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Why do some think that WordPress is confusing and so difficult?
If you’ve never set up a website before, WordPress can seem confusing and perhaps difficult to use. In fact, here are some reasons why people think WordPress is confusing:
- Themes and plugins can be complicated.
- Categories and tags can be confusing if you’re not sure what you’re doing.
- There’s no built-in analytics, so you can’t track your progress or see how your site is performing out of the box.
- All the Dashboard options available under “Settings”: General, Writing, Reading, Discussion, Media, Permalinks… the list goes on.
Anything technical or computer-related if you’re not used to working on a computer or the internet for that matter for your day-to-day tasks setting up a website can seem daunting in general.
On top of that, even though WordPress is the most popular CMS on the internet today used by over 40% of all websites online, it doesn’t have all the publicity nor the advertising that closed platforms such as Wix, Shopify or even Squarespace have.
You see WordPress is open source and nonprofit. Whereas those other three are closed source, proprietary and for profit.
So right off the bat, many who are looking to set up their first website have only heard about WordPress through word of mouth or second hand knowledge.
Those who have heard of Wix and those other closed platform CMSs, heard about them due to their massive amounts of spending for advertising. But WordPress isn’t so difficult nor confusing.
As a matter of fact, even without any experience in setting up a website, Even if you don’t have any coding experience or knowledge, you could still set up a WordPress website within a few hours.
In this post, I’m going to address many of the concerns that people have with WordPress so that by the end of this post you will see why WordPress is the best choice you can make and select a CMS in order to build your blog, website or ecommerce store on.
Hopefully, I will also be able to dispel some of the miss surrounding WordPress.
Just how difficult is it to use WordPress?
First, I am not trying to sell you on why WordPress is the best.
I am only trying to inform you so that you can choose for yourself if it suits your needs or not.
WordPress isn’t difficult. It’s very easy to set up a website with WordPress even without any coding experience.
With just a few simple steps, you can have your own website up and running.
Now if you want to design the look of your site or work on the backend with plugins then that will take some time to learn how to do it.
But when it comes to just setting up a WordPress site, there really isn’t much to it.
Is WordPress even still relevant and worth learning in 2021 or 2022?
WordPress is worth learning in 2021 and beyond. In fact, other content management systems such as Drupal and Joomla have been trying to do what WordPress has done for years.
In the world of websites, marketers and developers are not looking at contrast from a CMS-to-CMS basis but rather from a function-to-function one.
In other words, WordPress doesn’t have to compete with the likes of Wix or Squarespace for that matter it primarily competes against its core functionality.
In this case, you can compare WordPress to blogging platforms such as Tumblr and Medium. And in comparison, I feel that it does a better job than those two blogging platforms do.
I feel WordPress is even more popular today than ever. Since most bloggers use WordPress to make their site, it allows for a large community.
It’s already the most popular CMS on the internet and with its own ecosystem of users, developers and bloggers who write about it – there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.
So if you’re wondering if WordPress is still worth learning, then yes, I believe that it is.
Is Wix better or WordPress?
First, Wix isn’t just a website builder. It’s a suite of online business tools that offer site building as one of their features.
But what many people don’t realize is that there are two versions of the free Wix websites. One is for personal use and another is for commercial use (if you want to buy it).
For the most part, they give a free Wix website for personal use. But there are a few limitations to it such as an obtrusive “Powered by Wix” footer.
In addition, the site also has some branding on it and is not allowed to be used for commercial purposes.
But for the most part, you can check out Wix here:
But what about WordPress? Well, WordPress isn’t just a website builder either.
It’s really an ecosystem of free and premium plugins that allow you to do many more things than you might find on other site builders like Wix or Squarespace.
WordPress is open source which means that there are thousands of people who are working to improve it. And with WordPress, you can use plugins which give you more functionality to your website. Plus it’s a trusty CMS that has been around for years and will continue to be around for a long time.
But what about Wix? Well, while they do have a community of developers, I feel it’s not nearly as large or active as the WordPress community.
Plus there are literally tens of thousands of free WordPress themes available on the internet along with hundreds of thousands premium ones which you can use for your website.
So why Wix might be better may be because they are newer to the game and are trying their best to compete against WordPress, but I feel that WordPress is still the winner.
As you can see, there are many different things to consider when trying to compare Wix vs WordPress. But in my opinion, WordPress comes out on top.
