Are you thinking of building your first website with WordPress? Or have you already done many but each time you wonder if you have made the right decisions? Here are some things you should learn about WordPress that I have learned in these years of working with this CMS.
1) The difficult choice of a WordPress theme.
I still remember when, in 2003 or 2004, I installed WordPress for the first time. At that time, choosing a topic was not difficult. The alternatives, although not very few, technically did not differ much from each other and this made the choice much easier.
However, choosing a WordPress theme today is undoubtedly more difficult. The alternatives are extremely numerous. In fact, just take a tour of websites like Themeforest or the official WordPress repository to get lost among the hundreds of themes available.
There are also a whole series of frameworks designed to make creating new themes easier, such as Genesis, Hybrid, Gantry, just to name a few.
What solution to choose? As always, in these cases the correct answer is: it depends.
I would personally recommend a framework to those who are used to getting their hands dirty with code, but want to start from a solid, tested and functional base. However, frameworks also have some aspects that can be problematic. :
In fact, it is often necessary to learn the logic of that framework to exploit it to the fullest and therefore an investment in terms of time must be considered;
It is essential to verify that the framework has complete and updated documentation, otherwise you run the risk of having an excellent tool in your hands but without the instruction manual;
It is useful for evaluating the spread of a framework, to check how much it is compatible and compatible with the various plugins available.
However, if you don't want to resort to a framework and prefer an out-of-the-box solution, you have many options to choose from. A topic already done It is definitely an easier way, especially when times are tight.
However, it is good to keep some points in mind:
Many pre-made themes are extremely visually appealing, but are a nightmare to customize;
They have a large number of options, but perhaps not the ones we need;
some are quite heavy and require a lot of JavaScript and style sheets to load, slowing down page loading time;
They often make extensive use of shortcodes that must be inserted into pages and posts to obtain particular graphical solutions. However, these shortcodes can pose a problem and an obstacle if you want to switch to another theme in the future.
If the developer who created the theme stops supporting it, you may find yourself with a theme that is outdated and difficult to update.
That being said, I am not at all against pre-made themes as I have used them often as well. In my opinion, however, it is always useful to evaluate on a case-by-case basis whether they are really the right choice.
Themes like GeneratePress or Astra are ready-to-use themes that I recommend. Graphically very clean and light but very easy to customize.
Another solution is start with an extremely minimalist theme like Underscores and build your solution starting from scratch, or almost. This theme provides all the files needed to get started with a WordPress theme, but leaves it up to the user to create the CSS and JavaScript to implement the desired functionality.
Undoubtedly, make a theme from scratch It requires a lot of effort, but it allows you to get a truly custom solution that you can also use in other projects. You will almost never find yourself in a situation where you can't do something, because the theme or framework doesn't allow it. Obviously, the price you pay is your time and effort to document yourself.
Learn more about the differences between the themes and the frameworks you need. learn about WordPress.
2) Do not modify the core files of WordPress, a theme or a plugin
Core files are the default WordPress plugin, theme or theme files. That is, the files as they are when we download them from the developer's website.
In some cases, you may be tempted to edit these files to get the desired result. Doing so, however, would take a dangerous path, creating a roadblock in case of future updates.
In fact, if we modify the main files of a theme or framework that we have downloaded, instead of using a child theme, every time we update the original theme we will lose all the changes made. The same goes for changes made to WordPress core files or those of a plugin. Therefore, it is better to create an ad hoc plugin or use your theme's functions.php file.
3) Plugins are useful and beautiful, but don't become a slave to them
The WordPress plugin directory has over 49,000 plugins and it is practically impossible to know them all and definitely not even worth doing so ;)
Each plugin installed on your website, in addition to adding functionality, also weighs the server's workload and, usually, It also increases page loading time . If you are interested, I already mentioned a solution to check the impact of plugins on server workload.
The basic rule of thumb that I recommend is to only install the plugins that you really need.
Also avoid those that have not been updated in a long time and those that are not compatible with the latest versions of WordPress.
4) Aim for a fast website
A beautiful and interesting website can be incredibly penalized by excessively slow page loading. Would you be willing to visit a website frequently if you had to wait 10 seconds for each page? Probably not and your readers probably won't either.
I have already mentioned some tips on how to speed up a WordPress website.
5) And finally you should learn about WordPress that your website is more vulnerable than you think
When creating a WordPress website, it's a good idea to take security seriously. Therefore, it is essential to always use the latest versions of WordPress and related plugins.
On the server side, the hosting provider must also be in charge of adopting solutions aimed at protecting the hosted websites from the action of possible external attackers.
To make WordPress a little more secure, I recommend that you read the security part in the WordPress Codex.
Then there are a whole series of plugins designed to increase security, but very often these solutions also tend to conflict with other plugins and still do not make your website 100% secure. A website can never be 100% secure.
The key is to make sure you take regular backups of your website, either by using WordPress-specific plugins or by making sure your hosting provider does it for you. In case of problems, having an up-to-date backup can really make a difference. To guide you, here is an article dedicated to backup solutions for learning WordPress.
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