I Hate WordPress

There, I said it. I hate WordPress.

I just don’t get it.

And before you chime in, it’s not a builder issue, I have Elementor, Divi, and Beaver at my disposal.

It’s not intuitive to me in the slightest, it doesn’t make sense to me.

So why, in 2023, have I spent the last week looking at whether I should move to WordPress from Squarespace, which I’m utterly in love with?

I spent the last week flip-flopping between Squarespace and WordPress, this seems to be something I do at least twice a year. And I don’t know why I do it. But it keeps happening, even though…

I hate WordPress.

But I still keep wasting time looking at whether I can get my head around it or not! (Note to self: you can’t, you don’t like it, you’ll never be able to learn something if you can’t even stand opening the bloody thing!)

Let’s Go Back A Bit: My Website History

Then I found that the Ghost theme I had also had a WordPress version, and I was offered free hosting for my site on WP, so I moved,

and.

hated.

every.

minute.

I could never get it to do what I wanted, I followed all the instructions, and couldn’t get the bloody thing to do what I wanted. It looked terrible, don’t get me wrong, it was purple, but it looked like utter ass! Every time I added a new page or post, everything went wrong!

Eventually, your girl just said fuck it, and looked for another option. I looked at Wix but it has a load of stuff I didn’t need, and finally settled on Squarespace. And guess what? I built my entire website in a weekend.

To say it was a breath of fresh air, would be a massive understatement!

So Then Why Am I Revisiting WordPress?

Simple answer. Money.

Recently, I became aware of a WordPress plugin called ​Tasty Pins​, and then another called ​HotJar​. Tasty Pins is only available for WordPress, but HotJar is available on Squarespace (where I currently am), but it would mean that I needed to upgrade my Squarespace account, from £144/annual to £204/annual, just to get the free version of HotJar.

Just for a bit of clarity, I earn nothing from my website, so this is a 100% sunk cost. I have no lead magnets, and no paid products (I might have within the next month or so, but nothing right now). So everything I pay for Squarespace and ConvertKit are out-of-pocket expenses.

If I’m looking to pay more for my website to enable the HotJar integration, I wondered whether it would be better to move to WordPress, where I already have hosting, a site, Divi, and Beaver Builder ready and waiting for me.

Point to note here, TastyPins isn’t free, and neither is HotJar. So, while I would save money on Squarespace, how quickly would I get to spending exactly the same money (or more) on WordPress and plugins?

Another issue for me is the time cost. The time it will take me to learn WordPress and Divi or Beaver or Elementor.

What am I not doing in my business because I’m learning that?

Is it worth it?

I need to learn how to use and not hate WordPress.

So I did what I usually do, and took to Twitter/X, and asked for help!

Because WP is so commonly used, it was a pretty safe bet that someone on my follower list would use it and would be able to point me in the direction of some helpful resources.

My followers are fabulous, and soon I had a massive list of YouTube channels and websites to get help on starting WP from scratch.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

Seriously, I have a website that I love on Squarespace.

OK, they’ve increased their pricing for 2024, but who hasn’t in our current economic climate?

I understand how to use it, hell, I was writing my weekly newsletter and decided to write a blog post with the behind-the-scenes details on why I was looking at WordPress, rather than putting it all in my newsletter, and I opened Squarespace and just did it.

You’re reading it right now.

I didn’t think twice about opening my articles page and writing a new one.

This was the biggest difference that I saw when I originally switched from WordPress to Squarespace. When I was on WordPress last time, I didn’t post articles because it was too hard to get it to look how it should. On Squarespace, there aren’t a bajillion things that I can fuck up, I open it, type, and post.

Where does this leave me?

Staying with Squarespace, obviously! And being comfortable in my ‘I hate WordPress’ world!

I’ve been quoted $1,200 for someone to help me set up WordPress, to set up templates and style sheets for me, which is a very reasonable number. But I still wouldn’t know how they were built, and I’d still need to get someone to help me later on if I needed something new. Meaning even more money.

I’m not a web dev, it’s just not my zone of genius.

Choosing a website provider as an entrepreneur is bloody hard, moving provider, once you’re all set up, is harder, especially if you love the one you have. Your website is the face of your brand as an entrepreneur or solopreneur, so it’s vital that it does what you want it to do, is accessible to everyone, and that you can update it when you need to.

Will I upgrade my Squarespace account to get advanced features?

Probably, if I need them for the plugins that I’m looking at.

Code injections are on the Business Plan, the one up from what I have currently.

But, I’ve learned a lot about Squarespace this weekend, and there are a lot of features I didn’t even know were there, and a lot of things that can be achieved without using code injections or fiddling with custom CSS.

I’m not saying for a second that Squarespace is as extensible as WordPress, but there’s a lot that you can do without having to have a paid plugin and code injection, if you watch the right videos on YouTube.

All the WordPress Resources

A lot of the conversation on Twitter/X was around using WordPress with Elementor, so some of these resources are focused on Elementor as well.

Here’s the original post for those of you who frequent X and want to see the conversation in context.

Here are all the suggested resources:

• ​Stacy-Ann Hayes​ shared a ​YouTube​ video; “How to Make A WordPress Website – 2023” and also suggested a plugin called ​Advanced Custom Fields​
• ​Rene Morozowich​ suggested the WPTuts ​YouTube​ Channel
• ​Courtney Robertson​ suggested ​Learn WordPress​
• ​Ben Borowoski​ suggested a post from Elementor on ​How to create custom post types​ (because I have articles and newsletter editions on Squarespace)
• ​Thomas Frank​ suggested using the ​Astra Theme​ in his ​reply
• Elementor Academy

All the Squarespace Resources

After ending up in a rabbit hole of Squarespace plugins, these are resources that I found:

• SE Web Design’s ​YouTube​ channel, including a wonderful video on how to create a ​pricing table​, and another on how to set up a ​style guide​. Side note, if you have Squarespace, this is going to change your life! It takes about an hour to set up, but by fuck it’s amazing!

• A list curated by SQSP Themes of ​50 plugins​, both paid and free. Some require code injections (where a Business Plan of Squarespace is required), and some don’t. They also have an extensive list of their own.
• ​Elfsight​ has loads of widgets for Squarespace. A free account is required to get these widgets.
• ​Ghost Plugins​ have paid, free, and free legacy plugins that can do everything from giving you a gradient button to vertical sections. They also have a monthly membership for $49.

Bonus – Carrd Plugins

If you’re using Carrd for your one-pagers or landing pages, I came across this resource https://plugins.carrd.co/ – there are loads of extras!

My Note To You:

It’s okay to re-evaluate things when new information comes up and opportunities present themselves that you might want to take advantage of.

But for the love of [insert chosen deity here], do your research before you jump into something new.

Don’t just look at the price difference of the base tool, look at what you might spend on add-ons, bundles, and plug-ins, as well as the time cost that it would take you to learn something new or what someone will charge to help you set it up, and troubleshoot if/when things go wrong.

But…you’re reading this on WordPress…

I thought it would be a good plan to update this post!

Originally, “I hate WordPress” was published on my Squarespace website on August 21, 2023.

Today is October 7, 2023, and I’m typing this into the Gutenberg editor in WordPress.

Don’t be scared to be wrong. Then admit it. Again.