Wordpress.org vs Wordpress.com

[ChrisandShelley]

AM, I built my own website using Wordpress. I used Bluehost then went from there. Like Arks, I found a theme I like then built from there. There is a learning curve to it, but there are a ton of YouTube videos and tutorials (I read several books from Amazon that were cheap).
As for the coding and CSS, I have no clue. But I went to Elance (now Upwork) and hired a free lance web designer to handle the stuff I didn't know. When I posted a job, one of the requirements is that the guy show me what he did. I learned a lot for very little money. They always do more than what I ask because they get more jobs when I post a good review. I still hire out of Upwork for small things that I'm not sure about. It's great.
The link is in my signature, if you wanna take a look..

Thank you Chris,
Your website is beautiful - and so is your inn! It looks like ya'll have a blast there! I have really enjoyed your input on this forum -- and Shelley's recipes!
I think I've found the theme I want - and I have a thumbs up on it from Empty Nest. I'll post some updates as I dive in.

Looks like you're about 4 hours down the highway from us. We may have to plan a weekend in Mountain View!
.

That would be great! We'd love to have you. It's a great place. We're new innkeepers and we've had the best time our first year.
Let me know if we can help.

 

[Momma Smurf]

AM, I built my own website using Wordpress. I used Bluehost then went from there. Like Arks, I found a theme I like then built from there. There is a learning curve to it, but there are a ton of YouTube videos and tutorials (I read several books from Amazon that were cheap).
As for the coding and CSS, I have no clue. But I went to Elance (now Upwork) and hired a free lance web designer to handle the stuff I didn't know. When I posted a job, one of the requirements is that the guy show me what he did. I learned a lot for very little money. They always do more than what I ask because they get more jobs when I post a good review. I still hire out of Upwork for small things that I'm not sure about. It's great.
The link is in my signature, if you wanna take a look..

Thank you Chris,
Your website is beautiful - and so is your inn! It looks like ya'll have a blast there! I have really enjoyed your input on this forum -- and Shelley's recipes!
I think I've found the theme I want - and I have a thumbs up on it from Empty Nest. I'll post some updates as I dive in.

Looks like you're about 4 hours down the highway from us. We may have to plan a weekend in Mountain View!
.

Which theme did you decide upon?

 

[Aspiring Martha]

AM, I built my own website using Wordpress. I used Bluehost then went from there. Like Arks, I found a theme I like then built from there. There is a learning curve to it, but there are a ton of YouTube videos and tutorials (I read several books from Amazon that were cheap).
As for the coding and CSS, I have no clue. But I went to Elance (now Upwork) and hired a free lance web designer to handle the stuff I didn't know. When I posted a job, one of the requirements is that the guy show me what he did. I learned a lot for very little money. They always do more than what I ask because they get more jobs when I post a good review. I still hire out of Upwork for small things that I'm not sure about. It's great.
The link is in my signature, if you wanna take a look..

Thank you Chris,
Your website is beautiful - and so is your inn! It looks like ya'll have a blast there! I have really enjoyed your input on this forum -- and Shelley's recipes!
I think I've found the theme I want - and I have a thumbs up on it from Empty Nest. I'll post some updates as I dive in.

Looks like you're about 4 hours down the highway from us. We may have to plan a weekend in Mountain View!
.

Which theme did you decide upon?
.

I think I'll go with Avada. They have one for a hotel that I really like the looks of. Here's a link to it: http://theme-fusion.com/avada/hotel/

 

[ChrisandShelley]

AM, I built my own website using Wordpress. I used Bluehost then went from there. Like Arks, I found a theme I like then built from there. There is a learning curve to it, but there are a ton of YouTube videos and tutorials (I read several books from Amazon that were cheap).
As for the coding and CSS, I have no clue. But I went to Elance (now Upwork) and hired a free lance web designer to handle the stuff I didn't know. When I posted a job, one of the requirements is that the guy show me what he did. I learned a lot for very little money. They always do more than what I ask because they get more jobs when I post a good review. I still hire out of Upwork for small things that I'm not sure about. It's great.
The link is in my signature, if you wanna take a look..

Thank you Chris,
Your website is beautiful - and so is your inn! It looks like ya'll have a blast there! I have really enjoyed your input on this forum -- and Shelley's recipes!
I think I've found the theme I want - and I have a thumbs up on it from Empty Nest. I'll post some updates as I dive in.

