WordPress has been around for more than 16 years and continues to power many of the biggest websites on the internet.
The simple-to-use interface of WordPress along with its feature-rich web development architecture makes it super easy for both novice and professional developers to create apps in WordPress.
Thanks to its extensibility and adaptive features, WordPress can be used for creating almost every kind of website and web apps. So, whenever a new client asks us (SAG IPL team) about the most user-friendly as well as a cost-effective way for creating a website, we always recommend WordPress.
In this article, we will talk about some of the most popular types of websites/ web apps one can create with WordPress.
But, first thing first.
What is WordPress?
WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that is primarily used for developing websites. It was developed in PHP & MySQL and is open-source, which means anyone can download and use it for free.
Here’s why over 60 million websites use WordPress
- It is open-source, hence web development is affordable.
- It supports plugins for extended functionalities and features.
- It is super easy and fast to work with, comes with a user-friendly interface (dashboard).
- Creating a website with WordPress is easy and so is using the websites developed on this platform.
- It supports thousands of themes (free & paid) that are designed for multiple industries and optimized for users.
21 Types of Sites You Can Build With WordPress
1. Personal/Business Blog
Before WordPress evolved into a content management system, it was simply a blogging platform where anyone could create personal or business blogs, for free. And still, blogging remains one of the primary uses of this powerful website building tool.
Whether you want to create a free blog (with limited functionalities & features) or want a fully-featured blogging website (with support to ads, plugins, themes, etc.), WordPress is the best platform for the purpose.
2. Personal Website
Personal websites are created by individuals primarily with the purpose to maintain their personal content rather than business or official content. The purpose of these websites is not to promote any kind of business or services or products, but to tell the readers about the feelings, thoughts, interests, ideas, hobbies, etc. of a particular individual. It can be like an online diary where you can pour your heart out.
WordPress is the best platform to create such a website. And the best part is that you can choose to make it public or keep it private to specific users.
3. Business Website
A business website may have two purposes – to simply tell the readers about a company or to sell the products/services of the company. A business website can be like the online replica of your business where interested users can go to read about your brand, products/services, achievements, ongoing & future projects, team, etc. as well as avail your services.
WordPress has all the tools, plugin, and themes along with a super-intuitive web development framework, that you may need to establish a strong web presence for your business.
4. E-commerce Website
With WordPress, you can easily convert your simple business website into a powerful online shopping portal, having features like shopping carts and multiple payment gateways. It comes integrated with several powerful shopping plugins such as WooCommerce and WPEcommerce that will add advanced functionalities to your site, enabling you to sell products/services online, accept payments, provide and manage shipping, and more from the same dashboard.
5. Online Portfolio
Whether you’re a travel photographer looking to promote yourself as a brand or a freelancer looking to get more new clients by showcasing all your skills and achievement under one roof, online portfolio development with WordPress is the best solution for you.
With WordPress’s simple and visual-rich content system, you can present your work in the best manner with attractive images, engaging content and multimedia.
6. Video Site
A video hosting website is a platform which you can create for either personal or professional purpose. If you have a particular skill such as acting, dancing or singing, which you want to promote, you can create and upload your videos on your own website to build a kind of video portfolio to let the people know about your talent. The multimedia support feature of WordPress enables anyone to upload and host videos of any kind.
7. Social Networking Platform
If you’ve been dreaming of creating a social media website like Facebook or Twitter, but on a smaller scale, there is no better platform than WordPress. With WordPress’s integrated tools, resources and free social plugins such as BuddyPress you can create any kind of social networking site with ease and in no time.
8. Forum (Community site)
An online forum site is a community platform where people gather to talk about a particular thing or things in general. There are posts, called threads, and comments shared by community members. A community or forum website is a nice way to build a community of like-minded people such as your target audience to promote your business and services.
You can use a WordPress forum plugin like bbPress to create yourself a nice online discussion board.
9. Job Board
An online job board is a job listing website where people can list or find jobs relevant to them. With WordPress, you can easily create a job board of any kind for any specific niche or general job listing. If you run a business in the education or career segment, having a dedicated job portal will open new income opportunities for you.
Hire a WordPress Job Board developer now!
