- You have a business idea and you want to get started online quickly.
- You have an existing business offline but don’t have the skills or cash flow to migrate that business model to the web.
- You don’t have anything close to a business model but you have a strong desire to learn about running a business on the internet.
These are all good reasons to take a look at WordPress.
First a very little bit of history. WordPress started out as blog software. It was focused on publishing a series of content items, known as posts, in reverse chronological order. In fact, its heritage as blogging software is so strong that often when WordPress is mentioned, I hear “Oh yeah, the blogging platform.”
Not Just A Blog Anymore
WordPress moved beyond the blog as more and more people started using it to put up web sites with pages, as opposed to just having a reverse chronological list of articles. Through a combination of excellent plugins and constant improvement in the core WordPress code, the platform moved naturally into the realm of a full featured content management system or CMS.
The number of useful plugins continues to grow and grow. And some forward thinking individuals recognized the ability to create online business applications using collections of plugins. But that very strategy is a bit of a drawback. A gazillion plugins is tough to manage as they don’t necessarily all play nice with each other.
This is where WordPress application themes come in. These are WordPress applications that take advantage of all that WordPress has to offer in terms of custom post types and extensibility in a single theme that provides all of the functionality for a specific business function with few or no plugins required.
WordPress application themes can really get your creative, entrepreneurial gears turning. You’ll think of new angles and niche markets you can serve with a quality, well written application theme.
Classified Advertising – If you think about the landscape you might conclude that there is no opportunity in classifieds, what with the huge market behind ebay and the ability to list free ads on craigslist. But if you look past the obvious, you will find plenty of interesting and potentially lucrative markets to get into.
For example, you could offer a classified marketplace in connection with a special interest blog that you already have. The readers of your blog comprise a market that is already focused on your topic and probably as passionate about it as you are. Classified ad listings are dream come true for them, they can reach their peers with offers of items or service for sale. And they can comfortably use a market that is free from irrelevant distractions, without ever leaving your domain.
Saving with Coupons – Coupons and local business marketing are all the rage right now and it’s about time. Local is where we live and we all want to support the businesses in our communities. The Clipper theme is a coupon sharing application that can be used on any scale you want. Do you have a blog that’s plugged into the local scene? Let you readers share the best your neighborhood has to offer with online coupons.
Just a note: Clipper is not Groupon-in-a-box, it is a coupon sharing application that enables you and your blog readers to post coupons and discount codes. The coupons may come from online sources or supplied directly by merchants.
Clipper is a great way to add value to a local or special interest web site.
Job Listings – Are you going to go head-to-head with Monster or Dice.com? Not likely. Do you run a trade association or special business interest web site or forum and want to give members access to highly focus job opportunities? JobRoller is an excellent way to add this functionality to your site.
Right out of the box, you can offer employers the ability to reach a group of candidates that will be most likely to have the skills and abilities they are looking to hire. Job seekers can post their resumes and connect with companies that are looking for exactly what they have to offer.
With JobRoller you can offer a true win-win-win solution for everybody.
Not all WordPress application themes are in the business-in-a-box category. There are a ton of business functions that need to take place behind the scenes but are vital nonetheless.
Until now web based issue tracking system would either need to be written from scratch or cost thousands for off-the-shelf solutions.
Now with Quality Control you can track software bugs or customer support issues in a complete ready-to-go WordPress application.
Customer issues and software bugs represent valuable and sometimes sensitive business information. With Quality Control you keep this data safely in-house and completely under your control. For software developers you get integration with popular source code control systems.
All of the application themes discussed here are from AppThemes , with whom I have an affiliate relationship. I am excited to promote the applications from AppThemes, they feature well written open code and they pay attention to important details like security and SEO.
I use AppThemes products personally in my business so I have no hesitation about recommending them.
If you have an existing business that you are trying to move online or are looking to develop a new business on the web, I encourage you to take a look at the what AppThemes team has to offer.
P.S. getting up and running with WordPress Applications from AppThemes is really easy from a technical standpoint. It’s simply a matter of activating a theme. However, if you find you want some guidance then you can take advantage of the well monitored and lively forums or I am happy to provide one-on-one assistance. Feel free to contact me.
P.P.S. One more thing – the WordPress application themes from AppThemes are well written, beautifully designed software packages. They will save you a lot of time and money in bringing an application to the web. But you still have to make an effort to research and market your site to your target audience and to integrate the application with your business and payment systems. This requirement doesn’t change no matter what software you use. Please don’t fall for the notion that if you simply buy this or that product that people will flock to your site and stuff your pockets full of money. It just aint that way. Business is work, sometimes very hard work.