Looks like you're about 4 hours down the highway from us. We may have to plan a weekend in Mountain View!
.

Which theme did you decide upon?
.

I think I'll go with Avada. They have one for a hotel that I really like the looks of. Here's a link to it: http://theme-fusion.com/avada/hotel/
.

I used one from Tesla called Hotelia. It was the one with the best foundation.
When we went to the PAII conference, I couldn't believe what some of the website companies were asking to build a website--until I built one. It is just tedious work, especially if you are just starting out. Even having read books and watched YouTube videos, there was a lot of trial and error. But now I can do a lot of the work myself, although I still hire a freelancer occasionally.
Good luck!

 

[anniesguesthouse]

Hoo boy,
I think I really messed up. I have read until my eyes have crossed on this forum, everything I could find about building a bed and breakfast website. I have built several other business websites but never one for a B&B - AND, I have never used wordpress. So -- I purchased my domain through godaddy and after reading here, but apparently missing a critical detail -- I purchased the wordpress.COM business package 299/yr -- thinking I could use the custom themes (in particular I wanted to look at themeforest). Imagine my shock when I realized that .com and .org are entirely different and that I can't even get custom themes on wordpress.com. Arghhhhh!
So now I have to make a decision. Do I ask for a refund and head over to the wordpress.org - or can I make a decent site that will work for my needs on wordpress.com?
I don't know how to write code at all. I DO want to manage my own site though and make changes when I see fit and as often as I see fit.
Does anyone have their sites hosted on wordpress.com? Have you found themes that work well?
Alternatively, can a person who doesn't know code or CSS get around ok with a custom theme on wordpress.org?
...and I need an emote that is banging his head against the wall!

We've been blogging using WP for a few years now ( https://www.anniesguesthouse.co.uk/blog/ ) I'm assuming you want to blog to improve your search engine position, my tips for that would be...

Host the blog yourself as a subdomain of your own business url (see our url above) there are several videos on YouTube that will walk you through this even if you only have a small amount of web/technical knowledge. You only need a standard hosting package depending on your traffic volume, you do not need any WP specific hosting, you can install WP completely free of charge onto any web hosting service, all you need is FTP access to it. I would 100% avoid hosting your blog on WP as it will rank poorly - you have "guilt by association" of any low quality blogs that are hosted there too, host on your own domain for sure. If you are just blogging for yourself eg a diary then WP hosting is fine but if you want Google to take you seriously re: ranking then you need to be doing your blogging on your own domain for credibility.

When picking a WP theme make sure it is "responsive" and check this using Google's mobile site compliance tester.

When you say do you don't know how to write code do you know the very basics - new paragraph, bold, italic, how to insert a link and an image? This is all you need for WP blogging. You don't need any knowledge of CSS for WP.
If you are completely new to websites I would advise approaching a local web design company and asking them to create a basic (must be "responsive") five (or so) page site for you with WP installed and ready to go. The basic site should be your index page, rooms page, breakfast menu page, map/location page that sort of thing. When purchasing the web design you want your own hosting and complete control of the site, you do not want to be on a paid monthly package with $? charges for each modification.

As a price guide the DIY costs for us are: domain £3/year; medium hosting package £80/year (we started out at £20/year "lite" but traffic has significantly increased!); £20/year SSL - secure site, purely because we have online booking, you don't need this but it can be added on at a later date if you wanted to. So basically you could have WP on your site for around £25/year - about $35 including tax. GoDaddy's $299/year is making them a killing!

 

[dumitru]

As someone mentioned in one of the comments - there is a big learning curve with WordPress. Of course it is still easier than some other CMS's like Joomla or Drupal, but it does become more and more complicated with each version.
And to think that it became popular for its simplicity, and now it became bloated as a... well, as something that can be described as bloated.
And then if you start experimenting with multiple themes and you see that everyone is doing his own stuff, different short-codes, different templates, etc. etc.
Something should change...

