How I figured out a tech stack
This is part 2 of 3 of my guide to tech stacking on my WordPress website, Quilting Octopus.
In part 1 you looked at the 3 components for a solid web foundation, not built on social. Today, we’ll talk about what you’ll find inside WordPress and some key terms. Let’s assume you have a WordPress account now.
FYI – I’m not a tech advisor, this guide is intended as general information that recounts my user experience to date.
Logging in to WordPress
It took me ages to get used to logging on to WordPress. My preferred route is via my Dreamhost panel these days.
Get comfortable logging in and finding the WordPress dashboard. Get comfortable navigating.
Practice, my number 1 piece of advice. Just like quilting.
Next I had to actually go into and navigate through WordPress and make a website! WordPress is such a vast tool, it’s worth learning the basics but also, overwhelming. I can’t compare it to simple set ups like Wix, which I’ve never tried.
WordPress Themes
Inside WordPress, your website has a skeleton. It can’t hold itself up without a Theme. My theme was easy to choose, I was following the Elementor* tutorial about building a site and used what they suggested, called “Hello”.
What theme you choose will be shaped by what kind of site you want.
Documenting your quilting journey will be different from a site with carts and booking forms. Some themes are more suited to e commerce.
You can browse themes under the “Appearance” item in the dashboard menu of WordPress. Clicking on one will offer a brief description.
Again, you can change your theme later, though less easily than a domain name if you have a lot of content.
This is another “do it once” job, so choose a theme you like and march on boldly.
Editing systems
Editing systems for the actual content/pages on your site, like Classic, Gutenberg, and (my fave), Elementor,* are worth exploring.
Here’s some wisdom… if you can’t use or don’t like your editing interface, say goodbye to regularly updating your site.
Ease of use will define your success as a WordPress creator.
How do you decide? Search “gutenberg v. classic v. elementor”, it will give you a rundown of each. Look at images of each in use and choose one that makes sense to you, then be prepared to learn.
* What is Elementor? It’s a vast vast plug in, use it as a web page editor. It somehow “umbrellas” over my site and interfaces with most things I use, meaning I can access SEO tools (for example) from inside the Elementor page editor. I used the free version for years and only added pro for advanced actions recently. You’ll be fine with the free version.
The WordPress dashboard and plug ins
Your dashboard menu is your best friend in WordPress. It’s a responsive menu which changes depending on which plug ins are activated. Think of it as the scaffolding that you use to navigate and climb around your websites’ structure.
HEADS UP: Your menu will look different to mine, and yours will evolve as you add and remove plug ins and functionality.
Imagine scrolling down the menu here for access to pages, posts, and so much more, including settings. Many things are hidden in that left hand right click/drop down menu!
However, the editing systems we talked about earlier (Elementor, Gutenberg ect) only come into use once you build or update a page, post, or template.
PLUG INS
Plug ins are like apps for your website, you can add and remove them easily.
They can be ugly wee gremlins if they conflict and can affect your site speed and function.
There are thousands of plugins and they perform lots of different tasks from contact forms to putting your social feed on your webpage. Strategies for what goes with what is one focus of installment 3 of this series.
What I wish I knew earlier about WordPress
Set about building the PAGES you want. This is constantly in flux for me and I won’t tell you how to organise your menus when mine sorely need work 😖. (I have a list.) About, contact, gallery, home, are all examples of a page.
Here’s what took me 2 years of tinkering to learn….
POSTS (new) and PAGES (new) are not the same 😂. If you’re a digital native, HILARIOUS! If you’re a middle aged white woman, not so much 😕. (Yes, I am poking fun at my own demographic).
Here’s my experience 5 years ago…
“Every time I wanted to add something to my website another month had gone by and I’d forgotten how. I wasn’t savvy enough to know the difference between a post and a page. I added both haphazardly.”
Here’s how I’d explain to 5 year ago me, before I made all those pages I thought were posts…
“Pages are a handful of static “places” that you can offer on your site, such as about, home, gallery ect. Your blog can be a page, where you publish posts.
Posts are a continuum of content, which you’ll add to. you can repeatedly add new POSTS to the same (blog) PAGE. They’ll display like separate pages.”
So although I knew this by 2020, the actual structure of blog posts, in relation to the rest of a website, is where I’ve had the steepest learning curve recently. It’s not that I haven’t tried to do this before, I’ve spent countless hours since 2018 researching how to set this stuff up. This is the 3rd rebuild. Yes, 3rd.
I might finally have it right. For now.
Part 3 is the juice...
So, being unclear about posts and pages made it very hard to learn either workflow when I had them so confused! And even once I understood the difference, my 2nd rebuild was still wrong… as I discovered not so long ago.
You can avoid all this angst by logging into your site more regularly, understanding the difference between posts and pages. Get comfortable with editing your content manually, and spend time navigating the extensive menus you’ll interface with. Hang in there, you got this!
Next time, I want to share how I got from the basic structure outlined here, to defining the tech stack I want.
I held off publishing this post. Tech is changing so fast, and I’ve developed new research strategies. I confess my next post in this series will touch on how I’ve utilised AI as a research tool to help me build this site better. I know AI is a heavily loaded topic, but even a basic google search incorporates it. I’m concerned about the implications of AI but also know its not going away. Perhaps talking about HOW I used it will help others consider strategies to use it wisely.
If it all goes pear shaped, watch me crash and burn…
Fun fact, when I sent the newsletter about part 1, I had my highest unsubscribes ever. Weirdly, its also my second most popular blog post. Weird.
Look out for Part 3 soon!
PS. I heard from a reader who gave me a heads up that my site was delivering a notification from wordpress.com, and she’s right! One of my plugins dates to before I knew the wordpress difference. Hearing that is valuable feedback and signals a gremlin hunt in my future…
PPS I hunted that gremlin and changed my comments section a little… it turns out that a plug in I use, Jetpack, a) Uses wordpress.com as it’s interface, and b) was granted more permissions than I realised. All fixed now and my comments section looks a bit different!
Thanks so much for hanging in there with me, see you in part 3! 🩵🩵🩵