10. News Website
Creating a News website is all about selecting the right design. WordPress has a vast portfolio of hundreds of Magazine & News themes which you can use to create a unique looking News website. Moreover, you can use the available plugins to add specific functionalities and features to your WordPress News portal.
11. Online Directory
A business directory is a website where all the businesses in a particular industry, locality or region are listed according to categories. You can create one by using one of the free or paid WordPress plugins such as the Business Directory Plugin or CM Business Directory.
12. Question-Answer Sites
You must have often heard about or even used websites like Quora or Yahoo Answers for finding answers to any of your questions. These are called question-answer websites. QA websites are great for creating engagement and interactions within your community by allowing users to help each other by asking and answering questions. You can build a QA website with WordPress plugins such as AnsPress and DW Question and Answer
13. NonProfit Website
One of the biggest benefits of WordPress being open-source is that you can build websites in your budget. For instance, if you want to build a basic, information-based website for your non-profit or religious organization, you can do so with the WordPress framework while adding features like donation form.
14. Classifieds Site
A Classifieds site is where you can post free/paid ads and invite other users to do so. You may have obviously used sites like Craigslist or OLX for posting or checking online ads. You can create a similar website or simply add the Classified Ads section to your existing WordPress site by using a plugin like Another WordPress Classifieds.
15. Micro-Blogging Site
A Micro-Blogging Site is a type of blog where new updates or posts are published in the form of instant messages or short messages. Twitter is a popular example of that. With WordPress user roles, you can allow other users of your site to post new updates as well, just like Twitter.
You can get yourself a nice micro-blog by hiring a professional WordPress development company.
16. Coupon Website
A coupon website is where online shoppers and buyers can find available coupons or discount offers on specific products and services. You can start such a website by simply using a free or paid theme like Clipper (https://www.wpbeginner.com/refer/clipper-theme/).
If you already have a WordPress site to which you want to add the Coupons section, you can do so by using the Coupon Creator (https://wordpress.org/plugins/coupon-creator/) plugin.
17. Review Sites
A review website is where users read or share reviews about a particular product service. It can be about a movie booking website, about a shopping site or anything else. In order to create a review site with WordPress or add the review functionality to your existing site, you can use one of the available plugins. ProReview, InReview, WE Review, and WP Reviews are some of your options.
18. Wiki Websites
The thing about Wiki sites is that they are strictly information-based. You can create and use such a site for imparting knowledge to your audience in a particular niche.
In order to create a free Wiki website with WordPress, you can use any of the free plugins, from Wiki Lite, Encyclopedia Lite, Pencil Wiki, Welcome WikiLite, Simple TOC, etc.
19. Online Teaching/Course Website
Creating and selling online courses is one of the most profitable and zero-investment business opportunities you can get in today. If you master a particular subject, you can start selling your online course or classes to those who want to learn it. All you need is a website where you can list and sell your courses, and what’s a better way than WordPress to create one.
With free WordPress plugins like CoursePress and LifterLMS, you can create your digital classroom to provide quality education anywhere and at any time.
20. Affiliate Website
Similar to a coupon website, you can also create a dedicated Affiliate website to promote and sell products/services on behalf of another website that will pay you a commission for each new lead/sale you send their way. Amazon’s affiliate program has been quite popular among affiliates.
With free/paid plugins and themes by WordPress, you can easily create your own Amazon Affiliate Store and start selling products for a commission.
21. Events Website
Having a dedicated website for your event management business will pay in terms of increased popularity and ROI. Your event website will not only help get you more leads online but also it will provide a one-in-all platform for potential users to find out about your business, make bookings, and contact for inquiries.
WordPress makes it easy to build event websites with its ready-made themes such as Everline (Wedding Events).
Conclusion
The thing I like the most about WordPress is that it is very easy to use and understand which enables even non-professional developers and businessmen to build their websites in WordPress. While it is a perfect web development tool for startups and entrepreneurs due to low cost and great features, it is equally appealing for building enterprise web apps because of the high-end plugins and extensions.
We hope you’ve found this article helpful and now have a fair enough idea of the kind of websites you can build on WordPress. If you need any more help or want to hire a dedicated WordPress developer, please contact us right away.
