WordPress is very well known for its ability to craft highly engaging blogging websites. However, thanks to the thousands of plugins and themes, It can be sculpted into any type. This is why many will use WordPress for a website even without blogging content.
Due to all of these additional features and tools, WordPress can be used to create amazing non-blog websites. Of course, this raises the question, what is a non-blog website?
Some great examples are online stores, portfolios, small business sites, and much more. In reality, anything is possible with WordPress. Truly the only limiting factor is your imagination.
Create Any Kind of Page
What allows WordPress to create just about any type of website is its flexibility with overall web pages themselves. But, what are some of the pages that you need?
By default, WordPress wants to place your blog as the homepage, but that doesn’t work well for a non-blog website. Instead, you will need to start by creating a homepage.
This is a page that introduces your website to the visitor. It would explain what your site offers, how it works, special offers, member login, and other basic, but important information. Its goal is to inform visitors and get them interested in what you offer.
However, if you are looking to drive traffic, you should also create a landing page. A landing page is a page specifically designed to draw in customers. These are often used to sell goods, services, and highlight special offers to visitors.
A good landing page can dramatically increase the amount of traffic your website receives, which is ideal for any site.
Another key concept to understand is the difference between a WordPress static and dynamic page. A static page is one that essentially stays the same. While a dynamic page is one that can change regularly.
Dynamic pages are easily updated which makes it less expensive for businesses. This is because you need to create a new static page every time, whereas, you can simply add new content to a dynamic page.
Disabling WordPress Blog Features
Be default, WordPress is intended to create blogs and it does an excellent job at it. However, some of these features can be problematic for a non-blog website.
Thus, you are going to have to disable a few of them. Luckily, it isn’t hard to do.
Begin by installing the Disable Blog plugin. As the name implies, it simply disables the blog features in WordPress.
Just by installing this plugin, your website should be free of all of the main blogging features in WordPress. However, it does not delete any data. Thus, if you are just trying to test it, it shouldn’t impact your website.
Note: If you decide to disable it, you will need to go into Settings->Reading and select what will be used as the home page. The plugin will deselect whatever you had selected already.
Something else worth mentioning is that it does not disable comments. If you would like them disabled as well, I recommend the Disable Comments plugin.
Pick A Non-Blog Theme
These have the power to shape how your website looks. And as you might imagine on the most popular blogging CMS, most of the themes are made with blogging in mind.
You need to make sure that you select a WordPress non-blog theme. And, of course, there are plenty to choose from.
Here are 5 WordPress themes without blog features to help you get started with your search.
Responsive
Responsive is a great theme to choose for an online store. And considering that stores are the most common type of non-blog websites, odds are this is what you are looking for.
It offers over 150 customization options to allow you to make this theme fit your needs.
GeneratePress
GeneratePress is a great all-in-one theme. It is fully customizable, which means it can be used for anything WordPress can do.
The theme was designed to be lightweight and fast with a focus on usability and performance.
WooCommerce Storefront
WooCommerce Storefront is one of the best themes you can use if you plan on using the WooCommerce plugin.
Both are developed by the same development team and, as you would expect, they are fully compatible with each other.
TextBook
The TextBook theme is an excellent choice for any website focused on education.
It allows you to make a professional layout with plenty of customization options tailored to an educational website’s needs.
New York Business
The New York Business theme is an excellent choice for those looking to craft an online portfolio. It is also ideal for any small business looking to create an online presence.
This is because it is styled to be professional, which is exactly what you need.
Picking the Perfect Plugins
Now, you just need to install some plugins to give your website the features it needs. Obviously, different types of websites will need different types of plugins, so I will try to pick ones that every website should have.
Yoast SEO
No matter what type of WordPress website you create, you need to have good SEO practices. Yoast SEO is one of the most popular of all SEO plugins. It provides feedback on both the SEO and readability of your content.
The plugin is extremely useful when creating new pages. In particular, every website should have a landing and home page. Yoast can help you out on both of these while also providing other benefits like automatically creating a sitemap.
Wordfence Security
Similar to needing good SEO practices, you always need to have a good security plugin. Without a doubt, Wordfence Security is one of the best options available for WordPress.
The plugin was built from the ground up to guard WordPress against malicious threats and it does an excellent job at it. And the best part is it does this for free.
WooCommerce
If you are planning on running an online shop, WooCommerce is the ultimate one-stop-shop for you. It has absolutely everything you need to do business online and it comes with a lot of extension plugins that can help you customize how it works.
When it comes to WordPress, WooCommerce has a whopping 93.72% market share, which makes it the most popular e-commerce plugin available.
Akismet Anti-Spam
If you plan to use a lot of submission forms or just have them in general, your going to need a way to stop spam. While most use Akismet Anti-Spam to block spam comments in their blogs, that is just one of its many uses.
It’s other primary features protect your website from spam from a variety of sources and let me assure you, spambots love any type on a submission form.
bbPress
If you are looking to add forums to your website, you’re absolutely going to want to use bbPress. This plugin adds this feature to your website without slowing it down as similar plugins do.
Forums are a terrific addition to almost any type of website. They allow you to communicate with visitors and customers. But even more importantly, they allow them to talk with each other. This can help you build a strong community faster than normal.
Your Website Should Still Have A Blog
I understand you are probably here to learn tips on how to use WordPress without a blog, but they offer quite a few benefits that are hard to dismiss.
For starters, having blog content just makes you look more knowledgable on the subject. Never underestimate the value of looking like an expert.
Blog content can also help you rank higher on search engines like Google. The content is simple to create and since it is your opinion on the matter, you have full flexibility on what you produce.
The extra traffic your blogs draw in can help any business grow faster and it is a great way to introduce visitors to your products or services as well.
Just a Start
Without a doubt, picking out themes and plugins that help you use WordPress without having a blog is important, but it’s just a start. You still have a long way to go when it comes to actually design your website.
You will need to ensure that your website has a consistent color scheme, loads fast, and actually works. Oh, and don’t forget new content. Even if you’re not operating a blog, regular updates are important.
Why don’t you want to have a blog section in WordPress? How do you plan to use WordPress for a website?