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WordPress

Table of Contents

So, you’ve decied to use WordPress? Or, you’re considering using WordPress. You’re in the right place! I’ve been doing web development for over 20 years and I find that I keep coming back to WordPress.

This page will be a collection of pages and resources split up into sections. There’s far too much information to put it all on one page.

So, let’s get started..

Why Use WordPress For Your Website?

WordPress seems to be the most polarizing and divisive piece of software on earth. People either love it or they hate it. There’s not really a lof of inbetween.

WordPress Development

WordPress Development is a whole job in and of itsself. If you search job websites for “WordPress Developer“, you’re going to get a lot of results.

And that’s because it’s really popular. There’s a lot of money to be made with WordPress Development!

The first thing you’ll need to do is to get up and running locally so that you can develop on your computer and have a full functioning version of your site on your computer.

WordPress Hosting

Hosting can be another hot topic. Nowadays, most hosting you choose will be just fine. They all offer everything that you’ll need and the differences are in the price, the add-ons, and support. But, there are some that are better than the rest. The most popular web hosting companies like WPEngine, SiteGround, & Hostinger got popular for a reason.

WordPress Coding & How-To’s

This is the development part of WordPress. You can definitely pick a theme and just edit in the Gutenberg editor. Lots of people chose to do that and end up with beautiful sites.

But, if you’re here (which you are), I’m guessing you’re wanting to develop or modify your own WordPress site with code, and that’s where scottsweb.dev comes in! There are going to be so many WordPress how-to videos and articles. And, a lot of them have to do with WordPress Development.

WordPress Forms

Forms are the backbone of communication on the internet. Every website has a contact form or a form to fill out to gather information. Forms are a must have. Do you custom make your forms or use a popular WordPress form plugin?

WordPress E-Commerce

Having a website that sells things online can be very convenient for your customers. Even if you have a physical shop selling online may be desirable.

But, it can also be complicated. There are so many ways to sell things and so many ways to get paid. It can be confusing. It does require a bit of configuration and some time up front.

WordPress Speed

WordPress isn’t inherantly fast or slow out of the box. PHP and MySQL are fast. It’s what you do with it, what plugins you use, the code you write, using best practices, page content, how you use javascript, minifying and combining files, and the list goes on and on.

That said, speeding up WordPress sites is a big goal for a lot of people. We aim to have a high LightHouse Pagespeed Score. It can be done, and there are a lot of helpful articles on here to help you get WordPress blazing fast.

WordPress Plugins

Plugins are a huge reason a lot of people choose WordPress. There’s a plugin for everything. A few clicks and you have new functionality available to use. But, plugins are also one of the biggest reasons people have a lot of issues with WordPress.

Using less plugins is better. There’s less overhead, less chance of poorly written code, and less chance of a plugin update breaking your website. All plugins are not created equal. There are a few plugins that I consider must haves and there are a few general plugin guidelines to follow.

WordPress Security

WordPress is one of the most popular pieces of software ever. There are bots that are specifically looking for WordPress installations and trying to hack into them. WordPress security is very good because of this, but there’s things you can do to lock your site down even more and keep it out of the “bad guys” hands.

WordPress Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is also another huge facet of web development as a whole. Everyone wants to be as high up in Google Search results as possible. There are a lot of plugins and best practices that can help you get there.

Miscellaneous WordPress

I’m sure there are a lot of categories having to do with WordPress that I haven’t covered on this page. I’m reserving this space for miscellaneous content.

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