How to Easily Edit a Website in WordPress

It would be great to be able to tell someone you’re working with that you can edit any part of a website in WordPress, but that’s not really possible. There are multiple things that you need to know in order to be able to edit a WordPress website. In this guide, we will discuss how to easily edit a WordPress website from within the editor itself.

Editing Is Not Always Easy

Even for experienced web editors, the act of coding a web page and saving it is not an easy process. There are so many things that can go wrong, and it’s not always easy to find the source of the issue. When you’re trying to fix something that’s not working right, it’s very frustrating.

By comparison, most WP websites are fairly easy to edit. When you’re inside the WordPress editor, you can click on any link or button to take you to a different part of the site. When you open up your site in a web browser, you’ll see everything looks perfectly fine — you just have to look a little closer.

Find Your Theme’s Source Files

If you’re having trouble figuring out where a particular part of the site is coming from, it’s very helpful to know the theme’s source files. In the case of the Twenty Three theme (https://wordpress.org/themes/twentythree), all the blog posts, pages, and everything in between are contained in a single.zip archive. When you unzip that archive, you’ll see a large number of files and folders inside. From there, it’s just a matter of following the theme’s instructions in order to make the desired changes.

Find the Theme’s Instructions

Even for experienced web editors, it’s not always easy to find the source of an issue when you can’t tell what’s wrong. This is why it’s very helpful when the Theme Details mention specific places where you need to look in order to make the desired changes. For instance, in the case of Twenty Three, you’ll find a file called style.css inside the theme’s source folder. This file contains all the styling information for the site, so if you want to edit something specific, like the font size or the hover color on a specific link, you can find the instructions inside that file.

How to Easily Edit A WordPress Website From Within The Editor

Even though WordPress sites are mostly easy to edit, there are still times when you’ll need to edit the code directly in the browser. In these cases, it’s very helpful to have a plugin that makes editing a WordPress website from within the WordPress editor very easy. Two such plugins are Elementor (https://wordpress.org/plugins/elementor/) and Visual Editor (https://wordpress.org/plugins/visual-editor/).

Elementor

Elementor is a drag-and-drop page builder that allows you to design your own layouts for your website’s home page, blog posts, and other pages. When you’re using the Elementor plugin, you’re actually building the website inside the WordPress editor itself. This means that when you save the page, all the changes you make will be stored inside the database. The only way to edit a website created with Elementor is to directly open it up in the browser.

Visual Editor

Visual Editor is a free and open-source text editor that supports multiple languages, works with most themes, and can be integrated with almost any CMS. One of the primary benefits of Visual Editor is that it supports live preview. This means that as you’re editing the content of a page, you can actually see the changes you’re making reflected immediately on the page itself.

This feature alone makes using Visual Editor worth the time it takes to learn the tool. Some other great features of Visual Editor include content lock, which prevents undesired content from being edited once the page is deployed, and full multilingual support. Because it’s integrated with WordPress, and works with many themes, you’re sure to find a use for it.

Make Sure You’ve Updated All The Plugins

One of the most vital things you need to do to easily edit a WordPress website is to update all the plugins. Updating all the plugins is not an easy process, especially if you’re not used to it. As a general rule, you should always update plugins whenever there’s a new version available. This will ensure that you always have the most recent version, and that you don’t have outdated plugins that won’t work properly with the most recent versions of WordPress.

WordPress offers many different plugins that can be used to enhance a website’s functionality. Some of the most popular plugins include the MailChimp (https://wordpress.org/plugins/mailchimp/) and WPS Security (https://wordpress.org/plugins/wps-security/) plugins. When you’re using MailChimp, you can automatically create and send out emails to your subscribers with the click of a button. The WPS Security plugin allows you to monitor and manage the security of your WordPress installation from a centralized location via an online dashboard.

Make Sure You Have The Latest Version Of WordPress

Another vital step to easily editing a WordPress website is to make sure that you have the latest version of the software. The version of WordPress you have will determine which plugins you can use and which ones you can’t. In order to use certain plugins, you must have the version of WordPress that supports that particular feature. This is why it’s vital to update WordPress regularly – it prevents potential security issues and offers a lot of great new features.

Create A Back-up Of Your Site’s Data

It’s vital to backup your site’s data in case something goes wrong. You’ll definitely want to make sure that you have some sort of automated back-up solution in place so that you can quickly restore your site to its previous state if something goes wrong. The best way to do this is to create a back-up of the entire website, including the database itself.

The easiest way to do this is to use the built-in WordPress backup feature. To enable this feature, go to your WordPress dashboard, click on the ‘Settings’ tab, and then click on the ‘Backup’ option. You’ll then need to click on the ‘Create a Back-up’ button. This will cause WordPress to connect to your Google account and ask you to give the plugin permission to back up your site to the cloud.

Have Fun

Another important thing to do when you’re editing a WordPress website is to have fun. You’re bound to run into issues at some point, so it’s important to not get too stressed out about it. As a general rule, you should always work in a relaxed manner — it helps prevent errors and makes the process more enjoyable.

To give you some peace of mind, we’ve provided you with a FAQ section in the middle of this guide. If you’ve read this far and still have questions, take a look at the FAQ section.