I see many new people coming into the blogging and website scene who want to use WordPress as their platform. That is a good thing, but in the learning process they want to skip the basics and jump into advanced level customization, even before learning how to navigate the basic posting and administrator processes. That is not such a good thing.
I see frustration ahead for those people.
If you have time, but no tech guy (or girl) to help sort things out, then get yourself onto a place where they handle certain aspects for you, like wordpress.com. That way, you can experiment painlessly, while you learn how to use WordPress.
Either that, or stick with simple themes with minor customizing until you learn how to use WordPress to post, update, and enhance with plugins. I put in huge amounts of time learning, tweaking, and expanding my wordpress experience. For some people I am very sure it comes easier than it has for me, but there is still a learning process for everyone. Many don’t have a grasp of how important it is to incrementally add skills.
When asked to learn it themselves …”Oh, that is too hard for me”…. when asking for others to do it for them…”Oh, you’re skilled at this, it is easy for you”. Neither side is true. Yes, it will take some work for you to learn how to do things with your software, but it isn’t too hard for you to grasp if you apply yourself to work at it step by step… and just do it. And no, it isn’t so easy for me to accomplish something just because I have more of a skill set in this than you presently do…
It still takes my time, and even more time and effort if I try to do what you want me to do. when you aren’t real sure of what you want or need, either- or whether this is what will produce what you want.
There is nothing so complex as making something for someone else when they discount your time and effort on their behalf. That almost always happens when the view is that the skilled person somehow breezes through it.
OK, this is sounding mean and whiny right now, I know. Most people don’t mean to take others work for granted, but that happens when there is misunderstanding of what it takes to produce the desired result; and how much time and work something involves. That comes from inexperience, and there is no crime in being inexperienced. Once you learn some of the skills, your appreciation grows.
Anyone who ever tried to design something or build something for others has probably experienced the disconnect I’m talking about. Heck, I experienced it when asking my kids to weed for me on a summer day. When I joined them it was not half so easy as it was in my mind when I assigned the task. We all do it. The thing is to understand that tasks accomplished take effort and skills. Same with learning WordPress as with weeding a garden… everyone wants a pretty place to use and visit, but lots of people want someone else to do all the work. Someone else doing the work is fine if you are willing to pay them what they are worth… if not, you need to get some mad skills, and use your “coaches” (anyone with advanced skills willing to help and guide you to expertise) to learn from. Then learn š
But it isn’t the same as going to a store and picking things off a shelf. It is more like opening up the how-to book, and apprenticing so you can build what you want. With WordPress you can learn slowly by finding many online blogs, sites, documentation, etc to teach you on a need to know basis. Or you can speed things up by having a “go-to” person who will take you under their wing to give you tips and point you in the right direction ( forums can be good for this). the main thing is to get your hands dirty and dig in…. play in the process and you will learn the quick and easy way that kids do.
Please don’t expect things to work magically, or for someone else to do things for you. WordPress was created to make it easy for people to put their own websites online and run them.
Here is a great resource infographic for anyone starting a site on any platform.
