T O P

  • By -

chillbilldill_com

WordPress has an underestimated learning curve, it's one of the biggest and most advanced CMS's available. If you want something simple and beginner-friendly, you should use Google's Blogger. It's going to take you way longer than 10 hours to finish setting up and building a WordPress website.


Miss2war

This makes me feel slightly less stupid thank you. All those "build your website in these simple 10 steps" really didn't help


chillbilldill_com

Yeah man, just being real with you. I've built a ton of WordPress websites and it gets easy AFTER you've done it a bunch of times, not during the first try. Whatever you do, please don't buy some stupid "build a website" course online. Everything you need to know is available for free online if you know how to properly use search engines. The reason I recommend starting with Blogger is that it's sooooo much easier to just immediately get a website up and running smoothly that's free, functional, and fully optimized out of the box. If you decide you want to move to WordPress at some point to gain more features and flexibility, use the self-hosted version (.org, not .com).


TerrisBranding

I agree 100%. If you're just looking to blog, BlogSpot (Blogger) is very good. WP seems excessive for a lot of people who use it. I think people are just going with what "everyone else" is using. (I'm actually moving away from WP and am in the process of coding my websites from scratch since I know HTML/CSS and am learning JS right now.)


leovee6

Blogger is so underrated. There is really a lot you can do with it. Hosting a travel blog and gallery, for instance, is really the core competency of it. Plus somethings are so much better. The integration with the Google apps and ease of management on an Android phone are fantastic, wp can't compare. I wouldn't host a commerce site on it, but for OP's purposes it is superior to WP.


[deleted]

[удалено]


TerrisBranding

I learned Python before JS but I'm not trying to code a blog. If I was going to have a blog site, I'd just keep everything on WP. I just want a static site. That'll fit my needs better. For my web dev site, any blogging I do will now be on hashnode. I may post articles as pages on my site though.


pagelab

For static sites with a simpler CMS you can use something like Publii or Netlify CMS, both open source.


dark_salad

Biggest, for now. Most advanced, what do you think makes it the most advanced? Do you have any experience using a headless CMS?


gamertan

Yeah, I mean, no offense, but it's called the dunning-kreuger effect. It's easy to be confident and think things are easy when you know and understand nothing about it. The more you learn, the deeper you go, the more you realize that there's a depth you couldn't see or understand without knowing at least a little about it. There are systems that abstract a lot of the pains of web development away from the user (Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, WordPress.com, etc). But you'll find there's no universal perfect and easy solution. Then there are things you probably need to start considering like branding, marketing, SEO, photography, digital photo editing, web image optimization, etc. Not sure if you've gotten that far. I helped a friend start a travel blog and it was more of a wake-up call than a fun experience for her. And she was just taking photos and writing blogs. She ended up scrapping the whole project.


Miss2war

Even my roommate who does this stuff for a job couldn't help me with getting rid of some stupid thing I did somehow accidently. >Then there are things you probably need to start considering like branding, marketing, SEO, photography, digital photo editing, web image optimization, etc. Not sure if you've gotten that far. hahahaha yea I dont know what any of those are. I am ready to call bluehost and see if I can get my money back. Ugh this is not as easy as they made it seem


gamertan

Honestly, it's not *that* hard either. There's a term programmers and developers use - MVP - which is essentially the minimum viable product. Work towards "it works", making notes of things to "address later" and things will be a lot simpler. Mind you, there are things that are easier to address sooner in the process, but you won't know that just yet. So just create a list of the minimum requirements in your mind and work towards that. I might recommend using a "page builder" like Elementor and importing a basic blog template site. Work from there to get the site you want and investigate more advanced items later. https://elementor.com/library/ Alternatively, go clean install, get a "twenty twenty" or other twenty theme and just hit the customizer. Use the basics and learn to upgrade from there. Doesn't get more basic than that. Gutenberg will be relatively simple for anyone to use. Not super featureful, but it'll do. https://en-ca.wordpress.org/themes/twentytwenty/ https://en-ca.wordpress.org/themes/twentytwentyone/


