There are a two types of websites where WordPress is a match made in heaven, besides your typical blog. They are marketing and eCommerce sites. There is also a third type of website that WordPress is a surprisingly good match for, directory websites, and while I wouldn’t call it a match made in heaven, it’s pretty close. The rest of this post will explain why.
Spoiler alert: it’s the plugins.
Marketing Sites
A marketing website is a website that serves mainly to provide information. Marketing websites might have a blog section and a few independent pages. A marketing website’s purpose is to get the user to take some kind of action so they typically have at least one call to action like a contact form, newsletter sign up or collect donations.
The different parts of a marketing website is usually not self contained to just WordPress. You might use a payment service like Stripe to collect payments, Convertkit to send email newsletters, or Fathom for analytics. Because WordPress is so widely used, a lot of SaaS (software as a service) companies have created plugins to integrate their services into your website in a much simpler way.
This lets you leverage the power of a specialised SaaS offering while still publishing and owning your own content on your WordPress website.
And because your website is still yours, you have the option to add even more functionality to your website. Adding a contact form is a matter of installing and configuring a quality form plugin. Or if you want to add a paid membership feature to your marketing website then you can do that as well.
This leads us to the next point.
eCommerce
By using the proper plugins, WordPress can be used and is great for eCommerce websites of all kinds. A quick Google search of ‘eCommerce with WordPress’ will bring up WooCommerce.
WooCommerce is the gold standard plugin for turning your store into an eCommerce shop, especially for physical goods. But there are also a few niche plugins that are for more specialised services. I’ll list a few:
- Easy Digital Downloads is great for selling digital products
- Memberful is a SaaS that integrates nicely to create membership websites
- LearnDash can be used to create and sell online courses.
By leveraging plugins and the integrations, you can build a really successful online store.
Directories
I was once asked to build a directory website for work. Surprisingly, WordPress makes for a really good platform for creating directories like a real estate website or job listings thanks to plugins like Hivepress.
The way WordPress structures it’s data in the back end works quite well for how a someone might want to manage a directory website. User management also comes built in. This means that you could even go a more customised route to turn WordPress into an excellent directory website.
There you have it
So there you have it, three types of websites that WordPress is an excellent match for. Each of these are in different industries and have different designs, which really proves how flexible WordPress can be. If you have your own WordPress project in mind and need some help or advice then please reach out. I would love to help you.