 

[EmptyNest]

As someone mentioned in one of the comments - there is a big learning curve with WordPress. Of course it is still easier than some other CMS's like Joomla or Drupal, but it does become more and more complicated with each version.
And to think that it became popular for its simplicity, and now it became bloated as a... well, as something that can be described as bloated.
And then if you start experimenting with multiple themes and you see that everyone is doing his own stuff, different short-codes, different templates, etc. etc.
Something should change....

Agree Dumitru. Themes that make things look so easy...are not...unless you go with their bare cookie cutter base. Most require extensive css customization etc. Divi for instance. Can do alot...but causes so many issues and needs so much custom css and editing with a child theme, that I have just about given up using it except for the most basic of websites. The ones I find best are Avada, Enfold and especially Striking Multiflex because you can configure just about everything from the backside admin area instead of messing with custom css. You can if you want...but most times it is not necessary.

 

[dumitru]

As someone mentioned in one of the comments - there is a big learning curve with WordPress. Of course it is still easier than some other CMS's like Joomla or Drupal, but it does become more and more complicated with each version.
And to think that it became popular for its simplicity, and now it became bloated as a... well, as something that can be described as bloated.
And then if you start experimenting with multiple themes and you see that everyone is doing his own stuff, different short-codes, different templates, etc. etc.
Something should change....

Agree Dumitru. Themes that make things look so easy...are not...unless you go with their bare cookie cutter base. Most require extensive css customization etc. Divi for instance. Can do alot...but causes so many issues and needs so much custom css and editing with a child theme, that I have just about given up using it except for the most basic of websites. The ones I find best are Avada, Enfold and especially Striking Multiflex because you can configure just about everything from the backside admin area instead of messing with custom css. You can if you want...but most times it is not necessary.
.

Talk about bloated themes

 

[ChrisandShelley]

As someone mentioned in one of the comments - there is a big learning curve with WordPress. Of course it is still easier than some other CMS's like Joomla or Drupal, but it does become more and more complicated with each version.
And to think that it became popular for its simplicity, and now it became bloated as a... well, as something that can be described as bloated.
And then if you start experimenting with multiple themes and you see that everyone is doing his own stuff, different short-codes, different templates, etc. etc.
Something should change....

Agree Dumitru. Themes that make things look so easy...are not...unless you go with their bare cookie cutter base. Most require extensive css customization etc. Divi for instance. Can do alot...but causes so many issues and needs so much custom css and editing with a child theme, that I have just about given up using it except for the most basic of websites. The ones I find best are Avada, Enfold and especially Striking Multiflex because you can configure just about everything from the backside admin area instead of messing with custom css. You can if you want...but most times it is not necessary.
.

Thanks for the referrals there. I am looking to start a new website dedicated to the local music scene. Although I put together our website, I am still a novice concerning Wordpress. I'll take a look at those.

 

[ChrisandShelley]

Martha, I was doing some updating of our website and starting thinking of some of the lessons I've learned. I am definitely not a web-designer, but I'd like to share some of the things that have made my life easier that I learned the hard way.
1. Keep a Word document of anything that you do repetitively. The bar under my heading goes on every page so I keep all of the phrases, pixel configurations, color codes, and everything for making that bar with the buttons on a Word document where when I make a new page, I can just copy and paste a lot of it.
2. Experimental page: I keep an unpublished page that I can just fool around with. I'll try tabs, accordions grids, all kinds of stuff and it doesn't affect my website. Wordpress keeps revisions of pages, so I could just go back to a previous revision if I messed up, but I like to have a place to play around.
3. Save your draft often. It has an autosave, but I don't trust it.
4. If you have the ability, use a second monitor as your Preview monitor. As I'm working on a page, I like to have the Preview up so I can refer back to it and not have to switch back and forth between tabs. Then when I've made some changes, I can hit the Preview button and it's right there.
5. I can't say enough about Elance and Upwork. I've learned a lot just from these guys showing me what they did. I just posted a job, set a price, then web designers will bid on it. For example, I couldn't figure out how to reduce the white space in my header. I just posted that job and set a price of about $20. I got a lot of responses between $10 and $15 for the job, so I just picked one guy that had a lot of experience with Wordpress. One of the stipulations that I put in the job posting is that the freelancer shares what he does. None have balked at this, they are very willing to do that. They get a review at the end and sometimes I'll tip them a little if they go the extra mile. Great service.
6. Youtube videos and Kindle books are great resources. But so are people on this site.
It's a tedious process, but a very fulfilling one. Good luck!