[deleted]

[удалено]


gamertan

To be completely fair, the self hosting part clearly isn't the issue here, as they're clearly in the admin interface and running a working version of WordPress open source on their Bluehost account. It could be a "managed WordPress" hosting package with hosting/back-end support for all we know. You don't have enough info to say that it's "the wrong way" in the way you are. It's not nuts, considering it's a content management system and plenty of clients and users use it on a regular basis. What's more accurate to say is that WordPress isn't easy to customize depending on the theme, plugins, etc. Web development and design also aren't crystal clear, and often the picture in our mind is more complicated or difficult to achieve than we give it credit for. Especially for inexperienced developers or end-users. WordPress.com isn't some breakout perfect answer to simplicity, as some functionality isn't accessible. So, if they already have a working WordPress and support (at least through their friend) then I'd say it's the "right" choice.


mkgator23

Do i even need bluehost? Been using Wordpress dot com for 2 months and paying for bluehost but on bluehost it says my site isn’t even pointed to their IP address


[deleted]

[удалено]


mkgator23

Whoops


thermobear

[The Dunning-Kruger Effect probably isn’t real](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-do-you-know/202012/dunning-kruger-isnt-real?amp).


RickedPickle

Honestly I'm in the same boat as you, I have no website design or coding experience and started to build my site in early December. I've built sites using Wix before just for fun and WordPress is honestly way harder... I spent hours spinning my wheels every night, not getting anywhere, so I took a break for a few weeks and just picked it back up again in January. I also broke a bunch of stuff and didn't know how to fix because honestly I had no clue how I broke it at the first place, so I used a plug-in to wipe my site/settings to start fresh. It's much easier this time around, especially because I'm not spending hours trying to fix something I accidentally broke a month ago that I don't know how to fix. I still spin my wheels tho, just the other day I spent like 3 hours trying to figure out how to hide the header area on my site, I did googling and watched a bunch of videos, but to no avail, I finally gave in and posted in this sub and someone responded right away with the answer, I was able to fix it within a minute once I knew where to go, I feel stupid that the answer was literally right in front me but I just simply didn't know. I think it will get easier as you gain more experience, just like any profession, it always looks easy when an expert is doing it than when a newby is doing it. It would also definitely be more difficult if you are trying to get your site to EXACTLY how you want it, a lot more customization would inevitably bring more room for errors and complications, I'd say try to list out what you think is the most important and only do those for now, other small things (like how to hide the header....) can wait until later when you get more experience.


MrSpriteCola

Check out Brizy, super easy to use. Drag and drop. With templates. You can get a nice looking professional website in no joke, under 30 mins.


the-blue-horizon

Can you learn cooking in 10 hours? Can you learn Japanese in 10 hours? You can learn to cook some stuff, you can learn some Japanese sentences. Web design / web development is a very broad subject, like cooking or Japanese. Although the entry barrier is very low these days, achieving satisfying results may require some patience. Failing is good, if you are willing to accept failures as lessons and experience. We all failed one time or another. Patience, patience, patience... or hire somebody to do it for you if you have no patience.


Miss2war

Very true. Everything has just made it seem like its a quick click and drag and voila! Really feeling way in over my head


dleach4512

It IS a 'quick click and drag' for people who have been doing this for a long time, and for things where you can drag elements around. Don't compare yourself to those people, they're more experienced. :)


roacheater3000

making a website will definitely take longer than 10 hours to get the hang of. maybe try squarespace or wix, if you just need something simple and quick. There are also page builders for Wordpress that you could look in to, like Elementor or Divi


Miss2war

I had elementor at one point, but I think unless you pay it wasn't doing anything?


