Static Websites

HardyPress is the only one I’ve had experience with and I show screenshots of its functionality in my presentation. The website you’re viewing right now is hosted on HardyPress.

Strattic is an up-and-comer from Israel with a lot of promise – but nothing released yet.

• HardyPress
• Strattic
• Shifter

Creating a Static Website the DIY Way

This strategy involves taking your WP website and converting it to static through the use of a few tools:

• HTTrack Website Copier
• Vaclav Papousek – Convert Dynamic Site to Static HTML Kit
• FART: Find and Replace Text – command line utility for Windows

Creating A Static Website Through A WP Plugin

• Simply Static Plugin on WordPress.org
• WP2Static Plugin on WordPress.org (recommended)

The WP2Static plugin is authored and supported by Leon Stafford of Brisbane, Australia. I consider him the guru and chief world missionary of converting WP websites to static. His WP2Static website has a pile of resources and info and you can watch a YT video of one of his WordCamp presentations.

Contact Forms on a Static Website

If you want to have such a thing on a WP-made website, you’ll need a couple of tools:

• WP Serverless Forms plugin on WordPress.org
• Basin – Endpoint creator for Serverless Forms

That first plugin is authored by the folks at Shifter (see above).

There are other alternatives to Basin. Many are mentioned on Leon’s website or in the blog posts on the Shifter website.

If you want a no-cost easy way to have a form on a static website – simple or very complex – I’d strongly suggest JotForm. I use it in my business in a number of ways (e.g. getting client intake info) and all you need to do is embed some HTML into WP to make the form show up on a page. There are dozens of alternatives to JotForm.

Hybrid (static + WP) Websites

Designmodo has an online HTML website generator that creates some beautiful and functional static websites named Slides 4. When you have a Slides 4 subscription (at a cost), you get their Static Pages WP plugin that makes it relatively easy to create a hybrid website.