10 Amazing Websites You Can Build With WordPress
When you think about WordPress, you think about blogging. But WordPress ain’t only for blogging anymore.
Thanks to WordPress’ open source nature, there are independent developers constantly working on making the platform even more awesome by creating plugins to extend functionality and making robust themes that not only adds aesthetic feel but compliments the functionality available.
What used to seem impossible to build for an ordinary guy like me is now within reach of doing. In short, you think and WordPress can build it.
Forget blogging. Here are 10 types of websites that you can build using WordPress.
1. Small Business Website
Own a bed & breakfast, pizza shop or even a large hotel chain? By now you know that having an online presence is important for getting the word out about your business.
WordPress can be used to do the job just as well as your web design firm’s creation. In fact, if you’re creative enough you can do it yourself. It’s easy to update when you need to and there are lots of templates that are available that will compliment your type of business.
I use WordPress to create all my affiliate websites and most of them don’t look like ordinary blogs but has a blog added on to it. This is the simplest use for WordPress besides blogging and the others on this list are just going to get even more interesting.
2. Sales Pages
You know those narrow pages that sell ebooks with the check out button at the bottom?
Its used to be that you couldn’t use WordPress to make a sales page. Because, well, WordPress had distracting sidebars and comment forms and other stuff going on that would make it look terrible.
But all you had to do was get rid of the sidebars, the comment forms and the other stuff.
Nowadays, more and more sales pages are being made using WordPress. All you needed to do was create a special theme to do the job.
I’ve recommended Jason Keith’s Sales Page theme in the past and the person I recommended it to was very satisfied and used it on all his Clickbank sales pages.
3. Membership Sites
Membership sites can be a little complex, having different membership levels ie. free members, gold members, VIP members and so on as well as giving access to different content and managing subscriptions.
But WordPress can also be used to create membership sites with all these features and lots of other perks. All you need to do is download and install a membership site plugin that handles the features that you need.
There are quite a bit of these plugins available. I did a quick search and found these:
4. Discussion Forum
The first time I saw a WordPress based forum it was Problogger’s 31DBBB forum. I was always accustomed to seeing phpBB, vBulleting and SMF forums and this forum looked fresh and different. I liked the clean look most of all.
A WordPress forum isn’t done with the typical WordPress install. Instead you have to install BBPress which was developed by the same guys who bought you WordPress. And if you’re attaching it to a website built with WordPress, you can even make it so that when you log into your blog, you’re logged into the forum as well.
There are also plugins and themes like Simplepress to turn a typical WordPress install into a forum but I’d still go with the BBpress powered forums.
5. Online/Ecommerce Store
The easiest way to run an online store is probably to sign up with a website like Zlio or use Amazon Astores. But you wouldn’t have as much freedom to do as you like because you’re bounded by whatever these sites allow.
You can run your own online/ecommerce store using WordPress and a free or paid store plugin that allows you to integrate well with various payment and checkout systems. There are also some great looking store plugins – see Shopperpress for an idea.
And if you’re into affiliate marketing, you can use datafeeds to populate your WordPress store and earn commissions from purchases. No dealing with customers and fulfilling orders since the purchases are done on the merchant websites. Datafeedr is a popular service that lets you do just this.
6. Article Directory
Picture yourself having an article directory. Your own version of Ezinearticles where you could post articles and create backlinks to your other websites. Where you can have other authors submit articles while you earn income from Adsense and affiliate programs.
Stop imagining because you can easily set one up using a free article directory plugin and optional theme. Just install the plugin, customize it and you’re ready to go.
I actually did this and now run my own high traffic article directory which currently has over 40,000 articles from more than 12,000 registered authors in the last 12 months. I use plugins to make the site more manageable since its a multi-authored website.
7. Web Directory
Another type of directory you can set up with WordPress is a web directory a la DMOZ.org. It can be a normal directory or a blog directory like BlogCatalog.
Webmasters and site owners usually submit their websites to these types of sites to get links. The main features of web directories are categorization. You find the right category and subcategories for your website and submit the url and description of your website.
Before, just like some of the other sites in this list, you would use scripts installed on your hosting that were a bit techie to manage. Now thanks to the power of WordPress, you have themes and plugins such as DirectoryPress for building a web directory.
8. Classified Ads Site
This is the type of website that gave me the idea to write this article. I was awed that you could create a classifieds website with WordPress although I was sure it was possible (that’s why I did the search).
Again, it only takes a plugin like WP Classifieds and special theme like this one from Classifieds Theme or the ClassiPress theme.
Some of these setups have features that make Craigslist look like a dinosaur such as Google Maps integration, can manage Adsense and other advertising platforms and can also integrate with paypal to manage featured listings.
9. Video Sites
There are lots of WordPress video themes that make it easy to build your own video driven website. The only difference between Youtube and building one of these sites is I couldn’t find anything that lets users upload videos but if there was you’d need good hosting and I’m not talking about Hostgator shared hosting here.
For what is available, like plugins to import videos from popular video sites like Youtube, you can use these to make a fairly decent looking video site. I’m pretty sure somewhere there’s a plugin that allows you to upload videos and make the site function more like a Youtube type website.
10. Social Network
This one totally surprised me. A Facebook type website based on WordPress? Entirely possible.
Just install WordPress as usual, download and install the BuddyPress plugin and a supported theme and you’ll have a fully function social network where users can signup, create a profile, add friends, post status updates, send messages, blog and all the other good stuff you can do on social networks.
And because its WordPress based you can extend functionality by adding the plugins you need to make the experience even better. Why not add a classifieds section?
There you have it. 10 uses for WordPress other than blogging. If you thought about building one of these sites in the past and ditched the idea because you thought it would be too technical or too expensive, maybe you didn’t think of doing it the WordPress way. Now you can start thinking about it again.
Tell me in the comments, are there any other types of sites that I missed? Ever thought of building one of these sites and didn’t think about WordPress? Let me know.
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