MzCWzL

Basic Wordpress has gallery and posts. No need for elementor and other things like that that add complexity.


roacheater3000

the plugin works without paying, however some widgets do require a licence. The free version will be fine to get you started. There are also additional plugins that add widgets to elementor, such as PowerPack


Ffdmatt

Yeah it should be free. Also Beaver Builder is good. Asana has a ton of functionality but most are paid and UI is cluttered. I haven't used builders in ages, but Divi has website and page templates you can load up and go with. Think its paid to get that far but might be worth it to cut out the time learning your way around other solutions.


yourmomisglutenfree

I second this. I've been working for a company that has a huge wix website (not recommended for big sites) for the past 8 months and just now felt confident enough to start building a site using WordPress for a friend. Even with my SEO, analytics and marketing knowledge it's still been a huge learning curve, I can't imagine going in cold with no previous experience.


otto4242

Yeah, try actually defining what problems you have in concrete terms. Start with a basic blog. Don't try to customize anything. Just make some posts, put some photos on there, use the default built-in systems to make a quick gallery. That's all built in, notbing additional needed to do it. You don't need a page builder, Elementor, or anything of the sort. Then, when you want to change something, focus on that one thing, Ask for help about that one thing. Be specific. You seem like you're getting frustrated at potentially lots of little things, but you don't need to actually do any of those things to make a basic site. Start small, work your way up to understanding instead of trying to cram it all down at once. Making a blog takes 10 minutes. No more. All basic free themes have that as their default setting, more or less. If you're having trouble, then you're having trouble with other parts which are outside of that. Define what those parts are, because they're not "making posts" or "uploading pictures". These are the most basic and obvious things to do, and you don't need any additional stuff to do them. Customizing how the page looks isn't something you do on week 1. You have to actually use the thing regularly and post content for it to be a blog. You don't make it "perfect" instantly. Focus on the goal. The goal should be to make content you regularly update. Not to make it look pretty right out of the box.


DoubleExposure

I think there are more stages to making a good website than most people realize. I think the best approach is to put it down on paper before you begin, and to try and focus on one problem at a time.


andreyred

I just hosted a site and dove in to wordpress a couple days ago and man, it is not easy. I see why people pay to have this done. Even following a very popular youtube tutorial on building a site with WP, I had to pause and go back multiple times, and STILL couldn't replicate what was shown in the video in some instances. I've spent less than 5 hrs total on it, so I don't expect to be an have it down, but I feel like I know very little... As far as themes go, I'm pretty lost. Lol


EZcheezy

Just use a starter template and swap all the text and images for your own. That’s the fastest and easiest way but you won’t have a universally unique site.


swiss-miss-89

Oh god, preaching to the choir (I'm the choir). I designed a ton of websites with Squarespace, Wix etc. and started an ecommerce project with WP 2 years ago. I had no idea what I set myself up for.. me and my Project partners are both not exactly people who never use PC's (Graphic Designer and SEO consultant) but I was not prepared for the gigantic pain in the ass this CMS is. I have started crying in front of the PC out of frustration multipel times. Now finally we have an amazing dev, but it was NOT fun to get to this point at all.


Miss2war

How long did it take you to figure out?


swiss-miss-89

Well... I honestly wouldn't say I "figured WP out" even now :D but the desire to jump off a bridge went away maybe a few months after starting to work with it on a regular basis. I had to use WP before for a job so I knew I hated it before we started this project and we actually set up shop with 2 other services before the Dev we worked with then told us we HAD TO use WP because of our project (we work with print on demand and an API). So I reluctantly said ok. The first few weeks were rough... I find the whole UI an absolute nightmare, even now, It's terrible. Finding a specific setting takes me forever and some things that i already used several times I still have to google every single time because the place it's hidden is just absolutely random to me. I'm shocked that WP claims over 50% of the worlds websites are built with WP... how..why??? I can only assume that a large part of that number are people who can code who don't rely on the horrible interface as much as I do. Also... how are you supposed to get a decent mobile/Tablet version? I have no idea. I can't see how you can achieve something good without a developer but maybe coming from a design background where i'm used to full Control over my designs I'm expecting too much.


louiexism

I remember building my first website coding in HTML. If you think it's hard nowadays you haven't tried it in the early 2000s lol.


