Non-coders/non-designers who built their own website: theme or site-builder?

  • Seeking input from peers one-step ahead of me: i.e., website owners who are not coders & are not trained designers … who successfully built their business website themselves.

    Did you achieve your customization through a theme or a Site-Builder plug-in or both or neither?

    I am asking because it seems that if I want my site to have anything not shown in a theme, I have to either add code [I’m not a coder] or see if a site-builder plug-in can do it.
    But the site-builder plug-ins seem to all push their own built-in themes or templates yet claim that all other themes will work with their site-builder.
    This creates an overwhelming set of options for a newbie.

    Looking for any success-stories to help inspire and guide me forward efficiently & effectively into creation without design/code training.
    Thanks so much.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

  • I think you are asking the wrong group for advice.
    This summer, I helped a novice migrate his existing site to WordPress. At first, he had all these concepts of using a page builder and a premium theme and making Pages out of everything he already had. I had to show him the WordPress way of defining Pages and Posts to present the information the way it made more sense.
    If he had continued how he started, building unique pages for all of those (7000), he would never get done. Those became Posts with custom taxonomies to be able to access them in different ways.

    Basically, you only really need a page builder if you don’t know HTML. With the new editor, which will be released in WordPress 5.0 in about a month, you won’t need page builders.
    Themes treat the content as one item. Themes are not involved in modifying content, but they supply the styles for how each individual HTML tag looks. You can always add your own styles in the Customizer > Additional CSS. The theme generates all the pieces to make the site consistent on every page (header, sidebar, content area, footer, navigation, etc.)

    You can use the new editor as a plugin, before WP 5.0 comes out. Look for Gutenberg on the main plugin page.

    Thread Starter 4thfront

    (@4thfront)

    I posted this inquiry in the “Everything Else WP” forum because it’s a broad question about approach and not about a specific plug-in, theme or feature of WP. But the moderators moved it here to the “Fixing WP” forum.

    Still seeking non-coder/non-designer creators. Could not find a group or forum that focuses on “virgins” like me. Starting to doubt/wonder if there are any laymen out there that succeed in WP via DIY. But hoping to hear back from any…

    There are many, but it still seems like the wrong people to ask. And it seems like the people who frequent the forums are those with experience and knowledge, answering questions, and then those that don’t know so they ask the questions. The ones you want to answer likely won’t ever look at the forums.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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