I prefer not to say that WordPress is “easy.” It’s just easy-er. It’s easier than a lot of the alternatives such as Drupal or Joomla, and it’s more powerful than other tools like Wix or Squarespace.
I personally use and recommend WordPress because I think it sits in the sweet spot between power and user-friendliness that is perfect for small and medium nonprofits.
If you’ve never used WordPress before and want to get started, here’s what to know:
- Just like learning anything, WordPress will take some time. Don’t expect it to be completely intuitive. Keep practicing!
- Building a WordPress site and editing a WordPress sites are two different skills. You may want to focus on learning to edit content in WordPress first, before you try to build a site with advanced features yourself.
- There are tons of resources for learning about WordPress—including this site!—so look for help when you get stuck and you’ll find it.
- If you’ve never made a website before, don’t expect WordPress to be just like Word, PowerPoint, or InDesign. It’s a purpose-built tool for making websites and works in certain ways because of that.
- Keep it simple! A really good site with a missing feature or two is much better than a bad site that can do a lot. That’s true both for site editors and site users.
It’s not easy to build your own WordPress site, but it’s possible! Thousands of people do it every year, and I hope this site can help you save time when it comes to looking for hosting, themes, and plugins. Patience and persistence usually pay off in the end.