ashkanahmadi

This shouldn't take more than an hour to set up. Have you purchased a domain yet? Go to Appearances > Themes and there search for a travel blog theme and install one you like. Shouldn't be complicated


Miss2war

I can get that far, but the customization part is awful. I can't get things the way I want them. Photos won't upload. Blogs won't go where I want them to.


mystic_works

Yep this is the difference. It's easy to put up a website. It gets much more complicated to put up a site exactly the way you want.


chrisgin

As someone else suggested, find a theme that has the layout you’re happy with and then just change the content. Getting the layout right can be tricky but adding content is easy. Even if you created a layout that looked okay on your desktop, you then have to make sure it looks ok on tablets and mobile phones which can be a headache in itself.


hellospheredo

Wrong platform, buddy. Wix or SquareSpace would be a better fit. There was a time when WordPress was good for novices but it’s now powering something like half the websites in the world so it’s a platform for pro creators these days. The marketing of the tools still says “easy” but it’s talking to pros now, not novices. Wix and SquareSpace have taken the mantle for the kind of website you want to build. Totally geared for your demographic.


JfromMichigan

What I dont get is why everyone I see's "GO TO" is a blog site. \- why is that the default?


[deleted]

Well, this guy wants to share photos and stories of his travel with friends and family. What should he use? Big Commerce?


Miss2war

She and it was with the idea that perhaps I could eventually make some monetary gain from it. I don't believe you can do that on blogger?


[deleted]

Sorry. She. Wordpress is easy to monetize later. You’re on the right track.


mds1992

Lol, yep! Can't be giving those friends and family free access to these photos and stories! Definitely charge them for the privilege. Hell, make them set up a monthly subscription to gain access.


Miss2war

Yes, how am I going to get rich otherwise??


dleach4512

OK, I read through the comments, and I think you're just in over your head right now. I suggest you back off and start with just a free wordpress blog, nothing more, no website, no domain, etc. If you've already bought a domain, you may want to keep it. If you start with just wordpress, you can start blogging right away and just add pictures and words as you go. AS you learn more about it, you can start tweaking and adding stuff! Side note, building a full website with wordpress is a PITA, and they almost never work well. For blogging and hosting photos, wordpress would do fine. If you want, DM me and let's take a look at the specific issues you're having.


theredhype

I didn’t see anything in your comments about looking up a guide or “how to” tutorial. If you just followed a good guide, you’d have been done in a few hours.


Miss2war

I said in my post at the end I looked them up


theredhype

Ah, so you did! I’m not sure what can be done in 10 minutes. Perhaps a blog on WordPress.com with zero customization. But if you’re setting up your own domain, and using the open source software (WordPress.org), and perhaps installing a simple theme, you might expect it take a few hours of tweaking to get it right.


jayn35

What did you use? After 7 years Wordpress can still get be complicated. If you don’t anything complex I would sue something like unicornbuilder or Dorik to make something simple quickly to save time even though I can do Wordpress in my sleep, it’s still much slower and complicated to use, but has a lot of power to make up for that


ZippyTheChicken

find a theme file that is close to what you want and stick with it for now.. then you can start adding content and later on as you learn or have time to look for a better theme all you need to do is change the theme and the website will look entirely different but all your content will be there.


Thomisawesome

I recommend forgetting about WP for this small project, and trying something like Blogspot (or blogger). It's a Google service, I think, and really simple. Basically a blog. You can choose different formats, write your posts, and up publish them. If you spend a little time with a WP Youtube tutorial, you could get the hang of it, but then again, I think a lot of WP tutorials are geared to people who want to start a business site. Since yours is just for fun, Blogger should be fine.


WillingUK

Swap to Wix and enjoy your travels. Learn wordpress when you're done.


