WordPress is an open source website creation tool. It is an easy to access and powerful blogging and website content management system. Mainly, it is a platform you can use to develop and maintain website with rudimentary knowledge of coding. Over the years. As a wordpress web developer in Sydney, I have watched WordPress establish itself into a platform that not only serves as a blogging tool but also provides a diverse variety of applications for innovative website features. Here is a list of things you can do with WordPress apart from blogging:
Build a Social Network
WordPress can also serve as a social networking site which can be done through self-hosted WordPress. WordPress actually proves to be a great tool that helps to reach your niche audience through the plugins such as BuddyPress. BuddyPress allows your visitors to sign up, create profiles and share messages that strikes an interaction with your audience. There are over 330 plugins to download available in many languages - so whatever type of community you envision for your online tribe - there’s a wordpress plugin for that!
E-commerce Store
The WordPress platform can also be converted into an actual e-commerce site. One of the most popular ways to monetize your site is through WooCommerce. Being a customizable plugin, WooCommerce also gives you the ability to keep the track of stock levels, incoming sales and reviews. WooCommerce comes with payment gateways that can help you it take care of all your online business needs on a single platform.
Image Gallery
Another way you can utilize WordPress is by using it as an Image Gallery. The Next-Gen-gallery plugin is the motherload of all plugins for photo management in WordPress. It allows for the uploading of an entire .zip file with pictures and also boasts an integrated flash slideshow functionality. Plus, this plugin has the ability to manage a number of pictures that than be sorted and categorized within the gallery itself. WordPress provides complete control of galleries displayed per page and you can also control how the galleries are shown from size of the images to specific attributes.
Start A Forum
WordPress can also serve as a platform for forum discussions to increase engagement. As a discussion forum is still one of the greatest avenues for user generated content, it may be worth your while to ask your wordpress developer to build this functionality into your website. Simple Press Forum is a great plugin that allows you to create an entire discussion forum within WordPress itself. Another plugin available is WordPress Forum that helps to create a full-fledged forum within your site.
Considering the above suggestions for unconventional wordpress use, we can safely agree that WordPress is much more than just a blogging platform. It delivers multiple functionalities that can be utilized to generate solid conversions. In fact, if you want to create an affiliate marketing website, WordPress offers many dedicated solutions for that as well.