 

[Morticia]

Martha, I was doing some updating of our website and starting thinking of some of the lessons I've learned. I am definitely not a web-designer, but I'd like to share some of the things that have made my life easier that I learned the hard way.
1. Keep a Word document of anything that you do repetitively. The bar under my heading goes on every page so I keep all of the phrases, pixel configurations, color codes, and everything for making that bar with the buttons on a Word document where when I make a new page, I can just copy and paste a lot of it.
2. Experimental page: I keep an unpublished page that I can just fool around with. I'll try tabs, accordions grids, all kinds of stuff and it doesn't affect my website. Wordpress keeps revisions of pages, so I could just go back to a previous revision if I messed up, but I like to have a place to play around.
3. Save your draft often. It has an autosave, but I don't trust it.
4. If you have the ability, use a second monitor as your Preview monitor. As I'm working on a page, I like to have the Preview up so I can refer back to it and not have to switch back and forth between tabs. Then when I've made some changes, I can hit the Preview button and it's right there.
5. I can't say enough about Elance and Upwork. I've learned a lot just from these guys showing me what they did. I just posted a job, set a price, then web designers will bid on it. For example, I couldn't figure out how to reduce the white space in my header. I just posted that job and set a price of about $20. I got a lot of responses between $10 and $15 for the job, so I just picked one guy that had a lot of experience with Wordpress. One of the stipulations that I put in the job posting is that the freelancer shares what he does. None have balked at this, they are very willing to do that. They get a review at the end and sometimes I'll tip them a little if they go the extra mile. Great service.
6. Youtube videos and Kindle books are great resources. But so are people on this site.
It's a tedious process, but a very fulfilling one. Good luck!.

Good idea to keep track of things you do often, but... the whole idea behind using these templates is that you make a template that creates the exact same page each time. All the colors, fonts, page layout, etc. All there. You don't recreate it each time.
Then you fill in the text you want for that page with the photos, etc. But you don't need to 'create' the page from scratch.

 

[ChrisandShelley]

Martha, I was doing some updating of our website and starting thinking of some of the lessons I've learned. I am definitely not a web-designer, but I'd like to share some of the things that have made my life easier that I learned the hard way.
1. Keep a Word document of anything that you do repetitively. The bar under my heading goes on every page so I keep all of the phrases, pixel configurations, color codes, and everything for making that bar with the buttons on a Word document where when I make a new page, I can just copy and paste a lot of it.
2. Experimental page: I keep an unpublished page that I can just fool around with. I'll try tabs, accordions grids, all kinds of stuff and it doesn't affect my website. Wordpress keeps revisions of pages, so I could just go back to a previous revision if I messed up, but I like to have a place to play around.
3. Save your draft often. It has an autosave, but I don't trust it.
4. If you have the ability, use a second monitor as your Preview monitor. As I'm working on a page, I like to have the Preview up so I can refer back to it and not have to switch back and forth between tabs. Then when I've made some changes, I can hit the Preview button and it's right there.
5. I can't say enough about Elance and Upwork. I've learned a lot just from these guys showing me what they did. I just posted a job, set a price, then web designers will bid on it. For example, I couldn't figure out how to reduce the white space in my header. I just posted that job and set a price of about $20. I got a lot of responses between $10 and $15 for the job, so I just picked one guy that had a lot of experience with Wordpress. One of the stipulations that I put in the job posting is that the freelancer shares what he does. None have balked at this, they are very willing to do that. They get a review at the end and sometimes I'll tip them a little if they go the extra mile. Great service.
6. Youtube videos and Kindle books are great resources. But so are people on this site.
It's a tedious process, but a very fulfilling one. Good luck!.

Good idea to keep track of things you do often, but... the whole idea behind using these templates is that you make a template that creates the exact same page each time. All the colors, fonts, page layout, etc. All there. You don't recreate it each time.
Then you fill in the text you want for that page with the photos, etc. But you don't need to 'create' the page from scratch.
.

I see the Template thing at the bottom, but I've not figured out how to use it. Next on my learning agenda!