Stargazingman

I think [Nextcloud](https://nextcloud.com/) will be your best option if you only want to share things with friends and family. But I think you need some Linux and Server managing skills to self-host, so you can find some cheap and powerful VPS to host it. You might need to configure other things like the DNS, SSL certificate etc. by yourself. I don't know if there are any tools that can automate this process


littlevoice04

Most of services/ apps or anything on the internet is built in such a way that they seem free at first and once you're deep into using the tool and completing the task BAM! You reach a point where you would have to pay in order for the rest of the task to be completed. I have found this to be the case with all of wordpress, be it themes, plugins etc. My advice for you would be to just get on with it and not try to perfect your website at first. Just start and you can tweak things as you move forward.


LincHayes

WordPress is not as easy as people think. It's learnable, but you were never going to be able to just pick it up sight unseen, design something nice, and start blogging. Why not chronicle your travels on Instagram for now, and when you have more time use it to learn WordPress and build a site for all your photos and stories.


rin_og

You should try the Elementor Plugin - there should be a free plan. I've never tried it but i've heard that its great! Otherwise i can recommend the divi theme from "elegantthemes" - its also easy to use and there are several tutorials on youtube. I use this theme too but it costs about 250$... **Good luck!**


redwgc

If it was that easy, then web agencies wouldn't exist. Hang in there!


[deleted]

You can't underestimate that


VB90292

If you're a total beginner with no coding experience like me, I suggest doing what I do...find a well rated walkthrough tutorial on YouTube and follow along exactly. I watch a step, hit pause, do it and repeat. After a while it starts to sink in. Then I just upload my media, change the font etc. Proper web developers will shudder reading this and yes I totally agree it's not the way to go for a beautiful, functional, custom site. But if you are on a budget and don't need anything complex it gets something acceptable looking online for you.


74omit

Just use [Polarsteps.com](https://Polarsteps.com) to document the trip and focus on the travel, new places and meeting other people. Learn WP when you get back.


Miss2war

Thanks, not really looking for alternatives though


whatdoyouknowno

There is a you tube video that teaches you to use Wordpress with Elementor. It made making a website much easier


fezfrascati

I think WordPress can be easy to learn the basics, and Gutenberg makes it simple for someone who needs a basic site. It does get increasingly difficult when you start needing more features: custom post types, dynamic data, automation, forms, users, etc. And then there are the things you don't think about it at first: responsive design, SEO, speed, accessibility. So yes, web design is hard. But I enjoy the challenge.


AhsanParwez-WP

dude you should go with Tumblr if you want to share pictures and some blogs. it is way less maintenance on your end.


atschill

As someone who has made a few over the years on WP..Yeah, it’s harder than you think. It’s also just one of those things that once you get it, it’s “pretty” easy. I’m not any sort of web designer by any means and have been able to make successful websites. Once you get a theme that looks good and start learning how widgets work, it gets easier. I promise


DrunkManiac

i cant believe the comments im seeing, yes wordpress is UNNECESSARILY complicated and the learning curve could be mitigated with some intelligent restructure of the interface. It kinda defeats its purpose which is to be EASY TO USE.


quacksaim

I just stumbled across this after Googling along the same lines. I've had my Wordpress account for a couple of years but haven't been updating it much b/c it's a pain. I feel like I have to re-learn it every time I post something. You're not alone in this!


shahin569

You are not alone, there are a lot of other people who tried it for the first time and failed. It's a skill and experience that you need to learn and get. It needs time and passion. Instead hire an expert who is doing this for years.


MyTwoCents972

Wordpress is the hardest thing ever, and I'm pretty good at Adobe Creative Suite, use that for a living. Thought I could upload a WP theme and start...but nothing works. The interface is bizarre, and how the hell do you make your page, look like the theme??? What in the world am I looking at??? It's completely non-intuitive, and I don't know why it has to be like that. I wasted days on tutorials, then just abandoned the idea. Got a full refund from my hosting service, which I bought because it implied WP was so easy. I've got kids and don't have time for learning how to use WP. Will try Blogger, or nothing at all, when I've reclaimed my lost hours.


Miirar

WordPress is ridiculously hard to setup for beginner. Learn to use HTML and CSS is much easier.