26 Things You Can Do With a Website

It's a brand new year, and you've made a resolution — you're going to have a website.

But what do you put on it? Why on earth are you even getting a website? What does a website give you that your social media accounts can't?

A website can do a lot more than you think, and, for 2026, here are 26 things you can do with a website.

1. Drop the e-commerce platform and run your own business on WooCommerce

2026 is the right year to get your own online store. Shopify and Etsy might be great to start out on, but with increasing restrictions, global outages, and convoluted pricing, this is a great time to get a Managed WordPress package and install WooCommerce.

2. Write prototype software using AI and get everyone to test it out

If you're experimenting with Lovable or another LLM and want to show off your prototypes, you don't need to spend more money hosting it on their platform. You can use Git via SSH on your hosting package, and set up your applications on your own site.

(We'll have even more detail on this coming soon — so watch this space!)

3. Start a brand new blog with a set schedule

Have you been the type of person to start a blog in the new year, and then forget to actually write in it?

Luckily, there are options to keep you on a steady schedule. With WordPress, there's PublishPress Planner, and you don't need to set up an entirely separate organisational system just to keep your blog going. Add topics into your board, schedule them as needed, and if you go for the Pro option, you'll also get reminders to keep you busy.

4. Collect your family recipes and put them online for easy access

Auntie Marie is hoarding your Grandma's best ginger biscuit recipe. Cousin Marcus keeps asking you about your pepper beef stir fry. And you inherited Great-Great-Uncle Horatio's collection of carefully cut-out war-time newspaper recipes.

Make it easy on everyone and set up a recipe site. It doesn't have to be a full recipe blog, where post length helps with search engine optimisation, it can just be a convenient little collection for you and your family, with everything you need to make those big gatherings a bit more flavourful.

5. Show off your pets with their very own website

Who doesn't love pictures of pets? Whether it's your magnificent Maine Coon cat, the adorable scrap of a puppy you picked up at the shelter, or even a long-lived family tortoise, everyone wants to see more pictures of more animals enjoying their best lives.

You can use web gallery software such as ZenPhoto, one of the many gallery plugins available with WordPress, or just code them up with basic HTML. Introduce everyone to those special creatures in your life!

6. Review the latest products in your favourite hobby

When someone's just starting out in a hobby, or wants to know more about what they're buying, it can be really difficult to find expert reviews. Either it's people on large e-commerce sites talking about how the box was broken, or it's 1000 words of filler just to get higher SEO for their affiliate links.

People want to know what to use, whether that's a fishing rod, knitting needles, fountain pen ink, gaming headset, or football boots. And everyone has their favourites. So why not tell the world about yours, and help someone else make the right decision.

7. Write tutorials and show off your skills

You know what else people love to see when they're just starting out? Clear, easy-to-read, step-by-step tutorials on things. Not a YouTube video cluttered with ads and shout-outs, not vague instructions included in a tiny booklet, but the kind of tutorial that can only come from someone who's been in their situation and can show them how it's done.

From building a bookshelf to crocheting a cuddly toy to fixing a washing machine — if you know how to do it, you can show someone else how.

8. Write that novel you've always been meaning to

With online publishing here to stay, so many people are finding their inner novelist and creating e-books for sale. And, sure, you can go the tricky Amazon route, constantly trying to match the latest microtrends and hoping no one will return your book, or you can have your own website and sell your books there.

With WordPress, you can post updates, blog about writing, and sell through Easy Digital Downloads. Who knows? You might end up being the next big thing on BookTok!

9. Create a forum and build your community

Are you a part of a fragmented community, where half of you are talking on Facebook, the other half occasionally messaged on BlueSky, being on Slack would remind you too much of work, and having Google Team meetings means someone's always missing out because of scheduling issues?

It's time to bring back forums. Talk to your friends, talk about your favourite TV show, video game, band, or hobby, get new people interested, and just make it a place where everyone can join in the fun. There are plenty of forum options available as well, from phpBB to bbPress to Discourse, so you can set one up right away.

10. Keep track of nature around your neighbourhood

Are you taking part in the Big Garden Birdwatch? Or any number of other wildlife surveys? Along with sending all your data to wildlife charities, why not have a website?

You can keep track of the waterfowl enjoying your local canal, the birds that come to your garden feeder, the butterflies you see along the cinder path, or even badger sightings in the nearest park. It'll not only help you keep track of everything you see, it'll also let your neighbours know about the amazing wildlife in your area.

11. Learn to code and document your journey

What better way to learn how to code than with your own website? Whether you're just picking up the basics of HTML, getting in deep with JavaScript frameworks, or building your first application with Go, being able to show other people your work (and where you're getting stuck) is a great way to keep your learning journey going.

And don't forget about coding challenges! A website is a great way to show off your winners.

12. Become the main source for a historical topic

Do you have a favourite historical topic that you want to spend hours talking about and researching? Are you that one person at the party who can tell everyone the history of a particular drink, song, piece of furniture, or nearby natural disaster?

You need a website. You need a website to dive into your pet topic, list all your research, collect local stories, post newspaper clippings, anything and everything about your favourite topic in great detail.

After all, Wikipedia relies on other sites for its references, and all the large language models take their information from websites, so why not be the source of truth for your favourite topic?

13. Tell the epic tales of your RPG campaigns

If you've been building your own RPG campaigns with your crew, spending hours fighting trolls, searching for cursed tomes, hacking into big corporations, or just spending time in the local vampire bar, there'll be another gaming group out there that's looking for a new campaign and would be inspired by yours.

Provide regular recaps of your current game, post tips and tricks for running a game, or release your own full campaigns for other people to use. No matter what you do, someone will be interested in it.