How many hours does it take to build a WordPress website?
Building a WordPress website can vary depending on what you plan to do with it.
For example, if you just want to have a simple blog then that should take you less than an hour to get up and running.
But if you are creating an ecommerce site, then that might take more time since there are additional features involved.
So this is just a generalization, but I would say that creating a WordPress site should take anywhere from 1-10 hours depending on what your needs are.
Is making a website on WordPress hard?
If you are already familiar with other website builders like Wix, then building a WordPress site will be easier.
However, if you’re not used to working on other website builders, then it may take you some time getting used to how WordPress works.
But even for experienced users, whenever they make changes or add features to their WordPress site, there is always a learning curve to it.
For example, if you are trying to add ecommerce to your site or integrate other plugins then the process will not be as simple as using other website builders out there.
So if you are looking for something that’s easy and simple right out of the box, then WordPress might not be the solution for you. You might want to go with Wix. But going with Wix will always be like riding a bicycle without ever taking the training wheels off. And who wants to go around life like that?
Is WordPress easy for beginners?
WordPress is an easy to use website builder for beginners. It also offers ease of use thanks to plugins that can help you out with anything that may be complicated.
But don’t let the fact that WordPress is easy for beginners fool you into thinking it cannot do things like ecommerce or other complex features.
As previously mentioned, WordPress is open source which means that there are thousands of people who are constantly working to make WordPress better.
So while it might be easy for beginners, it’s also built on solid foundations and can do more complex things with the help of plugins.
That being said, using some website builders like Wix may be easier for beginners since they have pre-built templates and drag and drop tools that make it easy to create your website.
But once you build your website with Wix, you’re stuck with Wix hosting, customer service and support, prices and terms.
You can’t just pick up your Wix or any other closed source platform CMS and self-host it anywhere, like you can with WordPress.
Why is WordPress still so popular?
WordPress is well known and loved because it’s open source. And since WordPress uses “the crowd” to build itself, there are always new features and integrations to make it better for anyone who wants to use it.
Plus, WordPress has become a favorite among developers and not just regular users like you and I due to its large community, extensive documentation and its huge array of plugins.
So this essentially means that if you want to do anything with your website, then there’s a good chance that there is a plugin for that.
For example, if you’re looking to add ecommerce features or integrate social media tools to your WordPress site, then the chances are there is a plugin for that.
But let’s not forget that WordPress is very versatile in what it can do, not just with customizations and integrations but also with user experience since you have the ability to choose from thousands of themes.
So while there may be other website builders out there who offer more templates or even drag and drop site builders, you can’t beat WordPress with its thousands of plugins, options and ease of use.
Is WordPress good for small businesses?
If you have a small business, you can easily run it from your WordPress website.
WordPress is a great platform for any business to use as it allows you to promote your brand and keep customers updated with new promotions or offers.
It has also been used by some of the largest companies in the world like Disney, Apple, Microsoft, Forbes and many more.
So obviously WordPress is the perfect platform to help you grow your small business online because not only can it handle everything that a huge company can do, but especially because it’s easy for beginners you don’t need any technical knowledge or coding skills to use it.
Does WordPress need JavaScript?
We are heading towards a more JS heavy web. That is no secret.
WordPress started out as just HTML and CSS but recently there’s been an increasing demand for developer friendly integrations to create or modify stuff on websites that would usually require JavaScript.
While WordPress has always had good support for PHP, the backend language it uses, people are wanting to use JavaScript in the backend because it’s more accessible.
So while WordPress is becoming more JS heavy, it hasn’t yet reached a point where you’ll need to know how to code in order to manage your site though.
WordPress functions just fine without JavaScript, but when you start digging deeper into what WordPress can do with JS, it becomes clear that there are lots of things you can do to improve the user experience.
As more users come in, make plugins and themes compatible with JavaScript, WordPress will become more JS heavy.
But for now WordPress is still a great CMS without any knowledge of JavaScript.
WordPress is confusing and difficult to use! Still think so? Conclusions.
Finally, I hope I’ve cleared up any confusion and that you now see that WordPress isn’t at all confusing and difficult to use.
In fact, WordPress was the first fully functional CMS created for bloggers and those without any coding knowledge so that they too, can have a presence on the World Wide Web!
You can too with WordPress!