WordPress Website Building for the Complete Novice

If you’re a complete novice but interested in building a WordPress website, it no longer requires a technical guru to create and manage a real WordPress website. Don’t misunderstand, it’s takes some tutoring and hard work up front, but HTML and CSS code is no longer a requirement to edit and maintain a site. Don’t get me wrong, unless you know some code you will not be able to create a fully customized site, but if you’re willing to compromise you can get by without it. Once the site is up and running, posting current content, such as special sales, offerings or product information can be done in minutes, and it’s almost as easy as writing an e mail. No code needed!

WordPress UPDATE 2022

WordPress 6.0 has arrived with some new functionality that will enable novice website builders to achieve full site editing using the block editor. There’s really no limit on what content you can create. Remember to keep your content original, relevant and current if you want to rank in the search engines.

Confused?

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you’re not alone! I remember when I started up a business as an independent sales consultant and I didn’t have a clue what WordPress was or what a blog was. I had heard the term “blog” before, but really didn’t know what it was. If this sounds familiar, rest easy. None if it is as hard as you might think and it doesn’t take long to learn and get started. Here are some tips about how to get started with building your own WordPress website for the complete novice:

Tip #1 – Be cautious of your source of information. Technology changes so fast the information found in the search engines becomes outdated quickly. The search engine results are full of information about this topic of WordPress website building for the complete novice. Most of the information is good content, but much of it is outdated and no longer accurate. That’s a typical problem with information found online, and is a subject for a whole other blog post. You don’t want to waste time reading or watching tutorials only to find out later it was outdated.

Tip #2 – Unless you have lots of time on your hands, hire a consultant to assist you and point you in the right direction.

Tip #3 – Instead of hiring a someone to build your WordPress website, hire a consultant that might be willing to help and teach to do it yourself. Again, it’s still time consuming but at least you won’t be floundering in the dark and wasting precious time. Most web designers are not interesting in working with the novice website builder one on one, at least not at an affordable price. Still, if you can find someone qualified and willing to provide instruction, you’ll be miles ahead and save time in the end. You can try contacting me. If I’m not too busy, I’ll try to provide little coaching at a reasonable cost..

Tip #4 – Whatever you do, make sure you know how to maintain your site when it’s complete. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, a website requires continual attention, just like a garden. If you don’t feed and care for it, it will die.

Tip #5 – We’ve all seen or heard the ads of websites offered for free that anyone can create. I highly suggest all my clients avoid these like the plaque. If you really must have one of these sites, be very cautious. First, make sure you can use your own .com domain name with the site. Verify it is a WordPress site. There are a couple other site platforms that are okay, but nothing beats WordPress! Next, confirm your site name is not associated with anyone or anything else.

Nothing is FREE

Remember, nothing is really free and you usually get what you pay for. Usually, anything offered for free is associated upgrades that are not free. The next thing you know, you’ve got time invested in working on a “free’ site, only to find out later it won’t perform the way you’d like. There are many more reasons to avoid this type of website but that’s a subject for another post.

Summary – Very soon, WordPress website building for the complete novice is more possible than ever, but there will still be work involved. Unless you have extra time on your hands, I would highly recommend you hire a freelance WordPress consultant to work with you in building a simple and inexpensive WordPress website, that you can then easily edit on your own. The newbie will quickly learn their way around WordPress and in a short time make the natural transition and becoming experienced.