5 Things You Didn’t Know Were Possible With WordPress (Part 1)

Anyone who’s been trawling the Internet in the last decade has at least heard of the word ‘blogging’ concerning WordPress, and indeed WordPress was originally meant to be a platform for bloggers. That WordPress took on a life of its own and grew into the CMS that powers a huge chunk of the online world is history at this point.

Being your friendly neighborhood WordPress agency for development, we figured out we could tell you all the ways in which WordPress can be …well, more than just a blog. So, that’s exactly what you’ll be reading about in this two-part series.

WordPress – the Social Network

Are you a genius developer and an ivy league dropout? Congratulations, you can probably skip this section. If you’re not any of those, however, you’re like the rest of us regular folks who don’t have the coding chops to build a social network all by ourselves. Thankfully, all you need is WordPress.

WordPress has a variety of plugins available that can help you create the network you have in mind. From BuddyPress, which can do DMs, news feeds, detailed user profiles, groups, you name it, to PeepSo, or WP Symposium which even supports multiple languages. Add to this the fact that you can find any number of WordPress themes that complete the social network package.

WordPress – the Framework

If you haven’t heard of the WordPress REST API before, you’ll be pleased to know that it is a complete framework available for web app development. Features such as themes, database URL mapping, media uploading and management, an intuitive admin dashboard, and lots more making sure WordPress is a smart choice when you’re trying to create a web application.

WordPress-based Forums

While creating a social network might be a big step for most WordPress users, a forum is both easier to build and a closer-knit community, regardless of the kind of brand presence you wish to nurture with users. A user-facing forum can be a great place for interaction, idea-sharing, and feedback, and you might even end up inspiring brand influencers.

bbPress is a plugin that lets you use the open-source PHP-based bbPress forum application to create simple but customizable forums, and the bbPress website showcases quite a few brands that have created such forums. Other plugins like wpForo or Asgaros can also be used to add and integrate a forum to your website in WordPress, and all without any need to code it from scratch.

Games

We kid you not, this is an actual thing on WordPress – games that you can include in your website, from basic browser arcade games to classics like Tetris to multiplayer games. Plugins like MyArcadePlugin add a fun distraction for your visitors. Much like how FarmVille brought a lot of users to Facebook in the early years, a small game on your website can drive traffic and help keep your visitors on the website longer.

Do be careful to stay on brand, though, and ensure that the game doesn’t affect more important metrics like page load time or overall performance. A better idea would be to talk to your WordPress agency for development and get their inputs as well before taking the leap.

WordPress Multisite

If you’ve ever wanted to build your empire of websites that are unified by a common philosophy but cater to different audiences, or you just have a lot of website ideas but the task of building them looks daunting, look no further. One WordPress installation is all you need, and this little trick goes by the name of WordPress Multisite – you’re welcome. This makes it so that you can use just one login, and centrally store your plugins and themes, without having to duplicate them and make your site(s) sluggish.

What to expect?

That brings us to the end of the first part of this series on ways to use your WordPress as more than just a blog or regular old website. We hope you’ll find these ideas and plugins useful, and we’ll meet you next time with 5 more things WordPress wasn’t created for but handles with ease.

More on The Topic

• Building a Secure WordPress Ecosystem for Enterprise Applications
• Maximizing WordPress Site Performance with Advanced Optimization Techniques
• Creating Compelling Narratives with WordPress Storytelling Features
• Next-Gen WordPress: Trends in Custom Development for Future-Ready Websites
• Scaling WordPress for Enterprise: Overcoming Common Challenges

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