I theorized back at CAI in Bloomington, Indiana, last March that it would be possible to use WordPress to power a website for an auction company. WordPress is a remarkable, extensible and mostly standards-compliant website scripting engine that allows for very easy content generation without website coding experience. AuctioneerTech proudly uses WordPress, and I also use it for the Aaron Traffas Band website, as well as a more private website that I run for my family. I love its simplicity, customizability and expandability.
Today I came across a search engine for WordPress-powered websites. I punched up auction and found several websites for auction companies that were indeed using WordPress.
Here they are in the order I found them.
http://www.bentoncountyautoauction.com/
http://chevroletcarauctions.com/
http://laymanauction.com/
http://schultzauctioneerslandmarkrealty.com/
http://www.cloudsauctions.com/
http://www.chiswickauctions.co.uk/
Some of the sites listed above were customised to such an extent that there must be some developer actively involved in that customization. Some were not. Which are your favorites and why?
These auctioneers recognized the power and freedom of the WordPress system and have, to varying degrees, customized their sites to overcome some of the standard blog-with-menu-on-the-right-or-left design elements that come standard with most WordPress installations. Many website hosts such as LunarPages and GoDaddy offer the ability to install the basic WordPress system with a menu-driven control panel so that from the time you register and provide payment to the time you’re beginning to customise your installation, you’ve spent 5 minutes using your computer to register and install WordPress and a few hours waiting for the domain name to become active and never once touched an FTP client.
I’m not advocating the use of WordPress instead of a professionally-designed website. As an auctioneer, I’d rather have a great website than a working phone number. I’m merely pointing out that it’s an option for some auctioneers who can’t afford the hundreds – or sometimes thousands – of dollars that a real website costs.