18 Alternative Ways To Use WordPress
Table of Contents
Hello Everyone,
Wordpress is by far the best CMS system out there, you can do so many different things with it, from running a job board site to a CSS gallery. Today I wanted to showcase some of the best alternative ways to using WordPress and prove that it can be so much more than just a blog. The great thing about WordPress is it’s so easy to use, in fact I would go as far as saying it’s idiot proof because all you have to do is fill in fields and your page is done. This is why so many other people use it as there platform for other type websites, such as Membership Sites, Review Sites and Portfolio Websites. I hope you enjoy the list and let me know how your online business has benefited from WordPress.
WordPress e-Commerce
This plugin makes WordPress into a really neat online store. Most online stores are bulky, expensive and complicated, not this one, it’s simple and free, just like WordPress itself!
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WishList Member
WishList Member is the fastest way to turn a WordPress site into a full Membership Site. And if you buy now, you get a free copy of “Crush It”.
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WP Review Site
This plugin enables you to turn your WordPress website into a fully functional review site. At the moment there is a special introductory price of only $97.
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BB Press
This is a WordPress forum plugin from the creators of WordPress. Its free to download, and handles any task you throw at it.
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WordPress Wiki
WordPress Wiki is a theme for WordPress that turns it into a lightweight wiki without all the complications. It also has a FAQ plugin built into it.
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Portfolio Blog
This is an extraordinary WordPress theme that enables you to have a full single page portfolio layout that runs entirely on WordPress. And its only $25.
Another recommended portfolio theme plugin is YourFolio and Modern Portfolio.
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WordPress Gallery
There are so many galleries out on the internet. Gallery Pro is a WordPress Theme that allows you to change your blog into a gallery. Another cool gallery theme for WordPress is Showcase Theme.
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JobPress
JobPress integrates a job board into your WordPress website. It comes with all the features you would expect from a professional job board software, but half the price. This plug-in could be used as a standalone website or as a great additional way to monetize your blog, I will be using this plug-in on one of my sites very soon!
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WP Contact Manager
WP Contact Manager is a low priced WordPress theme that turns your site into a contact book.
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OneNews
OneNews is a WordPress theme that allows you to easily create a single-page news aggregator such as PpoURL’s or Alltop within a few clicks.
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Classipress
This is a WordPress theme that turns your WordPress website into a classified ads site. They call it Craigslist for WordPress.
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Article Directory
Here is a neat WordPress build for an article directory website. This article directory plugin has many different features, and is free to download!
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Video Site
Ever wanted to have your own video trailer site? Video Flick is a low priced video trailer theme for WordPress.
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WordPress Multi-User
WordPress Multi-User (MU for short) is a blog tool and publishing platform that allows you to run thousands of WordPress blogs with one single install of WordPress. A great way to built your own Blogspot/Wordpress.com style website, I personally have used this to build a niche travel site, offering all customers a blog so they can share their experiences with friends and family back home.
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BuddyPress
BuddyPress is a huge mix of WordPress plugins and themes, to run a social network based on WordPress MU.
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WordPress CMS
With the Arthemia theme, you can run it like a content management system, rather than a blog.
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P2 Theme
The P2 theme is like twitter in a box. Great theme for companys or organisations to stay up to date with what everyone is doing, all in one place.
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Digg Clone
This plugin adds voting functionality for posts. This function is similar to Reddit or Digg, in that visitors can vote for and against.
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When I began to research for different ways to using WordPress, I soon realised that I could be doing a lot more to improve my website. For example I could use the Wiki theme for a Wikipedia area on any blogging FAQ people have and I could add a job board for those looking for web design work to be done for their blog.
I hope you enjoyed today’s post.
To Our Success,
Michael Dunlop
PS. What’s your goal for your blog? is it to share knowledge or are you using it in a different way to most others?
About Michael Dunlop
I'm Michael, I created this site back in 2009 and since then it's received over a million visitors from all around the world. We offer tutorials and inspiration for online entrepreneurs wanting to achieve more.
77 comments so far… Leave a reply
Shane Hudson
Very good list of wordpress cms examples! It is so true, wordpress is not used creatively enough!
Tom - StandOutBlogger.com
Very cool list! Really gets you thinking about alternate ways to make money online.
Designium
Nice post. My website (blog) is for being active on my spare time with design stuff :D
Nice ideas
Cool WP features
Cosmin
So true, WordPress can handle almost any idea (though some complex things aren't easily achievable) I've also used WP on my site, as it is sooo easy to run a gallery & a blog together.
Marian
Great list, now I know what to do with some of my domains! :-) Thanks. Marian
befashionlike the fashion blog
Hi, Thanks for this selection sorry for my bad english i'm french I use the Video Site theme for my fashion blog, and for october i thnk to reach 30000 visit and 90 000 pages view. I have launch the blog in july!! Wordpress is the best to make money easely
Marc Falk
Great post! I love Wordpress and this post surely shows why.
Rob
Love your list Michael. Especially your comment on WPMU caught my eye. With the upcoming merger of WP and WPMU it makes even more sense to look at WPMU. Compatibility is still an issue though, but what worries me more is how the search engines will adapt to WPMU. How will they treat a one man band like me, starting up a WPMU blog hosting others. Or me consolidating all my WP sites into one WPMU site. I see a lot of unfair de-indexing penalties for alleged blogfarming happening.
