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The WordPress learning curve. Not as sharp as you think.
If you’re thinking of setting up a website for your business, a personal blog or some other online pursuit, then there’s no better place to start one than with WordPress.
However, there is a WordPress learning curve. But it’s not a hairpin turn. There’s a reason why WordPress powers about 40% of all websites on the internet today.
In this post, I’m going to show you that “WordPress learning curve” and why you should not be put off by creating your own WordPress website, even if you don’t know a single line of code.
In fact, WordPress was built just for people like us.
So, if you’re a non-coder, but still want a presence on the web without having to surrender to an all-controlling platform like Wix, SquareSpace or Weebly, then WordPress is your best and may be your only option.
By the end of this post you will know:
- What to expect from a WordPress website.
- Where you can find all the tutorials you will ever need in order to learn WordPress.
- Where to access all the tools you will need to build a great WordPress website as well as other frequently asked questions in regards to WordPress.
- How to approach setting up your own WordPress website without going crazy.
In the end you should feel much more comfortable and confident about the WordPress learning curve so you can start your own WordPress website without any hitches.
What exactly does WordPress do?
WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that helps you create, host and manage your website. With WordPress you can create and edit pages, posts, and media.
WordPress also lets you customize any website with themes, templates and plugins to fit the design and functionality your company, personal or business blog, portfolio, or eCommerce store needs. All without having to write a single line of code!
Basically, if it’s something you need to do on your website, there’s a good chance you can do it with WordPress.
Are there any WordPress Tutorials?
There are a number of well-known learning platforms that have numerous WordPress tutorials. These include:
There are other online learning platforms where you can learn WordPress as well. Most of these tutorials are paid of course, however, many of them offer really great deals as far as sign up bonuses and packages.
You will find many of these courses, especially the top rated ones, to be easy to follow, even fun and entertaining.
The beauty of taking an online course from one of these platforms is that it’s all by video instruction as well as worksheets and other prepared materials to help give you a full spectrum learning experience.
Where can I learn WordPress for free?
Fortunately, you are not just limited to paid online courses, despite many of them being excellent and even entertaining.
You can learn WordPress for free in many places. However, the best place to learn WordPress for free is from none other than WordPress.org.
Here’s a link to their WordPress.org’s learning resources that are very comprehensive and again, best of all, they’re free.
In addition to WordPress.org’s learning resources, there are also forums. I find forums to be just as educational and sometimes even more so, than tutorials.
In the future when you are ready to get a paid theme, I would carefully check out their support forums.
I’ve learned more from the support forum at GeneratePress, the theme for this website, than on many tutorials I’ve taken on WordPress in the past.
How long does it take to learn WordPress?
Some say learning WordPress is a lifelong affair. You never truly stop learning WordPress because WordPress continues to develop and evolve.
However, everyone has their own pace of learning. I was able to get my first WordPress website online in about a day. And that’s a full day’s time.
This is coming from someone who had absolutely no experience whatsoever in getting a website online.
I didn’t even know how to buy a domain name, let alone about nameservers, SSL certificates, plugins, hosting plans etc.
So from basically with absolutely no knowledge or experience, it did take me about a day. But I’ll also confess that that first website was not pretty, thank god I started out with a free theme.
From there mostly it’s trial and error, googling a lot of questions as well as consulting many online WordPress forums, especially those in WordPress.org.
Eventually you’ll learn where all the great WordPress and programming forums are.
Here are just a few:
- Stackexchange.com
- Stackoverflow.com
- W3Schools.com
- CSS-tricks.com
- There are many others. Especially, WordPress.org.
What is the best way to learn WordPress?
The best way to learn WordPress, almost like anything else, is by trial and error. You need to get your hands dirty sort of speak.
Simply get a hosting plan and download WordPress into your dashboard. Now, there are many hosting plans and they’re all paid.
However, if you are going to go the self-hosted paid route, then you should probably start out with a Shared hosting plan.
You can get many of these for as little as $1 a month, but I would advise paying nothing less than $10 a month for a Shared hosting plan.
Although if you want to learn WordPress totally for free, you can actually get a free WordPress blog or website from none other than WordPress.com.
You should know that WordPress.com is different from WordPress.org.
WordPress.com is owned by the company called Automattic, coincidentally the founders and owners of Automattic happen to be the founders of the WordPress CMS ecosystem.
WordPress.com is their commercial, or for profit, division. There they offer not only to get you started with a free WordPress blog, but also free hosting.
Be forewarned though, their free blog and hosting does have its limitations.
However, if you want to learn WordPress and see your work live on the internet in real time, then starting a free WordPress blog on WordPress.com is probably your best option.
You could always either migrate that free WordPress blog to another one of WordPress.com’s paid hosting plans or you can migrate to a self-hosted plan from one of many Web Hosting Providers.
However, as soon as you realize or decide that you want to take this whole website thing seriously, you’ll need to buy a custom domain as soon as possible.
The reason being is that a free WordPress blog will have the “wordpress.com” ending on the URL address.
Relax! You can pick up a custom domain name for between $10 and $15.
How many hours does it take to build a WordPress website?
Once you get going and you pretty much figured out how to put together a website with WordPress and you’re comfortable using it, you can usually get a WordPress website built in a couple hours.
