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Is WordPress easy for beginners?
WordPress is fairly straightforward and easy, even for absolute beginners to set up a website. Here’s how.
As soon as you buy your domain name and pick your hosting provider and sign up for one of their plans, all you need to do is to simply go to their dashboard, cPanel being the most common, follow the directions and download WordPress onto your hosting provider’s server.
Once you put in your admin information, get your password and access your WordPress dashboard, it’s simply a matter of choosing your theme and taking a tour.
Most themes, even free themes, are pretty self-explanatory.
Soon you will get to learn all about your theme and whether or not you want to keep your free theme or download another WordPress theme, more than likely a paid theme since you can do so much more with them.
With a paid theme you get all the support and updates they provide. Your theme’s support forums are one of the best places to learn WordPress.
The next thing you’ll start to learn are the plugins.
For beginners, WordPress plugins are quite easy. There are well over 50,000 WordPress plugins available from WordPress.org. All of them are free and most of them though do have premium or paid versions as well.
Needless to say, any bit of functionality you want to add to your WordPress website is usually done through the use of plugins.
For example, let’s say you want to add a “Table of Contents” to every post and page on your new website.
You can simply download a “Table of Contents” plugin, follow the instructions by the plugin’s developer and there you go.
Adding a Table of Contents for every WordPress post or page is just the beginning, there are so many other plugins to choose from.
Even an absolute beginner will find it easy to set up a pretty functional and nice looking WordPress website in no time.
However, the thing about plugins is that they can actually slow down your WordPress website loading speeds into your visitor’s browsers.
Therefore, you should only use plugins where absolutely necessary.
That’s why having a clean theme that loads fast and has plenty of functionality right out of the box is your best bet.
Then the plugins you will add will simply round out all the functionality you hope to accomplish with your website.
How long will it take to learn WordPress?
Everyone’s different. WordPress does have a learning curve, no doubt. But it’s really not that hard.
For example, it took me about a day to get my WordPress website live on the internet.
Let’s not forget even when you download your WordPress CMS onto your web hosting provider’s dashboard and server, it may take a couple of hours before your website’s name servers and your WordPress website is actually up and live on the internet.
Is WordPress beginner friendly?
WordPress is very beginner friendly. In fact, WordPress is getting more beginner friendly as it evolves.
In my opinion, it’s the only true CMS that is not only beginner friendly, but can allow mostly anyone without any coding skills whatsoever, to have a live and fully functioning website on the internet, while having complete control over where it’s hosted, the theme of the website as well as the functionality.
You can basically create a whole website just from downloading a theme and uploading a few plugins without any coding experience whatsoever.
Unlike other CMSs like Wix, Weebly and SquareSpace etc. WordPress is one of the few CMSs that does not force their users to use a particular hosting service.
With WordPress you have complete freedom and control to take your website and move it to another host if you decide to.
Those other CMS platforms might be easier for beginners at first, but they are also much less flexible than WordPress.
If you don’t like, for example, the theme, the pricing or the hosting service of those other CMS platforms, then tough luck. You’re basically stuck.
You cannot simply pack up and migrate your website to another host.
With WordPress you can.
Why is WordPress so difficult?
WordPress may seem difficult for the inexperienced and absolute beginner.
I know, I was a little confused and got stuck on one or two things, while I was putting up my first WordPress website that’s for sure.
However, with all the tutorials and forums on WordPress, you can basically solve any problem you have with getting your WordPress website up and running on the internet.
Does WordPress require coding?
Although if you do have some knowledge of coding, it will make your whole WordPress experience much easier. Though, again, WordPress does not require coding.
This is the main reason why WordPress has become the most popular CMS on the internet today.
Basically with WordPress, non-coders have the ability to get a website up and live on the internet without needing to know a single line of code.
Themes are already pre-built. Any type of additional functionality you want to add to your WordPress website can be done through the use of plugins.
Plugins are basically pre-coded programs that add functions to your WordPress website. There are plugins for everything and more in WordPress.
What’s the best way to learn WordPress?
The best way to learn WordPress, like anything else, is by doing. You can either learn WordPress by getting a free WordPress blog with WordPress.com or you can simply go to WordPress.org and go through the tutorials that they have on WordPress.
There are countless resources all over the internet including YouTube, where you can learn basically anything about WordPress you need to know.
In fact, the amount of information available and tutorials on how to learn WordPress can be more overwhelming than learning WordPress itself.
Is Wix easier than WordPress?
In all fairness, Wix is easier to learn than WordPress.
Wix is very beginner friendly and although I am biased on WordPress, I must admit that for the absolute beginner Wix is definitely easier.
However, what you get as far as ease of use, you give up in control.
You cannot migrate, for example, a Wix website onto a separate hosting provider. Nor can you convert a Wix website into a WordPress website when the time comes that you want more control.
