If you are here, I bet you’re going to learn at least one new thing from this article!

This post lists just a portion of a lot of things that one can do with WordPress. I believe WordPress is going to go beyond boundaries in a good way and that should be it. Beside being used a blogging platform, WordPress is capable of a lot of other things, functionalities and features. Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress told, according to a survey, 69% of WordPress users use it as a CMS, 20% chose it as a hybrid blog/CMS, only 6% as a blog and 7% for an app platform.

WordPress now runs 18.9% of the web — up 2.2% from last year. #wcsf #sotw

— WordCamp SF (@WordCampSF) July 27, 2013

Majority of users use it as a content management system, which is a system used to manage content on the web. Though WordPress is popularly known as a blogging platform, but evolved to be a CMS over years. Shall we dive now?

#1 Build a Coupon Website

Those who think of WordPress as just a blogging platform, think again. WordPress is a content management system and holds the capability to do amazing things beyond pure “blogging” thing. Building a coupon website using WordPress can be done within minutes. The fact that WordPress is an open source script welcomes developers to contribute by developing plugins and themes. That’s why we always have a plugin to perform a particular function.

#2 Let’s Build a Discussion Forum

bbPress is a forum script. It does also have a plugin that allows a WordPress site to be turned into a discussion forum. Installing and activating this plugin will create a new forum page into a separate directory. You can add this directory link to your navigation and let visitors easily access this page through navigation menu. It is known for its ease of use and for being lightweight.

For those of you, looking to know what a bbPress discussion board looks like, here are a few examples:

1. Dall’Uva Italian Forums
2. ACF Forums
3. Mojo Themes Forums
4. More.

Examples mentioned above are no doubt demonstrating intelligent use of bbPress and WordPress. These sites have integrated bbPress plugin. Example #1 i.e. Dall’Uva has self-hosted WordPress, integrated with bbPress, further has an eCommerce store aside. That’s what we call the real use of WordPress.

#3 Create a Portfolio Website

There are hundreds of marketers, programmers — you name it — and artists in general, who do not have their portfolios set up online. Digital world is ever-expanding, and there’s no ‘perfect time’ to get on the board. If you’re a creator of things, do good work and want the world to see it — getting your portfolio online is the way to go! There are many web services which allow web designers, artists, programmers, etc. to set their custom portfolio page via their website. Behance (by Adobe), Dribbble and the likes are there to help.

But.. wait! Separate website is better

But having a separate website either solely for purpose of showcasing your work or otherwise is great for leaving an impression over prospect clients/employers. What do you say? I don’t find anything wrong that way! The bad thing about showcasing your hard-done work at a third-party website is that there is clear competition. Now that your prospect client/employer is finally seeing your work, you certainly wouldn’t want him to get distracted by others’ work, or do you? That’s why portfolio website is a better option.

#4 Build a Photo Gallery Website

A lot of photo gallery websites are there running on WordPress script. The fact that they’re leveraging WordPress like hell is hardly known to most. If you’re a professional photographer, there are WordPress themes available to turn a site into a photo gallery kind of experience. This is the solid way for photographers to showcase their work. Now that you’ve worked hard to get that snap from your favorite angle, it’s time to present it to your audience in a good way.

#5 How about a Directory Website?

An online web directory is not a search engine, does not list websites by keywords; instead it lists websites by categories and subcategories. The websites listed there are usually not crawled by search engines and put there by humans manually. Before search engines even existed, directories were there to help users get relevant information and find specific websites. There are niche-focused directories available too, meaning the kind of directories that feature a particular list of websites like a directory for shopping sites.

Creating a directory website is not something that general population might be interested into, but I listed this anyway as it is one of the untypical and lesser-known uses of WordPress.

#6 Classifieds Website with WordPress

Classifieds are a form of advertisements usually found in either online or offline newspapers. These are short advertisements as they are charged by line. These are cheaper ads, typically by individuals willing to buy or sell something. Advertisements in a classified paper are arranged by categories like “For sell — Kitchen“, “Wanted — Opportunities“; hence, such a paper has come be to named as a classified.

There are publications both online and offline with a section/page particularly assigned to contain classified ads, also newspapers solely for this purpose. For newspaper websites with classified as a feature, WordPress has got great tools to help.

#7 Build a Review Website

I see a good amount of review websites and they earn a great deal of money by simply writing reviews about products they have and bought and used (though not necessarily). Although, this requires investment in first place, but is definitely good for long-term income.

Put yourself in a shopper’s shoes — You’re deciding to add that web hosting service to your cart, you’re spending hard-earned money. You certainly wouldn’t want to be disappointed by the performance of this product, later. Hence you research about the product and try to know about this product by reading reviews. That’s how it works!

#8 Need a Membership Website?

Member-specific websites are created to give users certain access to content, website in part or in whole. Such websites typically offer subscription plans for users to choose from. Creating a membership website using WordPress is almost same as is using WordPress for pure blogging. One just uses a plugin/theme providing specific features that help in maintaining the site.

Often we are encountered with clients who want the type of websites which does not give a particular product of theirs to users unless they perform a given action like subscribing to their email list. Membership website is what they are referring to.

#9 Set up Store Online

Real world is great, after all it’s real. It makes people connect, shop and all that face-to face. But as virtual world is making things easier than ever. And, a lot of people who someday used to run their business in real are now gradually shifting themselves to the online world. Just like in real world, they need a store. A store is a place where a product is sold, you know. So the people need stores.

An eCommerce website is that store. It is a functional website with a shopping cart built-in, you can add items available to the cart, check out, pay and get your thing. If you’re new to WordPress, have business offline already or want to sell product(s), you will need an eCommerce website.

#10 Start Aggregation Website

Want to create an aggregation website that aggregates content from various websites on a topic or otherwise and present in one place? Yes, you can do that via WordPress. What Reddit, Digg and their likes do? They aggregate content! They have certainly grown over years, have many great things aimed. But their basic foundational task is to aggregate. WordPress, again, has got tools to turn a website into an aggregator.

#11 A Business Website? YES!

By default WordPress shows blog posts being posted on homepage in a reverse chronological manner. That’s changeable. A lot of websites running on WordPress have done this and for better user-experience or something turned their homepages into landing pages. Just a little configuration in the Reading section via Settings tab, and you have a static page as your homepage. Read this guide to learn more about this.

Utilizing the wild powers of HTML, CSS and PHP you can create a very beautiful static web page. Or, if what I said in last sentence got you into frustration, don’t worry there are plugins to design a beautiful page. Premise, a landing page designing plugin by Copyblogger Media, LLC., is one among those plugins.

#12 Start a Video-Sharing Website

WordPress is a Content Management System, I emphasize. Content management system is a medium of managing content (be it video, images or plain text) on a website. That’s why it goes beyond what a blogging platform like Blogger can. Among other things that one can do with WordPress is that one can build a video-sharing website using WordPress.

All it takes is a WordPress theme. Yep.

Conclusion

Ah, I’m tired now. It took me a couple of hours to put together this information and it’s worth it. There’s a lot of functionality and features that can be added to a website with the use of WordPress script. All one needs is creative use of themes and plugins available. I love WordPress, and will say that again and again. It has allowed millions of individuals to be able to contribute to the development of Web in infinite ways.

Time for lunch!