WordPress: Not as Easy as It Seems

Ask any group of people where you should go to start a blog or create a website with little to no experience, and you’ll almost always get the same answer: WordPress. It’s described as being easy for beginners, simple to use, and quick to get started. 

All of those things are true – with a catch. If you’re merely looking to grab an off-the-shelf theme, type up some content and write a weekly or monthly blog, then it is easy, simple to use and quick to get started. 

But if you’re looking for a custom theme, with a detailed website that looks professional and well put together, and that grows as your business does, it’s not as easy as it seems. 

The WordPress Learning Curve

For a total newbie, getting the image of your website that’s in your mind to take shape on the screen often proves next to impossible. You’ll spend months trying or get so frustrated you give up. But even for developers, it can be difficult if you’ve never worked with WordPress before. It will go well until you have to tweak or customize something you haven’t worked with before. Or you go in with the expectation of learning WordPress in a day, only to realize it’s going to take more than that. 

The reality of the “WordPress is easy” claim is this: WordPress is easy to learn, but if you don’t already know what you’re doing, it will take time. If you’re willing to put in the time and effort to learn it, it will eventually be easy, but you can’t expect to sit down at your computer and instinctively know how to work with WordPress. 

It’s Not You, It’s WordPress

For those who have tried and failed to use WordPress, it often feels like an embarrassment. If it’s so easy, there must be something wrong with you if you can’t learn it, right? 

Wrong. 

The truth is, to do anything other than merely start a blog, you need to know at least a minimum of CSS and HTML. To get substantially involved, PHP, JavaScript and MySQL are needed. You need to understand how the templates work in WordPress (hint: they have a hierarchy). You need to realize how many themes and plugins and widgets there are, not only on WordPress.org, but in custom theme shops around the web. 

Speaking of plugins and widgets, it can be exciting and fun to add different ones to your website. You’ve got calendars, contact forms, ecommerce, and more. But if you aren’t careful, the indiscriminate addition of a plugin or widget can create a huge security risk to your site. 

What’s a Business to Do? 

What do you do when you can’t fix a plumbing problem? You call a plumber. So, when you want a website but are struggling to build it, you outsource it. 

We can help you build a professional website that is customer-focused and appealing. Our years of experience in web design as well as marketing solutions will allow us to work with you to create a design that is both beautiful and functional. Contact us today to get answers to all your questions and discuss the next step.