Last updated - April 13, 2023
WordPress is an invaluable asset for students looking to create an online platform to showcase their skills. Unlike most builders, it is open-source software that allows individuals with no technical knowledge to create different blogs. Interestingly, WordPress facts show that it powers over 43% of all websites on the internet. The Content Management System (CMS) has thousands of plug-ins and preset designs students use to customize and design a page. Per reports, designing an operational internet page with a few clicks is possible. WordPress is more affordable, versatile, and secure than most builders. Let us explore some challenges students face while learning WordPress and how to avoid them.
The Main Difficulties in Studying WordPress Design
WordPress leads the pack as far as website-building is concerned. Despite its ease of use, it is not without its difficulties. One of the ways professors help students identify the loopholes is by giving assignments on the topic. If you can’t juggle your workload, we recommend you hire someone to write essays for a price. Professional student essay writing services will offer to write unique papers for money and produce top class papers on schedule from scratch, so students can focus on other technical parts of their assignments. Some problems undergraduates encounter while trying to navigate the popular CMS are:
It is a Self-hosted CMS
WordPress is an open-source CMS. This means that to make a webpage, students must install it on their web hosting platform. As a result, it appears complicated. Unlike builders with in-built hosting, you are responsible for setting up the hosting by yourself. Not only this, but you will also maintain the software going forward. Maintenance activities include updates, data backup, and protection from malicious attacks – all of this can be a lot if you are a beginner.
It Relies on Third-party Extensions
Extensions are available as themes and plug-ins. The WordPress themes determine how your page appears, while plug-ins add features. The latter could be used as tools in your dashboard or front end. These extensions grant control over the WordPress site but also make it complex since most come from various third-party developers. Besides, plug-ins use different interfaces, and you can’t apply the same to everything. A conflict between the plug-ins also leads to problems with other layers. Despite the best intention to make page creation flexible, the extensions make it cumbersome.
There is No Limit to Perfection
Perfection is relative, and trying to create the perfect design is overwhelming. Students with no history in website design should deal with many complexities. Although WordPress provides a solid foundation, you’ll still spend quality time customizing settings. If you don’t know custom CSS code, the available choices will be overwhelming. Plus, your design must be responsive across different devices.
WordPress has plenty of settings in its dashboard, including over 60,000 plugins. But they are not enough. The solution is to add additional settings from third-party designs, which increases the options you must deal with. All these choices lead to fatigue and stress.
There are Many Designs to Familiarization
The WordPress design is in stages. Like a class, students learn WordPress in levels. You start by learning easy terms like widgets and permalinks and proceed to advanced concepts like custom taxonomies, custom post types, etc. Other advanced-level students learn to include WordPress template hierarchy and other overwhelming glossaries of terminology.
Even experts worry about security vulnerabilities, slow website performance, overreliance on plug-ins, occasional errors, and unexpected costs. But in truth, there is no easy or perfect tool. As you’ll soon find out, most of these issues are manageable if you know what to do when encountering them.
WordPress Learning Process
WordPress has a simple design, including a clean interface in the center, a management sidebar on the left, and notifications at the top. But you’ll have to dig into layers of functionality within the system to create an ideal website. Follow these steps to set up your first site:
Choose a Domain
A domain is a URL inside the visitor’s address bar. Ideally, it must be short, easy to remember, and relate to your brand. We recommend you to buy a domain with your hosting plan since some plans include free domain packages.
Buy Hosting and Domain
Web hosting companies own and manage servers in data centers worldwide, allowing you to host your website. This way, students don’t need to buy or manage server technology. In return, the companies ask for annual or monthly rent for bandwidth and space on the server. There are different types of web hosting for various scenarios. Pay attention to the following:
- Stick to WordPress.com hosting if you’re creating a small or private website.
- Try shared hosting for a blog.
- Cloud hosting is ideal for new ventures and websites for collecting payments or leads.
- VPS is suitable if you anticipate heavy traffic for your e-commerce website. Once you receive heavy traffic through the site, consider shifting to managed WordPress hosting.
The host will provide a dedicated IP address and SSL certificate; you only need to choose a domain name. Apart from WordPress, Bluehost is another top host we recommend.
Install WordPress
Most hosting services allow you to install WordPress with a one-click installation, while some automatically complete the process. After installing the package, select an option to create a new website and a URL. Then, set up an Admin account and choose the hosting location. Connect your domain with the site via your hosting account and proceed to the next stage.