14. Grab the mike and start podcasting

You have a microphone, audio software, and an idea. Whether it's recounting moments in history, talking with friends about their lives, sharing your own personal journey, or reviewing your favourite products, starting a podcast is a fun thing to do, can get your message out there, and is becoming an internationally recognised profession — even the Golden Globes has a podcast category this year.

Use the Seriously Simple Podcasting plugin for WordPress or Podcast Generator and get talking!

15. Become the go-to for local events

If it seems like every other week you've missed something you wanted to go to, why not start a local events calendar? It won't just help you, it'll help other people in your community know about events happening around your area, and help everyone make new connections.

You can use The Events Calendar for WordPress, EventSchedule, or just have a list with dates and locations. It'll beat tracking down every single Facebook event, Instagram post, or local council blog post, because it'll all be in one easy to reach place — your website!

16. Make a novelty single page website

Get a domain, make a single page, and have something people remember forever. Whether it's Is it Christmas Yet, Just Flip A Coin, How Many People Are In Space Right Now, Should I Take A Jacket, or Down For Everyone Or Just Me, a single page website can be funny, inspiring, or incredibly useful.

You can code up a small application, put up your favourite gif, embed a sound, or tell a story. All you need is a domain, a page, and the urge to make the internet just a little bit weird again.

17. Build a brochure site for your business

Do you run a bricks and mortar business? Maybe it's a café, a barber shop, a florist, an antique shop, anything. You've been doing great on social media, and people are following you, but wouldn't it be great to have your own domain name and a place to point everyone to?

Put your opening hours on, add a menu, or fill it with lovely pictures. A brochure site is a great way to get your business known on the web — not just by the people visiting on social media, but also search engines, local guides, and more. And it doesn't take much to set up. If you have one of our Managed WordPress pages, you can even use our AI Site Builder to make the site for you in a matter of minutes.

18. Log detailed data from around the house

Whether it's monitoring the power you're getting from your solar panels, keeping track of the temperature and humidity in your attic, recording the air quality of your office, or just keeping track of your cat, there are plenty of tools out there to log data, and a website is a great place to keep it all in one big dashboard.

As Othell Yarwyck shows in his solar energy dashboard, Grafana can do a lot more than just keep track of servers, and by collecting and organising the data to meet your needs, you could make a website that shows off your data management skills as much as it shows off your house.

19. Keep track of trends and build interfaces with APIs

An API is a way for your site to communicate with other sites and pull data from them. They're used for everything from the weather, to transport data, to pictures of cats. There are thousands of APIs free and available for you to use on your website, and it only takes a little bit of programming knowledge to pull that information and make a website filled with content.

Build a site showing the pollen count in your area, random art facts from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or just when the next bank holiday is in the UK — the possibilities are endless when it comes to using APIs.

20. Become a food critic overnight

Have you found the absolute best ramen? Want to rate all the dessert shops in the city centre? Still trying to figure out if store-brand biscuits are better than brand-name? Tracking down all the places you can buy Café du Monde coffee, fresh crayfish, and filé powder for your regular New Orleans-themed dinners?

Being a food critic shouldn't just be for glossy weekend newspaper magazines and Instagram influencers. Create a site with your content management system of choice, start writing reviews, and before you know it, you'll be helping everyone else enjoy the best food in the neighbourhood.

21. Make a place to host all your other links

You've seen people use Linktree, AboutMe, and similar other single-page sites that link to all their important details. But rather than having your address be third-party-site/your-name, why not make a single page under your-name.com? Or .uk, .eco, or any other domain name extension we have available.

By creating a site with all your links, you're not just safeguarding that domain name from spammers, you're also making it easy for people to find you no matter what platform they use.

22. Detail your video game adventures

Whether you're trying out multi-generational Sims 4 challenges, building elaborate castles in Minecraft, keeping track of the latest releases in Fortnite, or speedrunning Super Mario Bros, you can show off your skills on your website.

Review games, set challenges, build mods and skins, or just link to your Twitch stream — there's plenty of options available when you have your own site.

23. Keep the family updated year round

Do you remember the family Christmas letters people used to send? Where you found out that Cousin Emily had gotten all As in her report card, Aunt Margaret got a promotion, and Rex the prize-winning poodle had been at Crufts? And, of course, your letter detailed how Bobby was first chair tuba in the school orchestra, you had just taken a new job as a rocket scientist, and Minky the hamster was powering the Christmas tree via the wheel in her cage.

You can still show off how much better you are than your relatives, or just share photos with the grandparents, on your family website. And what's great about having your own website is that you can password protect your site, making sure that no one else is seeing those ultrasound pictures before you're ready to announce Baby Bertrand to the world.

24. Experiment with HTML and CSS

If you're getting bored of creating the same templates and pages over and over again at work, why not use your personal website to really push the limits of HTML and CSS?

You'll be with plenty of friends, as Sarah Joy's CSS JOY webring shows. There are plenty of people out there coming up with amazing experiments in HTML and CSS, and who knows? You could end up being an author on Smashing Magazine or CSS-Tricks, showing off your skills.

25. Build your own museum and show off your collection

Admit it — you collect something. Whether it's Staffordshire hearth spaniels, Star Wars action figures, football jerseys, Leica cameras, or souvenir fridge magnets, you have a collection of artifacts that you can lovingly talk about and show off to people.

So why not show it off on a website? Tell the history of a 1950s' Wedgwood jasperware coelacanth plate. List the publication details of the original Usborne World of the Unknown books. Post the missing cards in your series of 1930s' cricketers cigarette cards. It'll be a convenient place for you to keep track of your collection as well as a valued resource for other collectors.

26. Whatever else you can think of

And there's so much more you can do — if you can think of it, it could be a website! All you need is a domain name, a hosting package, and a bit of patience. And if you need help, we're right here for you.

So what are you building today? Tell us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, BlueSky, or Mastodon!