Hey folks…
Taking on the responsibilty of setting up a basic informational webspace for a group I’m part of. I’m not -completely- new to web page design but my knowledge is completly outdated and essentially useless particularly where WP is concerned. I mean I had a really neat Geocities page back in the day though….
I have time to mess around a bit and learn by doing but initially I just want to get something clean looking up with some information. Any good starting advice on templates to use? Is it worth paying for one over a free template? This is essentially a non-profit endeavor so costs are a big factor but I’m also willing to spend a little out of pocket if it pays off in ease of use and time savings.
Many have told me I should have just went with Square Space for ease of use but I’m stubborn and not terribly bright jumped into the deep end here on a WP hosted page….so now that I’m in the thick of it I need to get learning. So if there are any good resources someone could recommend for a dummy in my situation I’d take it, too.
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It depends on whether you want to get dirty with code or just find a solid put of the box solution to throw together. If you want to actually design everything yourself then you’re gonna need to either code up a theme or use a page builder. I fucking hate page builders and don’t recommend them even for their intended use case.
WordPress’s default themes have historically been well put together and practical so maybe look through those for one that more or less works, and then you can make light edits to styles and templates with help from us here. The themes are named after the year they’re published, so “twentytwenty” and such.
For hosting, use A2 Hosting maybe. Cheap, decent, not suicidally enraging like GoDaddy. Don’t use GoDaddy. Please. If you want ultimate peace of mind and the budget affords it, Flywheel, Kinsta, WP Engine, and friends are fully managed WP-hosting. But they’re pricey.
I love helping, teaching, and mentoring people so ping me if you want more hands-on help with something.
You can satisfy most needs for a basic website by using the free version of Elementor. It’s a great page builder that gives you plenty of control over how pages and posts look, and it gives you room to get pretty advanced if needed without being overly complex for basic needs. There is also a ton of content on youtube to show you how to get the most out of it. Even though my company can custom-build themes and plugins in WordPress, we use Elementor for most of our clients because it’s pretty straight forward, easily template-able, and easy to maintain.
As far as which plugins to use, that will depend on what you need on the website. When you do figure out a specific need that basic WordPress or Elementor doesn’t provide, you can run a search like `site:reddit.com best free wordpress security plugin 2022` and find conversations where people already discussed the pros and cons of the many plugins that serve that purpose.
I prefer finding reddit discussions about the best plugins rather than searching all of Google, because the plugins with the highest quality and least hassle might not always rank near the top of a search result.
But if I see a dozen or more people all agreeing that `<insert plugin name>` is useful AND easy to use for its intended purpose, I have more confidence in that plugin not trying to hide the features I want behind a paywall.
Not that there’s anything wrong with paid plugins, though. Some of them are absolutely worth it depending on the needs of your website. My company has licenses to quite a few, but we also maintain 100+ WordPress sites so it’s worth it to us. More often than not, you can solve most basic website needs with a free plugin that is good enough while saving whatever available funds you have for only the most critical features.
I’d say it comes down to how big of a site you need start. It also depends on if you’re the one editing the site or if others need to, too.
Assuming it’s a simple 1-5 pages to start, I would recommend keeping html only. It’s a great way for you to refresh your knowledge, keep the site simple and secure, and it’s free.
Pick a free template from html5up.net and go from there. You can get your domain or transfer it to Cloudflare and host your site there for free on their Pages service. Netlify is also a good option.
If you need forms on your site, you can use Cognito forms that are embeddable in any site.
If you actually need WordPress, again, start simple and just use the WordPress.com service. They have an $8/mo option. It’s not the best way to use WordPress but it’s run by the makers of WordPress and it will get the job done and it’s simple. You can use one of their starter themes and customize it with your own colors, images, and content.
You’ll get lots of advice – good luck picking the stuff to heed. I’ve created lots of sites – and my main ‘market’ is non-profits and support organisations.
There are many options. A lot of people will say Elementor (or Divi). It can make building pages easy – but it’s also a bloated and complicated mess in places and I wouldn’t touch it.
You can go for a good theme with lots of demo content – Neve. Astra, Kadence, Bricksy… several come with blocks – ‘modules’ you can use on pages for easier design. So they are ‘elementor like’ – in letting you build prettier pages… but lighter – and work with the WP ecosystem, rather than taking it over and doing everything their own way.
My recommendation would be GeneratePress and their Blocks plugin. They have a small number of demo sites – and enable ready-made blocks. They are basic enough to learn easily, and pretty enough to make a site. But they lack ‘cleverness’ like flashy animations and whatnot.
However – while easy to get the basics, there is a huge amount of power in GP – that you can gradually open up. Their elements allow page-templates, blog-templates, archive pages, code hooks – and all manner of usefulness. Plus, it all works with WP, not against it.
Finally, there’s the ‘big boys’, which – if you would like to have flashy stuff and learn your way back to web development – provide page/template builders which are light, and for people with an understanding of web conventions, make sense – because they are builders built for devs, not for people who can’t dev and so want a builder… Gosh, that was a clumsy sentence… Anywho – Bricks Builder, Oxygen and Breakdance are brilliant.
ALL the options above are as cheap or cheaper than Elementor – and I promise you, on my 15+years with WP, that they are ALL easier long-term than the toilet that the once beautiful elementor has become.
The final reason I’ll mention is idiots 😉 – I have to hand a lot of sites over to people who know nothing… and I have to train them. If you want to be able to let others help with the site (or one day hand it off) – GP is the best – no question. It allows for most of what you do to be vanilla WordPress and Gutenberg – and there’s a million help pages for that. Plus GutB is aimed at people who don’t know web – while remaining WP, not too flash but pretty enough.
You can build complicated bits (in the background) – but allow a lot of the page / posts to be simple for others to learn.
Elementor – and several of the others – on the other hand – are a disaster to hand-over – and you will land yourself with the job of doing EVERYTHING.
(Oxy/Brick/Break – have built in options to limit what users can edit – and so are good for handover too).