 

[Morticia]

Martha, I was doing some updating of our website and starting thinking of some of the lessons I've learned. I am definitely not a web-designer, but I'd like to share some of the things that have made my life easier that I learned the hard way.
1. Keep a Word document of anything that you do repetitively. The bar under my heading goes on every page so I keep all of the phrases, pixel configurations, color codes, and everything for making that bar with the buttons on a Word document where when I make a new page, I can just copy and paste a lot of it.
2. Experimental page: I keep an unpublished page that I can just fool around with. I'll try tabs, accordions grids, all kinds of stuff and it doesn't affect my website. Wordpress keeps revisions of pages, so I could just go back to a previous revision if I messed up, but I like to have a place to play around.
3. Save your draft often. It has an autosave, but I don't trust it.
4. If you have the ability, use a second monitor as your Preview monitor. As I'm working on a page, I like to have the Preview up so I can refer back to it and not have to switch back and forth between tabs. Then when I've made some changes, I can hit the Preview button and it's right there.
5. I can't say enough about Elance and Upwork. I've learned a lot just from these guys showing me what they did. I just posted a job, set a price, then web designers will bid on it. For example, I couldn't figure out how to reduce the white space in my header. I just posted that job and set a price of about $20. I got a lot of responses between $10 and $15 for the job, so I just picked one guy that had a lot of experience with Wordpress. One of the stipulations that I put in the job posting is that the freelancer shares what he does. None have balked at this, they are very willing to do that. They get a review at the end and sometimes I'll tip them a little if they go the extra mile. Great service.
6. Youtube videos and Kindle books are great resources. But so are people on this site.
It's a tedious process, but a very fulfilling one. Good luck!.

Good idea to keep track of things you do often, but... the whole idea behind using these templates is that you make a template that creates the exact same page each time. All the colors, fonts, page layout, etc. All there. You don't recreate it each time.
Then you fill in the text you want for that page with the photos, etc. But you don't need to 'create' the page from scratch.
.

I see the Template thing at the bottom, but I've not figured out how to use it. Next on my learning agenda!
.

I see the Template thing at the bottom, but I've not figured out how to use it. Next on my learning agenda!

It depends what template you bought to start. But, if you look at the help pages or videos, you should see how to set up all these details in the settings. Says me who has to remember where the copyright is stored so I can change it when I do some more updates tomorrow!

 

[Aspiring Martha]

As someone mentioned in one of the comments - there is a big learning curve with WordPress. Of course it is still easier than some other CMS's like Joomla or Drupal, but it does become more and more complicated with each version.
And to think that it became popular for its simplicity, and now it became bloated as a... well, as something that can be described as bloated.
And then if you start experimenting with multiple themes and you see that everyone is doing his own stuff, different short-codes, different templates, etc. etc.
Something should change....

Agree Dumitru. Themes that make things look so easy...are not...unless you go with their bare cookie cutter base. Most require extensive css customization etc. Divi for instance. Can do alot...but causes so many issues and needs so much custom css and editing with a child theme, that I have just about given up using it except for the most basic of websites. The ones I find best are Avada, Enfold and especially Striking Multiflex because you can configure just about everything from the backside admin area instead of messing with custom css. You can if you want...but most times it is not necessary.
.

I haven't jumped in and purchased Avada yet - although I really do like it. I know you really like Striking Multiflex - and I like it too - but I like the "Wow-factor" that Avada seems to have over the Striking Multiflex. (I suspect that the wow-factor that I love could be my undoing though.)
It's good to know I can purchase help for the troublesome areas if need be.
Chris, I appreciate your live and learn input. I will take all of that to heart.

 

[EmptyNest]

