6 types of WordPress sites other than blogs
6 types of WordPress sites other than blogs
WordPress is a very popular CMS. Even schoolchildren have probably heard about it. The main reason for this is that there are truly many opportunities for users.
WordPress is a free system and anyone can install it on their hosting. Considering that WordPress makes it possible to create a website for every taste, more than 40% of all websites on the Internet are created on this engine - that is, about 800 million resources. In this article we will discuss why bloggers choose WP and who else can choose it as a base for their project.
Benefits of WordPress for Blogging
Most users who first learn about the WordPress platform are introduced to it as a content management system for blogs. Indeed, WordPress has a number of advantages specifically when it comes to blogging.
Why bloggers choose WordPress:
- Ease of learning. Even those people who have minimal (or no) knowledge of programming, HTML, CSS and PHP can create their own blogs on WordPress. Those who start using this platform master it quite quickly. Since WordPress is a very popular system, many books and articles have been written about it, entire websites and forums have been created on how to properly configure and work with it. Therefore, if necessary, you can always find the answer to any question you are interested in by simply typing your query into the search bar.
- Free. WordPress is a free system that is freely available for download on the Internet for anyone. Of course, there are some plugins and themes that are paid. But these are all additional services. You don't have to pay to use WordPress itself.
- A huge number of templates. WordPress offers a large selection of themes to suit every taste, so you can make your blog exactly the way you want it. All themes are easy to customize and most of them allow you to change individual elements: backgrounds, colors of individual blocks, logos, menus, sliders, and so on. Therefore, making a beautiful website on WordPress is not the most difficult task.
- Ability to use numerous plugins. The official WordPress website offers almost 35 thousand different plugins for download (https://wordpress.org/plugins). If the standard blog functionality is enough for you, then you don’t have to use plugins. However, now there is probably not a single WordPress blog where they are not installed. Since this allows you to make your blog more convenient and expand its functions and capabilities.
- Control over SEO. The owner of a WordPress site always has the opportunity to “keep abreast” in terms of SEO optimization of the resource. WordPress was originally created as a very flexible system in terms of various settings, including those related to SEO. However, to improve the search engine friendliness of your site, you can use special plugins, for example, SEO WordPress by Yoast, All in one SEO Pack, SEO Ultima. SEO plugins for WordPress are convenient because they provide the user with the opportunity to understand why they are needed and what exactly they do. The site owner can set the settings and options he needs, depending on the chosen resource promotion strategy.
- Simple controls. WordPress has a user-friendly menu and navigation that is easy to understand even for beginners. Thanks to this, the blog can be easily customized and improve usability.
- Updates. WordPress is a system that constantly offers many updates both in terms of templates, themes and plugins. This allows you to expand the functionality of the site and increase the attractiveness of the design. In addition, there are also WordPress communities (both English and Russian), and a large number of forums where you can chat with other users, ask for advice or learn from others' experiences.
Examples of blogs on WordPress . As clear examples of what a WordPress resource can be, I selected several existing blogs that seemed interesting to me both in content and design. The selection of examples of other types of sites presented below was also based on these two criteria.
- klopotenko.com is a culinary blog of Ukrainian chef and restaurateur Evgeniy Klopotenko, in which he shares his recipes.
- stylegirlfriend.com - a blog about men's fashion.
- blog.yakaboo.ua is a blog of a famous online bookstore.
What else can you use WordPress for?
Blogging is far from the only area where WordPress can be used. The use of WordPress has long gone beyond blogs, as there are templates and plugins for many other types of sites: online stores, news resources, classifieds sites and others. So, what else can you create with WordPress besides blogs?
? Online stores
Despite the fact that WordPress was originally created for blogging, now you can even create an online store using it. To implement this, you just need to install a few special plugins.
For this, we like the WooCommerce plugin the most; its functionality allows you to create full-fledged and convenient online stores for free.
Online stores on WordPress:
- all-face.com.ua is an online store of skincare cosmetics.
- vanheusen.com is an online store for men's and women's clothing.
- bata.com is an online shoe store.
? Static sites
Such sites include business card sites, portfolios, personal home pages of users, some product catalogs, and company sites.
You can also create such sites using WordPress, you just need to make a few special settings. If, in the case of a blog, the latest posts are displayed on the main page, then in the case of the above sites, you need to configure the display of a static page (and you can make as many such pages as you need).
- prestyzhbud.com is a business card website for a construction company.
- babycenter.lviv.ua - website of a private kindergarten.
- muravsky.photo - website of photographer Max Muravsky.
? Coupon site
A coupon and discount site is a great way to make money through affiliate marketing. To create such a website on WordPress, you need to choose a suitable template, the choice of which, as already mentioned, is huge.
Installing the necessary plugins for a coupon site will also not cause difficulties, especially since this can be done directly from the admin panel. A coupon site may need several plugins, some of them are: Coupon Generator (for creating printed coupons), GD Star Rating (for rating coupons), VoucherPress (for creating coupons and vouchers in PDF format), and many others.
- coupon.ukr is an example of a coupon site.
? News site
WordPress offers a variety of templates and themes for media and media related websites. They have full functionality for sites of this type, which allows you to create an ideal news site for any target audience.
- nakipelo.ua - news site for Kharkov and the “Nakipelo” region.
- nta.ua is a news website of a Ukrainian information and entertainment TV channel.
- shotam.info - good news from Ukraine.
? Advertisement site
Plugins like WPAdverts - Classifieds Plugin allow you to create a classifieds website on WordPress. By installing one of these modules, you can create a full-fledged site with advertisements, where you can classify advertisements into categories, monitor their ratings and the number of views.
- career.kernel.ua - WordPress page where you can search for vacancies within a large agricultural company.
? Forum
Although there are many other platforms for creating forums, forums are also created on WordPress. For these purposes, use the Simple:Press Forum plugin, which provides all the basic capabilities for registering users, discussing topics, searching within the forum, etc.
- angrybirdsnest.com is a forum for the famous game.
- mentalhealthforum.net - a forum about mental health.
As you can see, the opinion that WordPress is a CMS exclusively for blogs is wrong. And sites created on WordPress can be of almost any type.
Finally, I will give examples of popular sites made on WordPress. These resources are visited by a large number of people every day, which gives reason to once again be convinced that WordPress is attractive and, above all, convenient.
