Is wordpress suitable for a simple business website?

[Alan]

Perhaps but as you're fond of pointing out I'm as old as Methuselah and techie stuff doesn't come quite as easily to us old boys which is one of the reasons why I still use Office 2003

I'll give you a challenge, go to user settings and allow yourself to switch between Block Editor & Classic Editor.

On the next new ( not existing ) post you want to create use the block editor - stick with it a little - get used to what (+) means. Once you have stuck with it, have a think, do you really want to go back to the classic editor where
- you cant drag blogs around to change sequence
- you can't just click 'duplicate' on a paragraph, heading
- you can't organise in columns without unfathomable shortcodes
- you can't ....

 

[gpietersz]

You might have missed he already had Litespeed Cache, and the only valid reason to have Litespeed Cache if your server is on Litespeed, if not there are probably better solutions.

My bad, I did miss that.

 

[gpietersz]

you can't organise in columns without unfathomable shortcodes

How are things like columns stored in the DB? If you want to migrate the content to a different system later does the use of blocks create any difficulties. What if you want to arrange in columns in the theme?

 

[Alan]

You are a developer, add functionality to your theme functions.php (or set up a child theme).

I don't often disagree - but this I disagree with.

functionality doesn't belong in a theme and so not in functions.php. Themes should limited themselves to user display ( OK with semantics you can argue that a slider is functionality - but I don't mean display functionality ).

Functionality belongs in a plugin.

Sure you can build a custom plugin that incorporates all the 9 required pieces of functionality. If you did that you would of course naturally segregate functionality into separate modules / classes / functions / includes depending on your style.

In reality there is zero performance difference between taking the functionality of 9 plugins and incorporating it in a single plugin or indeed a big monolithic block of code in functions.php.

The issues is that unless you code it / them yourself you are relying on another developers code, which may or may not be efficient, secure or stable.

 

[Alan]

How are things like columns stored in the DB? If you want to migrate the content to a different system later does the use of blocks create any difficulties. What if you want to arrange in columns in the theme?

Are these rhetorical questions or genuine? I can't tell.

I'll answer assuming genuine.

The block editor generates pure html.

The html is stored as 'content' in the posts table in the database.

Layout is controlled by css.

The 'magic' part - how does the editor understand it is working with blocks?

It uses html comments like

<!-- wp:image {"align":"wide","id":2105,"sizeSlug":"large"} -->
html stuf figure...
<!-- /wp:image -->

So generating pure html with 'control' in comments creates no conversion issues

What if you want to arrange in columns in the theme?

I assume here you mean you have a theme with 3 columns for instance each showing the content on an individual post.

As the content of each individual post is pure html with layout controlled by css, the columns would appear inside the columns.

Of course if that is not the desire, then some simple css to override the css creating the columns ( perhaps under a media query ) would do the trick ( this issue is the same regardless of block editor, page builder or shortcodes )

 

[gpietersz]

Are these rhetorical questions or genuine? I can't tell.

They are genuine.

I am not a Wordpress person but I have one remaining Wordpress site, so I want to know whether using blocks on it might cause me problems when I finally migrate it to something else - my worry was that it was inserting HTML I might have to strip later. Now that you have explained I am happy to use them. Thanks for taking the time, it is genuinely useful, and I learned something

 

[Naheed Mir]

One of the primary things you want to consider when you begin your online business is how your site is going to look. Today, WordPress themes are in a huge market. Some themes are tailormade for a distinct category. You can choose up a theme of your choice, filling your needs.

 

[Deleted member 325090]

My wife also teaches piano.

She does have a website but I think almost all of her work is generated via word of mouth. She is constantly turning people away because she is fully booked.

Since Covid, she has started to move digital, so I'm in the process of sorting her website out to more fully support that.

I'm not a wordpress person, and neither is her website, but I think WordPress is a good choice for a simple business site. But like I say, if she focuses on providing a good service and getting personal recommendations, she hopefully won't need to rely on it.

 

[fisicx]

One of the primary things you want to consider when you begin your online business is how your site is going to look.

No, that’s the very last thing you need to do.

 

[HostXNow]

I would choose WordPress, but it's important not to signup to a massive hosting provider because they won't offer any personal support regarding installing/configuring WordPress for you.

It would be best if you find a provider who can help you along the way. It's those that are hard to come by.