When that day comes, you will essentially have to start all over again with WordPress.
So it’s better to just use WordPress from the very beginning. By doing so I’m sure you’ll find that the learning curve is really a lot easier than you think when you get down to it.
Should I learn PHP before WordPress?
If you know PHP before you start a WordPress website, of course that’s better. WordPress is built, after all, on PHP.
However, you don’t need to learn PHP before WordPress. In fact, you don’t need to know any coding whatsoever before WordPress.
It’s one of the main reasons why WordPress is so popular. But, eventually you will want to learn some coding, even if it is simply HTML and CSS.
Although some die hard coding enthusiasts don’t consider HTML and CSS as coding or languages per se. But I digress.
Any coding you learn that’s related to WordPress will of course make your job in running a WordPress website that much easier. But neither is necessary.
What skills do you need for WordPress?
To be totally honest. None. You don’t need any skills to get a WordPress website on the internet.
Your first site might not be too pretty, but it will be live and running on the internet. Really, it’s that simple.
I personally had no skills whatsoever in web development, nor any coding experience as well and I was able to get my first WordPress website up on the internet in a day. And I took my time.
That was over 10 years ago too.
Nowadays, absolute beginners have many more resources and tutorials available to them, it’s even easier.
Besides, WordPress has also evolved and has become much more user friendly as well.
How can I practice WordPress for free?
The best way for you to practice WordPress for free would be to simply sign up for a free WordPress blog at WordPress.com.
Although WordPress.com is a great place to start, keeping a free WordPress blog on WordPress.com once you learn WordPress is not a good idea.
It’s like keeping the training wheels on a bicycle, even after you’ve learned how to ride one without them.
You will be severely limited with a free WordPress blog on WordPress.com as well.
So the sooner you can get your own custom domain name and move away from WordPress.com’s free plan to either one of their paid plans, or better, another hosting provider where the plans are much more flexible as well as much cheaper in general, the better.
Where can I learn WordPress?
You can learn WordPress either from an online learning platform like SkillShare or Coursera to name two, or you can learn on WordPress.com or WordPress.org.
WordPress.org has many tutorials for free that you can watch and read to learn WordPress.
WordPress.org also has a large community with a forum that you can browse through.
Let’s not forget of course the many free YouTube videos about WordPress. So there are many places to learn.
However, the best place to learn would be probably either WordPress.org or an online education platform like Skillshare or Coursera, where you can choose from the highest rated WordPress instructors and courses that would best suit your needs.
How much does a basic WordPress site cost?
The cheapest most basic WordPress website can cost the following:
- Custom Domain Name: $10.
- First year Shared Hosting: $60.
- Basic Plugins: Free.
- Basic theme: Free.
- SSL Certificate: Free, with most plans.
Total: $70. First year.
Those are just ballpark figures. Don’t forget many Shared Hosting plans as well as other Hosting plans also offer to host unlimited domains. Some may even include your Custom Domain Name free for the first year.
Can I move my website from Wix to WordPress?
No. You can’t move your website from Wix to WordPress. They are first of all, two different CMSs.
Second, Wix themes and plugins or other addons and extensions are non-transferable to other CMSs.
So basically, the only thing you can take with you is your Custom Domain Name and any copies of content you have published on your Wix website.
If you were to move over to WordPress, you would be basically starting all over again from the beginning.
Is WordPress free?
WordPress, the CMS, is free. Why? Because WordPress was created to be an open source CMS platform. So you could basically download WordPress, get a free WordPress theme as well as free plugins and get your website up on the internet.
The only thing you may have to pay for of course is hosting.
But there are so many great deals on hosting, especially on Shared Hosting plans that can cost as little as $1 a month for your first year. Some will even throw in a free custom domain name for your first year.
There’s literally no excuse for you not to at least give it a try and get a WordPress website up on the internet today.
Where can I get a WordPress download?
You can get a WordPress download either from your current hosting provider, most of them have WordPress right in their dashboards that you can simply download onto their server in your account.
Or you can go to WordPress.org where you can choose from themes and plugins. Then simply download them onto your computer then upload them onto your web host.
So what do you think? Is WordPress easy for beginners?
There you have it! As I’ve shown above, WordPress is definitely easy for beginners.
There are plenty of free and paid resources to learn WordPress without the need to learn even one piece of code.
WordPress has evolved so much over the past few years alone, that beginners have it so much easier when setting up a WordPress website, than I had over 10 years ago.
The way WordPress has been evolving, especially over the last couple of years with the release of Gutenberg, their built-in block page builder, it’s easy to see where WordPress is going.
So if you have been hesitant on getting a WordPress website up on the internet or if you’re thinking it’s too much hassle and would rather go to a closed platform like Wix, then hopefully this post has changed your mind or at least made you reconsider WordPress.
For me, WordPress is the only way to go. What about you?
