I’ve recently begun using Wordpress as a CMS to build standalone, non-blog, websites. My first project Beads Etc… is a jewelry store front. Everything I used for this site is available freely on the ‘Net. It’s a standard Wordpress 2.5 install, a free theme with a few theme hacks and some pluggage.

The ‘Net Unknowledgable Customer

Ok, so this is why I chose Wordpress in the first place. I’ve decided to pursue the customer’s who want a web site, who need a website, but don’t want to deal with a website. The customer wants their web page to just work and doesn’t want to fuss with it everyday. In my days in support with AT&T, I met many customers who ran their business using their free AT&T webmail account simply because they didn’t know how to set up their own domains and could not be bothered to google it themselves. Sure, domains and email addresses are cheap. We offered them at AT&T to residential customers and I made a lot of commission money upselling to unknowledgeable customers. Most customers, however, still opted for using their free webmail. It was unreliable, but it was also less hassle.

Enter Wordpress.

Wordpress allowed me to create the online portal my customer wanted and combine it with a simple user interface. I also plugged in a few scripts to make things easier. Here are 3 scripts I used to create her online store.

Dashboard Editor - This allowed me to control what my user sees on her dashboard. I don’t wanna be fixing stuff she broke dat she neva need to see. *ahem*

WP e-Commerce - this is the basis for the shop. it handles all the shoppiness behind the scenes. It’s currently the best option for a wordpress shopping cart. There are gliches and I won’t vouch for the support system in place - but I love the shop.

Role Manager - some plugins assign tasks by role. So even though I limited my customer’s dashboard, things were showing up that weren’t supposed to. Even worse, some things I needed things to show up that wouldn’t. This Plugin allows you to define and manage multiple subscriber profiles. Users can have individual capabilities assigned to them outside of the context of a role. Very useful. Download here.

Overpricing prevents most small business owners from buying their own web solutions. They don’t know how to code their own work and get fleeced when they talk to designers. The customer in this example got quotes from 3 different Devs ranging from $500 to $1200! I’m not going to say what I really feel about people who try to charge so much on this post. But this customer was about to say fuggit and throw up some WYSIWYG’d, site builder built page and call it a day. And thats very understandable. I offered to do it for cheaper and they agreed. Customized work is extremely expensive - I generally don’t work for less than $50 an hour. So to minimize cost to customer, I used standard wordpress components hacked to user/Dev request. These keeps everything pluggable, swappable and compliant.

Now we have a functional site that looks great and does exactly what they want. My customer has access to edit post and pages but doesn’t have the ability to break anything. They don’t have to deal with all the .phps and require_once’s getting in the way. Because it’s wordpress, I know that the site will take care of itself and won’t require much admin beyong upgradesand backups.

Everyone is happy. Having shown this site to a few people, I’ve got like 3 more jobs lined. The key selling point is the cheapness. Because I’m using basic Wordpress components like free themes, I’m saving my customers money. Plus, I really hate doing theme development myself.