WordPress is one of the world’s best content management systems. It has become a juggernaut that can help you create a stunning website that will put your company’s visibility on par with other internet giants like Google and Facebook. Even with its growth, WordPress is still seen by many as just an online blogging tool. True, WordPress did begin humbly as a platform for bloggers, but its functionality has vastly expanded since then. Let’s take a closer look at some things you may not have realized about WordPress.
Sell Services or Goods Online
WordPress has made it easy to sell products and services on their platform with WooCommerce. WooCommerce is the most popular e-commerce plugin by far and allows for the creation of an online store that can be used to sell a number of different products. It can easily be integrated with popular payment gateways like PayPal or Stripe and premium extensions allow shipping through couriers like FedEx, UPS, and USPS.
You can perform check and bank transfers, manage inventory, and track your store performance with Google Analytics to make sure your online store is giving your business maximum value. Enough really can’t be said about the functionality and ease of WooCommerce, it is in part responsible for the exponential growth of WordPress. Music, videos, or books can easily be sold with WooCommerce by setting product type to digital download and users will be able to access previous purchases with login setup on site. Digital downloads will allow you to accept multiple payment types, limit number of allowed downloads, and track download activity on specific products.
Live Chat
In an age where customers want instant solutions, WordPress allows you to enable live chat with customers. Not only does live chat enhance your customer service, but it also presents sales opportunities while your’re providing online support as well. Plugins such as WP Live Chat Support and Tawk can make online support solutions more reliable and your customer relations will improve along with your customer’s loyalty.
Book an Appointment Online
WordPress empowers your customers to see availability of your services and set their own appointments. Some plugins will even export the selection to the most commonly used calendars. There are also appointment plugins that utilize WooCommerce if your appointments require a down or full payment. A few of the more functional scheduling plugins are Bookly, Gravity Forms, and BirchPress Scheduler.
Invoice Customers
With all the sales you can make through WordPress e-commerce plugins it stands to reason you would want the ability to send invoices. Sprout Invoices is one plugin that is available that makes the job of invoicing your customer much easier. It allows for various types of invoicing, provides payment methods, creates PDF copies, and has a client dashboard to keep track of invoices.
Online Real Estate Listings
One of the surprising things about WordPress is that realtors can use their site to manage their listings. You can do this by integrating real estate IDX functionality into your WordPress site. One plugin that can help you with real estate is BWG IDX. You don’t need to know how to code to install this plugin, and it is fully customizable. You can add fields for things such as bathrooms, closets, bedrooms, features, and price to name a few. It also can be connected to Google Maps so detailed map embeds showing the approximate location of listed properties can be shown.
There is so much more WordPress can do that items listed above are the tip of the iceberg. The bottom line is that WordPress sites have become an adaptable platform with multiple uses. If there is a type of business you want to use WordPress for, there is probably a plugin or theme customizations that can be made to get you an awesome site that works for your business. Large corporations and small business alike use WordPress, and it has leveled the playing field. So, now that you are aware that WordPress is used for more than you thought, you too can take advantage of its flexibility. Contact Boston Web Group with your ideas for a new site and we can let you know what WordPress can do for you.