Martha, I was doing some updating of our website and starting thinking of some of the lessons I've learned. I am definitely not a web-designer, but I'd like to share some of the things that have made my life easier that I learned the hard way.
1. Keep a Word document of anything that you do repetitively. The bar under my heading goes on every page so I keep all of the phrases, pixel configurations, color codes, and everything for making that bar with the buttons on a Word document where when I make a new page, I can just copy and paste a lot of it.
2. Experimental page: I keep an unpublished page that I can just fool around with. I'll try tabs, accordions grids, all kinds of stuff and it doesn't affect my website. Wordpress keeps revisions of pages, so I could just go back to a previous revision if I messed up, but I like to have a place to play around.
3. Save your draft often. It has an autosave, but I don't trust it.
4. If you have the ability, use a second monitor as your Preview monitor. As I'm working on a page, I like to have the Preview up so I can refer back to it and not have to switch back and forth between tabs. Then when I've made some changes, I can hit the Preview button and it's right there.
5. I can't say enough about Elance and Upwork. I've learned a lot just from these guys showing me what they did. I just posted a job, set a price, then web designers will bid on it. For example, I couldn't figure out how to reduce the white space in my header. I just posted that job and set a price of about $20. I got a lot of responses between $10 and $15 for the job, so I just picked one guy that had a lot of experience with Wordpress. One of the stipulations that I put in the job posting is that the freelancer shares what he does. None have balked at this, they are very willing to do that. They get a review at the end and sometimes I'll tip them a little if they go the extra mile. Great service.
6. Youtube videos and Kindle books are great resources. But so are people on this site.
It's a tedious process, but a very fulfilling one. Good luck!.

Good idea to keep track of things you do often, but... the whole idea behind using these templates is that you make a template that creates the exact same page each time. All the colors, fonts, page layout, etc. All there. You don't recreate it each time.
Then you fill in the text you want for that page with the photos, etc. But you don't need to 'create' the page from scratch.
.

I see the Template thing at the bottom, but I've not figured out how to use it. Next on my learning agenda!
.

Lots of the newer themes have "libraries" where you can create a page template with everything you want on it and save it. Then when you need a new one..you just go to the library and open it up and put in your content.

 

[EmptyNest]

As someone mentioned in one of the comments - there is a big learning curve with WordPress. Of course it is still easier than some other CMS's like Joomla or Drupal, but it does become more and more complicated with each version.
And to think that it became popular for its simplicity, and now it became bloated as a... well, as something that can be described as bloated.
And then if you start experimenting with multiple themes and you see that everyone is doing his own stuff, different short-codes, different templates, etc. etc.
Something should change....

Agree Dumitru. Themes that make things look so easy...are not...unless you go with their bare cookie cutter base. Most require extensive css customization etc. Divi for instance. Can do alot...but causes so many issues and needs so much custom css and editing with a child theme, that I have just about given up using it except for the most basic of websites. The ones I find best are Avada, Enfold and especially Striking Multiflex because you can configure just about everything from the backside admin area instead of messing with custom css. You can if you want...but most times it is not necessary.
.

Talk about bloated themes
.

Talk about bloated themes
Not according to their creators!

 

[EmptyNest]

As someone mentioned in one of the comments - there is a big learning curve with WordPress. Of course it is still easier than some other CMS's like Joomla or Drupal, but it does become more and more complicated with each version.
And to think that it became popular for its simplicity, and now it became bloated as a... well, as something that can be described as bloated.
And then if you start experimenting with multiple themes and you see that everyone is doing his own stuff, different short-codes, different templates, etc. etc.
Something should change....

Agree Dumitru. Themes that make things look so easy...are not...unless you go with their bare cookie cutter base. Most require extensive css customization etc. Divi for instance. Can do alot...but causes so many issues and needs so much custom css and editing with a child theme, that I have just about given up using it except for the most basic of websites. The ones I find best are Avada, Enfold and especially Striking Multiflex because you can configure just about everything from the backside admin area instead of messing with custom css. You can if you want...but most times it is not necessary.
.

I haven't jumped in and purchased Avada yet - although I really do like it. I know you really like Striking Multiflex - and I like it too - but I like the "Wow-factor" that Avada seems to have over the Striking Multiflex. (I suspect that the wow-factor that I love could be my undoing though.)
It's good to know I can purchase help for the troublesome areas if need be.
Chris, I appreciate your live and learn input. I will take all of that to heart.
.

You can create any look you want with any of them. Avada just makes starting out a bit easier with an already built template. I too agree with everything Chris said. But I have never outsourced so can't comment on that.
That said, don't think you can just open up the theme and get started...you must know something about how wordpress works before you do that. So go to Youtube and watch some videos and the same with Avada if that is what you decide to use...they have lots of videos on line as well. Prepare ahead of time and you will save yourself lots of grief.

 

[jiseanhenric]

Dude, you've did big mistake. If you're not interested to use the custom theme, consider asking for a refund. .ORG will be very good the purpose of you're trying to achieve.