website
using WordPress is almost same as is using WordPress for pure blogging. One
just uses a plugin/theme providing specific features that help in maintaining
the site.
Often we are encountered with clients who want the type of
websites which does not give a particular product of theirs to users unless they
perform a required action. Membership website is what they are referring
to.
9. Set Up An Online Store
Real world is great, after all it’s real. It makes
people connect, shop and all that face-to face. But as virtual world is making
things easier than ever. And, a lot of people who someday used to run their
business in real are now gradually shifting themselves to the online
world. Just like in real world, they need a store. A store is a place where a
product is sold, you know. So the people need stores.
An eCommerce website is that store. It is a functional
website with a shopping cart built-in, you can add items available to the cart,
check out, pay and get your thing. If you’re new to WordPress, have
business offline already or want to sell product(s), you will need an eCommerce
website. WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin that will set you up an
online store with a lot of functionality. There are many extensions available
for this plugin. These expand the functionality, when used, of course. Though WooCommerce
is free, but its extensions are not. And by the way, developers get to eat too.
10. Start Aggregation Website
Want to create an aggregation website that aggregates
content from various websites on a topic or otherwise and present in one place?
Yes, you can that via WordPress. What Reddit, Digg and their likes do? They
aggregate content! They have certainly grown over years, have many great things
aimed. But their basic foundational task is to aggregate. WordPress,
again, has got tools to turn a website into an aggregator.
11. A Business Website? YES!
By default WordPress shows blog posts being posted on
homepage in a reverse chronological manner. That’s changeable. A lot of
websites running on WordPress have done this and for better user-experience or
something turned their homepages into landing pages. Just a little
configuration in the
Reading section via
Settings tab, and you
have a static page as your homepage.
Read This Guide to learn more
about this.
12. Start A Video-Sharing Website
WordPress is a
Content Management System, I
emphasize. Content Management System is a medium of managing
content (be it video, images or plain text) on a website. That’s why it goes
beyond what a blogging platform like Blogger can. Among other things that one
can do with WordPress is that one can build a video-sharing website using
WordPress.
All it takes is a WordPress theme. Yep.
Conclusion
Ah, I’m tired now. It took me a couple of hours to put
together this information and it’s worth it. There’s a lot of functionality and
features that can be added to a website with the use of WordPress script. All
one needs is creative use of themes and plugins available. I love WordPress,
and will say that again and again. It has allowed millions of individuals to be
able to contribute to the development of Web in infinite ways.