Choose a Theme and Install it
WordPress has various interchangeable designs a user can install and change in the future. The theme saves time and money, as they are predesigned, so you don’t need to pay someone or design the page from scratch. When you log into WordPress, it will assign the latest basic designs. If you want something different, look around for more designs and tweak it to suit your page design. When you find the perfect theme, install it. Then, activate it to publish it on the site.
WordPress has free designs for everyone and premium ones at a price. To buy a file, visit the theme’s page and click on the option to download it. Upload the zipped folder into WordPress and activate it.
Configure the Theme and Publish the Pages
After activating and publishing the theme, use the “Appearance” tab to customize it as desired. Use colors, fonts, widgets, images, menus, and sections to interact with page visitors. Don’t forget to click the “publish” button after adjusting the pages.
Configure the Settings
Review your settings to track configuration and ensure they work how you want them to. Pay attention to the title, WordPress address, tagline, Email address, and membership. Not only this, but note the writing, reading, discussion, and media settings.
Install Essential Plugins
Plug-ins are like phone apps. They extend your website’s ability and improve functionality. Like apps, plug-ins serve different functions. They include resizing and compressing images, blocking spammers, and integrating social media feed into your website. Popular ones include
- SEO plugins like Yoast.
- Google Analytics.
- Image optimization.
- Caching.
- CRM.
- Security.
- Contact form, etc.
The Necessary Skills to Master WordPress
WordPress is advertised as an easy-to-use click-and-drag website builder that does not require coding. These abilities will give you an edge over other students:
HTML
Hyper Text Markup Language is the foundation of page assembly. It helps you grasp how the web functions and tools for building sites from scratch. They include text formatting, page layout, adding images, etc.
Cascading Style Sheet
CSS is another skill aspiring front-end developers learn easily. Unlike HTML, which deals with structure, CSS affects visual appearance. It determines how to render pages on the screen, including the font size, styling, and colors. Other aspects are text distribution, black configuration, backgrounds, animations, etc.
JavaScript
JavaScript (JS) is famous for the primary interactive component and content of a page. It applies to both back-end and front-end development and understanding it helps you create your WP themes.
Bootstrap
If you don’t like encrypting from scratch, master bootstrap to copy and paste code from documents and do little customizations to get a unique result. It improves design speed and saves time. Bootstrap has templates from box-sizing, responsive meta-tags, CSS, HtML5, and JS.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO engine optimization improves the quantity and quality of traffic to your page. This way, the target audience discovers your content more. SEO is both a business management and technical skill. Learn it to improve your expertise and make the page faster, mobile-friendly, and easier to navigate. Other aspects to study include goal setting, communication, sales and marketing, strategic thinking, and responsive design.
The Resources you Can Use to Learn WordPress
There are many applications, forums, and options to learn WP. The most popular ones include:
LearnWoo
Learnwoo is an online resource for WooCommerce. It explores everything about popular e-commerce platforms and is one of the best places to simplify your e-commerce experience. The flexible open-source solution is built for WordPress-based websites, and it is ideal for creating e-commerce shops. Use it to turn a regular page into a fully functioning store with the necessary features.
WP Beginner
WP Beginner is one of the largest WordPress resource sites for beginners. After completing the email signup form, it provides a pool of in-depth tutorials and guides, video courses, and materials. The resources cover various WP topics you need to create pages. Other WordPress resources include WordPress TV, WordPress Block Editor Handbook, and WordPress Codex.
Massive Open Online Courses
MOOCs are virtual courses that provide a flexible way to study from anywhere and at your pace. Massive open online courses boomed during the coronavirus lockdown, allowing students to attend courses outside the four walls of a classroom. Depending on the provider, select your tutor and course and receive a certificate of completion at the end. Popular ones to explore include Udemy, Khan Academy, edX, Coursera, and more.
LinkedIn Learning
This online provider uses video courses taught by industry experts in creative, computer programs, and brand attitude. It offers a personalized touch, and you can choose from a pool of topics to study.
Smashing Magazine
Smashing Magazine is a virtual magazine for designers and WordPress developers. It publishes articles on popular HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and more design topics. Besides articles, there are in-depth tutorials and insightful walkthroughs for intermediate and beginner-level users.
Conclusion
WordPress offers a quick and simple solution to design for businesses and individuals. It was founded in 2003 and currently powers 43% of pages on the internet. As a result, if you want to have a virtual page for your student brand, it is one of the best ideas to explore. Although it is advertised as an easy solution, it requires serious intellectual ability. But with the right abilities, you will enjoy using WordPress to design. We recommend you to enroll and use any of the resources above to improve your expertise.
