Everything I Know About WordPress

As you may, or may not, know, I built this blog using WordPress.  This enterprise has been a very character-building experience and has enlightened me in ways I am only beginning to comprehend.  I would now like to sum up everything I’ve learned about Wordpress in a single blog post.

You may have noticed that this is not an exceptionally long post.

Okay, first of all there are two WordPresses – WordPress.com and WordPress.org.  WordPress.com is a free, hosted site. WordPress.org is free software, but you have to provide your own hosting and domain name.  In other words, WordPress.com uses WordPress software, but you can use the WordPress software yourself at WordPress.org.  Got that?

Good.

WordPress.org is more complicated than WordPress.com. That’s why I, a non-web designer and marginally technical person, chose that platform. Because if it was going to be harder to use and more difficult to understand, I was all over it!

I am, obviously, insane.

Here’s a list of everything I’ve learned over the last few fun-filled weeks about WordPress, specifically WordPress.org:

  • You’ll need to get your own hosting company. Preferably one who won’t mind if you open a helpdesk ticket five minutes after you sign up with them. Like I did.
  • You’ll need to get your own domain name. 
  • Installing the initial program is pretty easy.
  • There are a lot of design templates out there to choose from.
  • You can customize pretty much anything you want to customize.
  • It’s not “plug and play” if you want to customize anything.
  • You’ll need to write actual code if you want to customize stuff.
  • It would be good to be familiar with HTML code BEFORE you start trying to customize stuff. As opposed to after you start.  Trust me.
  • Customizing all of the stuff you can customize takes a LOT of time. It’s like taking on a second full-time job and will make you very sleep-deprived.
  • You may need to drink heavily.
  • You must remain calm and keep hands and feet inside the car at all times.
  • Remember that there might be a need to panic, but you don’t have to give into it because you are stronger than the computer and have opposable thumbs.
  • If the page looks stupid, the internet is forever and nothing ever goes away in cyberspace.
  • But there’s no pressure.
  • And no one will hear you scream.

Finally, when all is said and done, here is the most important thing I’ve learned about WordPress over the past few weeks….

Hire someone else to set your blog up for you!

Comments

  1. You did a great job! You can stop drinking now. 🙂

    Your blog is now listed on mine under the “Talented Authors” section! wooo hooo! That will draw you a lot of business I imagine. (eyes rolling).

    • When I looked at the post in the edit screen, the numbered list worked fine. When I looked at it in the actual post, the numbered list restarted at “0”. See? See? This is what messes with my mental health! 🙂 So, I showed them – I changed the numbered list to bullet points – take that WordPress! LOL

      And thank you for listing me! I have to figure out how to list / link you too…and the Not Your Usual Suspects blog…and others… Lord I’m tired. 😉

  2. Great post! I’ve barely managed to get WordPress.com beaten into submission, so hats off and glasses up to your valiant efforts into the world of .org

    Congrats! You’re off to a rousing start!

    • Yeah…rousing. Last night I made one little change. One. Little. Change. Things got so messed up that I was up until midnight (again) straightening them out. *sigh* I think things are looking okay, but I really was not cut out to be a web designer… LOLOL 🙂

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