When I mean built, I mean using an already made theme, whether that’s free or paid, buying your domain name, pointing your name servers to your hosting provider, downloading WordPress onto your hosting provider’s dashboard, then fiddling around in the dashboard, getting that theme looking and behaving exactly the way you want it.
Should I use Wix or WordPress?
Wix like Weebly and SquareSpace are basically closed platforms. They do however, work similarly to WordPress.com.
This means that if you use Wix for example, you will be limited to only using their themes and functionality.
You will also be limited to their hosting plans as well as their support.
But worst of all you will be locked in to their prices and terms.
If you ever get tired of Wix, Weebly or even SquareSpace, you can’t just pack up your website and move to a self-hosted web hosting provider like you can with WordPress.
You see, Wix, Weebly and SquareSpace also own your themes and everything on your website except your content, any media or images you have uploaded as well as your domain name.
So, if you ever decide to leave Wix or any of those other closed platforms, you will have to almost start from scratch with a new theme, plugins, etc. if you were to go to a self-hosted web hosting provider.
At least with WordPress you can actually move the theme to a self-hosted plan from a Web Hosting provider.
Those are my main problems with platforms like Wix.
What language is used in WordPress?
WordPress is built using the programming language called PHP. This is considered an older programming language and is not as hip, fashionable or trendy like Ruby or Python among others.
However, PHP, because it’s been around forever, has a lot of functionality and codes for everything.
WordPress websites also use of course HTML and CSS, which some people don’t consider as “languages” sort of speak in the traditional programming sense. This is, of course, up to debate. The other language which WordPress uses is Javascript, especially in its plugins.
Does WordPress need coding?
The beauty of WordPress is that you can get a WordPress website up and running without knowing any coding whatsoever.
You can even customize a pre-built theme to get it looking and functioning almost the way you want it as well, without any coding. How? Well, first by getting to know your theme very, very well.
This is why choosing a theme is vitally important when you decide to go for a paid theme.
You need to read the reviews, check out the themes on their developers websites or marketplaces, find out about all the customizations you could do without much code.
Really learn about that theme inside and out.
If you can do that, plus learn about some of the various plugins you can add for functionality. Plugins by the way, are one of the foundations of WordPress. They allow you to be able to build a fully functional website without coding.
Most developers would scream at this type of advice. Especially, if you’re going to offer this type of service to customers.
However, why reinvent the wheel?
If you need a real custom website and your theme or themes that you know very well can not perform the functionality that you or your clients require, you can always hire a developer to write the code for you.
Is WordPress free?
WordPress the CMS as well as the themes and plugins available on WordPress.org are all free.
Granted, most have paid or premium versions of their themes or plugins, but the whole idea around WordPress and WordPress.org is that it is open source and free to everyone.
This is one of the reasons why WordPress is so popular.
How much are WordPress themes?
WordPress themes start out free and move up to hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.
However, for most people, you can get a really good theme, a great theme in fact, for about $100.
Most themes do also have a yearly subscription fee which includes regular updates to your theme, access to their support form and support, as well as other perks like several child theme designs.
Is it hard to build a website with WordPress?
I would say that to build a WordPress website from scratch can be hard to build if you are not a PHP programmer or developer.
However, to build upon an already premade theme, you would be surprised how much you can do with a great premade theme, backed up by a developer who offers excellent support and with plugins, shouldn’t be too difficult, even with a learning curve.
Is WordPress better than Blogger?
WordPress is better than Blogger for many reasons.
Granted, a Blogger blog is free. However, like WordPress.com’s free version, if you want a custom domain name, you’re going to have to buy that.
Although Blogger has many limitations, the least of which of course are the themes and functionality. Also, Blogger does not allow you to grow and expand as much as WordPress would.
Blogger just has too many limitations to be taken seriously if you want a real website on the internet today. It’s almost as bad as Wix, Weebly or even SquareSpace. If you’re serious about an online presence, there’s no other platform to use but WordPress.
Can I install plugins on free WordPress?
Unfortunately, if you have a free WordPress blog on WordPress.com, you can only use the plugins that are provided through WordPress.com, which are very limited.
WordPress.com plans and packages are based around and have been created for people who want a website on the internet, but don’t want to deal with all the mechanics of running a website.
Things like hosting, security issues as well as plugins and functionality etc. can be overwhelming. WordPress.com has basically taken out a lot of the guesswork, even with their paid plans.
However, what you get in security, support and a somewhat “hands off” environment you give up in control.
Being able to choose your themes, plugins etc although daunting at times, allows you almost unlimited possibilities when creating a WordPress website.
The only way to get true freedom, almost unlimited choices and what you could do with your WordPress website, you would need to move to a self-hosted plan from a web hosting provider.
The WordPress learning curve, summary.
As you can see, there is a WordPress learning curve when you’re just starting out.
However, WordPress is such a huge ecosystem that it powers about 40% of all websites on the internet today.
There are countless resources that you can use not only to learn how to use WordPress, but that also gives you access to numerous tools which will allow you to customize your WordPress website and make it your own.
In addition, there are plenty of tutorials both paid and free, that you can access and learn everything you need to know to get a WordPress website up and running in no time.
So is there a WordPress learning curve? Yes, but it’s not as deep as you may think it is.
