5 Ways To Use WordPress Besides Blogging

by David Porter on January 31, 2009 · 16 comments

in Why Wordpress Is Great

WordPress is an amazing content management system (cms) and blogging system and can be used for just about any type of website you can imagine.

With the right WordPress plugins, you can make your WP install do just about anything and almost all of the plugins out there are free. There are some “Premium” plugins you can find that have a fee attached, but all in all, most are free.

But most importantly, it’s a great program for running you’re websites because…

  • Search engines love WordPress blogs and index them much faster than static websites
  • It’s easy to build a community in your niche around your website with the built in commenting system
  • It’s open source, which means you can have anything you want done to it, and most of the plugins for it are free
  • It’s easy to become an authority in your niche fast with a good blog
  • You can easily manage your website content without having any special skills

But there is a ton of stuff you can use WordPress for other than a normal blog, and most people never even think of theses things. Which means they’re throwing great search engine optimization and faster website exposure right out the window

Here are 6 examples of what you can use WordPress for, and the plugins to help if any are needed.

  1. A Blog - for this you really don’t have to have any plugins at all. You can just use WordPress right out of the box and you’re on your way.
  2. An Article Directory - Most people out there don’t know this, but WordPress is the perfect article directory system. Every article you enter into your WordPress article directory get’s all of the benefits of a normal blog (pinging, comments, SEO) but also has the added benefits of easier article management.There’s a great free plugin that allows you to add a article directory type style to your blog over at: http://articlesss.com/article-directory-wordpress-plugin/
  3. A Classified Site - You can take WordPress and turn it into a classified site in no time flat. Just grab the wp-classified plugin and you’re ready to go. This plugin allows you to have a classified directory right in your WordPress blog. Your visitors can selling their goods from your site, or find other people’s classifieds that interest them.Here’s the wp-classified plugin page:
    http://www.forgani.com/tools/wpclassified-plugins/
  4. A Link Directory - You can use a link directory to swap links with other websites, or just offer it as a place for people to list their websites. This is a good way to get relevant link backs to your blog to. Become an authority in your niche for a place to find links or just offer the links directory as a service to your blog members.Grab a good link directory plugin at: http://themoneymakingwebsite.com/wp-directory-list/
  5. A Salesletter For Your Product - WordPress has a feature built into it that allows you to pick a page you want to show as your home page all of the time. With this feature, you can easily create a new page in WordPress with your products salesletter on it, then make it the blogs static front page. This way no matter who visits your blogs main page, they see your salesletter.The good thing about this is, you still get all of the benefits of a normal blog because you can still do blog posts as normal, you still get all of the pinging power and people that place positive comments on your blog, are instant testimonials for you.Imagine being able to get free traffic to your new salesletter within hours of it going live online! Well, with WordPress as your salesletter you can :-)
  6. A Shopping Cart - Yes, you can turn WordPress into a shopping cart that offers multiple items for sale. And it’s built right into your WordPress blog. Think about that. Having a full blown shopping cart online with the power of WordPress behind it. It just blows your mind.You can get a free shopping cart plugin (very good plugin to) at: http://www.instinct.co.nz/e-commerce/

There’s a lot more you can do with WordPress. You just need to use your imagination.

And the really powerful thing here, is that since WordPress is open source you can literally have what ever you want programmed for you, and add it to your WordPress blog as plugin.

Use your imagination and turn your WordPress blog into something that blows your mind.

Related posts:

  1. WordPress As A Salesletter and Better SEO
  2. Turn WordPress Into A Sales and Listing Building Machine
  3. Plugin Review: WP Greet Box
  4. Five Core Plugins every WordPress Needs
About The Author: David Porter has been blogging online using Wordpress for over 3 years now and has been testing, tweaking and improving on the system as he moved forward in his blogging experiences.

{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }

Alex Schleber February 2, 2009 at 6:16 pm

Here is another novel use of Wordpress for you: Use it as a DIY redirect engine/url shortener, control your own stats/data.

http://3on.us/roll-tinyurl

Reply

matt February 9, 2009 at 4:14 pm

I’ve been using WP as a framework for years now. Whenever I need to make a site, I normally install WP. I use the user management, DB support and RSS feed components for pretty much every site… The only problem is that WP is pretty beefy…It would be nice to come out with a WP lite, with a lot of the extra stuff removed

Reply

David Porter February 12, 2009 at 3:08 am

@matt,

Wordpress is a GREAT tool for putting up what most people would consider a “normal” site. It adds a bunch of features that will only help in getting more site visitors.

A lite version of Wordpress would be cool to. Would make using Wordpress for simple sites like an optin site, a salesletter or a members only area much easier.

David

Reply

David Porter February 12, 2009 at 3:09 am

@Alex Schleber,

That’s a good example of another Wordpress use. Thanks for adding it :-)

Reply

NarceraPype February 15, 2009 at 4:33 pm

Your web page doesn’t correctly work in safari browser

Reply

David Porter February 15, 2009 at 9:07 pm

@NarceraPype

Thanks for letting me know. I’m using tables in this design. Can you take a screenshot of the site in your safari browser for me and send it to: dporter (a) wordpress-master.com so I can see exactly what it’s doing and get it fixed. Most likely a CSS/Tables issue.

Thanks again.

Reply

UNFACECIC February 17, 2009 at 12:10 am

Your are Great. And so is your site! Awesome content. Good job guys! Interesting article, adding it to my favourites!

Reply

affiliate.solutions March 7, 2009 at 9:03 pm

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Reply

Air Purifier Filters March 29, 2009 at 4:25 am

Interesting. I love the fact that I can use wordpress for creating just about any kind of site – and the fact that it’s absolutely free (with incredibly more additions each time by thousands of developers) makes it the best site building software ever. I wonder why anyone buys other site building tools when wordpress is free and is so awesome.

Reply

blogging software May 29, 2009 at 5:28 am

It is good to read interesting information on your blog. You have covered some good points. Thanks.

Reply

reviewazon June 11, 2009 at 3:32 am

Thank you so much for this post. I use the reviewazon plugin. Reviewazon is the easy and simple way to add amazon affiliate product to your website.

Reply

jon August 31, 2009 at 11:59 am

I did try the classified plugin, it did not work on my site! It does not send messages to people who made a post! So no way to contact advertisers!

Just wondering is there anything else I could try?

Reply

David Domincki June 5, 2012 at 1:21 pm

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Maybelle December 1, 2012 at 5:24 am

Very nice write-up. I definitely appreciate this website.

Thanks!

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David Porter March 8, 2009 at 11:36 pm

Hey thanks for commenting – and for sharing your info and resources.

I’ll be sure to check them out :-)

David

Reply

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