Building a website doesn’t need to be hard. In fact, WordPress makes it very easy. However, as easy as WordPress is, it can still be a big learning curve for someone without a web design background.
The internet has changed a lot over the last 25 years. I remember hand-coding websites from scratch in the late ’90s, and then moving to early content management systems in the 2000s, including the first versions of WordPress way back in 2003.
The internet has changed exponentially more since 2003. WordPress and other content management systems have become increasingly capable and easy to use. WordPress has grown enormously to become the most popular content management system in the world, powering more than 30% of the websites on the internet (including this one). Part of this popularity has come from the ease of extensibility through the WordPress plugin and theme system that makes it so simple to add more functionality and customise the appearance.
With such an easy way to build out more functionality, an enormous plugin and theme ecosystem has grown up around WordPress. Taking it a step further, dedicated WordPress web hosts have arisen that specialise in WordPress performance optimisation. The problem is, this ecosystem has become so big with so much functional overlap, it can be a challenge to even work out which plugin is going to be the best one for the functionality you are looking for. In the same way, which WordPress theme is the right balance of visuals and performance? Which web host is the best choice? It’s actually made a simple system quite complex to figure out!
I started WP How To Club as a way of sharing tips, tricks and guides on how to leverage the open-source WordPress content management system in your business, non-profit or personal blog. My goal is to help you choose the best WordPress host, plugins and themes for your needs. WordPress doesn’t need to be complicated. I believe it should be as easy as it was always intended to be.
So, join us at the WP How To Club and start learning achieving your web site goals with WordPress!
–Matt