Umer Hayat
always a great post. It was something that I ever dreamed to find such thing at one place and you did it. Thanks Micheal
Kyle
WP is in my opinion by far the best open source CMS, blog and MU platform at this time. It's extremely simple to integrate it into any website and allow your clients or users to use its default UI to preform their required actions. Anyone who hasn't tried WP as a CMS, blog or MU platform might just want to try it ;) You may never go back to your old methods. Plus the support on WP is soo unreal! (If anyone knows of another platform apart from Drupal or Joomla that could rival WP then by all means please let me know, thanks)
Heinrich Hattingh
Awesome Post! Been looking for some of these for a while now. Great website BTW.
Muzi Mohale
Wow Michael, you're opened up opportunities for generating extra revenue especially with the JobPress theme which I'm going to be integrating on my blog. No wonder WordPress is so popular it breaks new ground all the time.
Jasmine
Thank you so much for this post. It will be very valuable to me an my group especially because we are reconstructing our blog-based website.
Marketing Infowrangler
Wow, who knew there were more ways to use WordPress than just for a mediocre, low-traffic blog like mine!
Johnluffa
Thanks sharing these tips and tools. I am really interested in the membership and the Job board tool.. Great Stuff
Sameer
amazing list Micheal never knew we could actually use wordpress for so many different types of sites and applications, would definitely give some of them a try. specially the job boards and the review sites. thanks a load!
James Ballard
Hopefully WP will keep getting better and not get replaced by the "next best thing"
Karen
Great information Michael, I always enjoy the content on your blog, I will be sure to add some of these plugins to my blogs. Thanks Again!
Bianca
Really helpful post!
Chuck Smith
Very cool post. There were a few of these plugins/themes that I wasn't aware of, especially the uses for WPMU. Thanks for sharing, and I'll let my folks know about this post. Regards, Chuck
David
I am in the process of updating my blog and so am very greatful to you for posting these 18 killer selections. I have also just subcribed to your blog for further updates. Great post.
khalid
cool list, i would love to start video site feature in my wordpress site, lets see.
Maricel
Wordpress is really impressive. I don't think that there's really a need to learn how to use other content management systems. It seems that wordpress has a plugin or a theme for everything.
Will
Michael, I had been looking for a few of these the past few weeks but was having trouble finding exactly the right fit. I was pleasantly surprised when I read this post and saw the exact thing I was looking to implement. Thanks, Will
tony ramirez
Wow!! theres is so much you can do!
Teen Blogger
Great list. This is going to be bookmarked for sure. I hope WP continue creating new and imprpved plugins and products.
ProMomBlogger
this article is cool. I really like the Wiki part of the site and would like to install that for sure on my site (WP Thesis hosted on the root). I personally love the Simple:Press Forum better because I can upload plugins and it's so easy to install. I also like the Digg Voting site as well. I need to look into why it cost $97 for a "star rating" feature when you could get another plugin similar for free? Here's you your success too!
TradeProfits
I have recently bought WP Review Site which is a great plugin. However, if some of you are thinking about paying $97 for it, you might want to look into this free version first called GD site rating.. It has more options and it is free
Paul
Great post Michael, thank you for sharing this.
Danny Ethridge
Michael, you have done an excellent job of researching and posting all of this information. A tip of the hat to you sir. I will post a link to this page on my site! Again, thanks! Danny Internet Marketing Toolman
TiagoJMonteiro
Nice post, Michael. But is it possible to have some pages of the same website with a certain theme, while still having some other pages with other themes?
Mike
Thanks for the effort of sharing the list. I didn't really know that wordpress can do so much until I read your post. I was just using it as a blog and Cms , but now I have a lots of ideas and enough for me to get myself busy. Thanks again for the sharing.
Lex Garey
Your list is fantastic. It blows my mind that there are even more alternatives than what you've listed. It's truly amazing that one platform has so much power. Wordpress is the holy grail of CMS. Keep up the inspirational work!
Brad West
Looking at the gallery to purchase. Got to work a few things out in my head about what I want to do. Probably go around and round for a couple days. Great list though, it is worthy of a book mark for sure. Thanks Brad West ~ onomoney
Alena
Thank you, this is a great post. I'm just starting a new blog in a niche market and need all the tips I can get, especially about Wordpress as I want to host it there.. :)
Arena Creative Stock Photography
Wow, so many plugins - so little time!
Richard
I'm not tech savvy person. I've been using Wordpress for 3 years now for selling cars online. Very user-friendly.
dan
Great post Michael! JobPress sounds like it's worth a look.
Delighted
BEST post i have seen in a while, I want to use all of these! great work, you did your homework I can tell... thanks Michael
sergi
thanks a lot!!
Muzi Mohale
I've sent the guys from JobPress and WishList a question about PayPal as a payment option and I've yet to get feedback after 2 days. Being based in South Africa I cannot receive funds through PayPal, therefore wanted to find it if I could replaced PayPal with another credit card service provider? Would also be interested to know, if the membership theme can run a dating website?
SalStabler
Great list michael, i've personally used the OneNews WP, which has worked very well for my other blog projects.
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Anchorage Ak
Great list micheal.. thank you for this, maybe I can start making some money now from a couple of my dead domains.
A.Sinclair
Very nice selection you have here. I am off to check out a couple of them. Thanks
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[...] So go ahead, find your neglected domain(s) and set up a site. And here’s a great post to get some inspiration: 18 Alternative Ways To Use Wordpress [...]
Kevin Byrd
this is a great post. thanks it gave me some more ideas and I will also repost your link in FB
Gary Parenti
Hello Michael, Income Diary popped up on my Buzz Software.This looks like another great post as usual.CYA To Your Success, Gary,
Colorado Springs Real Estate by Kathy Torline
Great article -- made me rethink about the domain names that I'm not using and how I can use Wordpress for them. Another thing to add to my ever growing list of things to do.
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