Wordpress - Read Before You Build

Wordpress is a strange animal. There, I said it. It's a hodge podge of different plugins and themes that devs (aka, developers) have made to make it easier and create revenue for themselves, but does it actually do that? Let's take a look.

2 Different Sites

There's a wordpress.org and a wordpress.com. Yes, there's two different sites... Today, I'll be speaking about the former.

Wordpress' Interface

When you first login, you'll see your menu items on the left and your dashboard as the main screen. Undoubtedly, there will be a bunch of messages telling you to update, give reviews, link to plugins, etc... before you've even touched a thing. Enjoy that. It never ends.

You Start With a Theme

There are many different themes you can choose (by different developers). These themes set up the bones of the basic framework of your site. If you want to build your own, that costs extra. You have to upgrade to pro. But, since no one wants to do that, they search for something free to fill in the gaps.

Next, Choose a Site Builder

So, you find a site builder (like Elementor) that will sit inside your theme. It'll make your life easier and you can build the site you truly want. Great, right? Not so fast. Because once you start, then you may want to add something like a form to your site.

Everyone needs a form at some point to capture email, phone numbers, get newsletter and blog signups, etc... But here, the form will cost you to upgrade to the pro version.

Hmm... Can I find something for free? Why yes! There's a plugin for that! Wordpress has their own forms. No problem! I'll just "plug" that in. It's different, but I can manage to figure it out after a half hour or so...

But now I need to add a catalog and a few other things that are only available on the pro version. Not to worry, there's a plug in for that too! But, this plugin's style and features are VERY Different from the site builder's layout and functions and that's because a different developer built it. See a pattern?

Plugins

And this is what you'll keep doing over and over. Trying to find different plugins, created by different devs, to make your site work. Sometimes they'll work seamlessly, but most of the time you'll spend hours trying to fit misshapen puzzle pieces together - very often fitting a square peg into a round hole... Over and over.

There are plugins for everything from SEO to blogs (which is what Wordpress originally was created for) to everything in between. All made by different devs trying to make a buck, but no one wants to pay, so they try to piece together a site with what they can.

You'll spend hours, even DAYS, trying to find all the different toggle switches and nuances to make your site work the way you want. Why? Because with all these different devs, it's a playground where everyone has their own rulebook you have to learn. So for every plugin, there's a new set of rules. As I told one of my friends (paraphrasing):

"You go up to the attic, climb through the wardrobe into Narnia to find the pinecone under the bush, with the white speckles (not grey or green!) to take it down to the basement, to give to the troll, atop the tallest shelf, who's wearing camo and you stop everywhere along the way, because you don't know what anything looks like to begin with or if you're on the right path."

Oh, and did I mention they're CONSTANTLY UPDATING them? Yup. Case in point, I spent a day adding items into a catalog and getting used to the interface, only to have it COMPLETELY changed within two days. It was like looking at a totally different plugin. Hardly anything was the same.

Plus, updating one plugin can break your site somewhere else. Remember when I said "different devs"? Yup. And they're not working together. So be prepared. Also, the more plugins you add, the more your site can be hacked and will slow down your site.

Coding

If you have a basic knowledge of HTML, iframe, and/or Javascript, you can get away with a lot. Using resources like ChatGPT and Gemini are great for overcoming obstacles with plugins. Learning this can save you time and pain, because you're in control of the outcome. In fact, I've published when I like the look, gone into my browser's inspector and copied the code, then put in an HTML widget and pasted the code so I know it won't change on me.

Final Take

Wordpress is great if you have a lot of time, don't mind being nickel and dime'd to death, and/or love a challenge.

If that's not your thing, there's plenty of sites you can build for free with a WYSIWYG builder that will give you security and ease of use. They'll also give you analytics to look at, but I recommend using Google in case you move your site. If you want to upgrade to the premium version, it's one fee once a month. Here's some alternatives:

Weebly.com

WIX.com

Squarespace.com

Site123.com

Shopify.com

I hope this has helped you make a choice about what kind of site you want to have. Wordpress or another builder. Do your homework and try to pick the best for the kind of site you need, whether that's an ecommerce, blog, informational, or other.

As for me, I'll continue to work on Wordpress as it's my job, but I wanted to give anyone new to the platform a heads up about what to expect and make an informed decision. Godspeed, people.