How to Make Changes to Your WordPress Website
You’ve probably heard by now that WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems (CMS) out there. Being open source, it is incredibly customizable and it has a large community behind it. That being said, even the most experienced coders can find the process of customizing WordPress challenging.
Why? Because WordPress is extremely complex and it needs a skilled developer to make even the most obvious changes. In other words, it needs someone to watch over it and make sure everything is working as it should. While this is ideal, it can be hard to find someone to do this when you’re not exactly sure what you want them to do. For instance, maybe you want to add a new feature, or you’ve decided to hire a freelance web developer to help you bring your vision to life. In these cases, you’ll need to take the reins of your website’s development yourself.
The Basics
WordPress is a series of templates and widgets that are easily customizable. This means the developer or designer who worked on the codebase for WordPress had to make sure each part was easily accessible and customizable. As a rule of thumb, you shouldn’t have to worry about changing code just to customize something. This is something codeigniter programmers have to deal with on a daily basis and it makes them crazy because they have to waste so much time on such little things.
So, whenever you get the chance, take a look at the WordPress code to see how things work. This way, you’ll know exactly what you’re dealing with and you can ask questions about how certain features work when you’re stuck.
Where Do I Start?
As previously mentioned, even the most experienced developers can find the process of customizing WordPress challenging. This is mainly due to the fact that WordPress is extremely complex and it needs a lot of attention to make sure everything is working as it should. And as a consequence, it is easy for something to go wrong. For example, maybe you decide to make some changes to the theme (layout) of your website and you unknowingly break the functionality of some of the other parts.
To avoid this, you need to take the time to plan out each change you want to make. This way, you can be sure that everything will work as intended before you go live with your new website.
Use A CMS For Small Projects
If you’re just messing around with WordPress and you don’t plan on running a business website, there are several readily available options that you can use for free. These are content management systems such as joomla and drupal that are specially designed for small projects and demos. They’re perfect for people who want to make something quickly and don’t need all the advanced features that WordPress offers. Because they’re free and open source, you’ll also find a large community of developers who are more than happy to help you get started. However, while they might be simple to use for basic tasks, advanced users say they aren’t as easy to customize as WordPress is.
Keep Learning
Even if you’re an experienced developer, you’ll still find the process of customizing WordPress challenging because there are so many ways it can be done. This is why you should always be learning. Not only will this make you a better developer in the long run, but it will also make you a more versatile one. Customizing WordPress is like building a house with a million different ways it can be done and a mind for creativity is all you need to make it happen.