WordPress is a blogging platform, but did you know you can build just about any type of website with it? That’s right, you can!
In this article, I’m going to go over six of the most common ways you can customize WordPress to suit your needs.
Let me begin by saying WordPress is first and foremost a blogging platform. That’s what it was created for back in 2003 so it’s optimized for that purpose. It’s through the use of plugins that you can extend WordPress to create one of the website types were going through discuss.
The type of website you choose will depend on the type of business you have and how you want to present your content. There are six basic types of websites. Website types can be combined. For example, a photographer could have a portfolio website where visitors could purchase prints of the photos.
Blog / Vlog
Although we already covered that WordPress is a blog, I thought I’d take a moment to define what a blog is. A blog is a collection of articles, or posts, centered around a particular topic. Blogs allow an individual or a small company to show their knowledge and expertise in their field, or whatever their interest is, which helps attract traffic to the site.
A vlog is simply the video version of a blog. Some vlogs include the video with the transcript printed below as a blog post like I did here. First, having the script on the page helps the search engines index and rank your post. Second, a user may want to just skim through to find something rather than have to watch the whole video. Third, you’ll want to upload your transcript with your video onYouTube to rank better there.
No matter what kind of site you build, including a blog or vlog on your website is an excellent way to attract new clients or customers.
Ecommerce
This is a direct sales site. You list your products or services, and visitors can purchase them directly. There’s really. It much more for me to say about it. WooCommerce is the most popular e-commerce plugin for WordPress.
Portfolio
A website to show off your previous work. Or you can create a portfolio type website to show a list of items that share similar characteristics. Examples include real estate, members, employees, or anything where you might define specific information about each item. With a plugin, you can create a template so that each item in the listing group contains information and displays uniformly on you web pages.
Membership
A membership or community site can be free or paid. It might start as a blog and evolve into a private community for people who share a similar interest. If you’re selling courses or coaching a membership site is a way to provide extra features and benefits for your clients and students.
Landing Page
A landing page is one-page website. It could be a simple page with the pertinent info for your business so you can be found on the internet and contacted. A landing page could also be a sales page for a specific item you want to feature.
Marketing Funnel
A marketing funnel is a type of landing page. Typically, you would use paid advertising to drive traffic to the page which may be offering something free for an email address or an item for purchase. Once people opt-in to the funnel, they’ll be on your email list where you’d be able to make other offers. Often there is a second offer made on the thank-you page for the initial opt-in. On this tripwire page, it’s customary to offer some special deal on one of your premium, but inexpensive, products or services to segment out the hot leads in your funnel.
There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to creating a website. What’s important is the website meet the needs of the business. Understanding the different types of websites will help give you clarity when it comes time to plan your next website.
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