Category Archives: Learning

WordPress for Luddites

 

Stupidity has a knack of getting in its way.
Stupid is as stupid does.

I’ve wanted to build a website for years. Years. Unfortunately, my tech skills lag far behind my ambitions. So much so, that I bought a domain and webhosting three years ago, but never built the site. I paid $750 for a video course to walk me through the process, but ended up feeling more overwhelmed once I realized just how much I didn’t know.

So, for three years, I’ve had the goal of creating a website and the knowledge that I’d wasted right about $1000 dollars (the course, web hosting, and a premium theme) hanging over me. A few weeks ago, an opportunity arose on Facebook to test pilot a WordPress video course for free! With a deadline! Free is my favorite price and a deadline is necessary to defeat my inner procrastinator.

With about 8 hours to spare, I finished my website. The theme subscription I paid top dollar for had lapsed, but I was able to build my website a full two months before the hosting subscription ends. Did I mention it was dead easy? It was. It could be that the creator of the course I took was able to put things into bite-sized pieces without fluff to distract (bore) me, or it could be that the other course wanted to make things complicated in order to justify her price.

In any case, I have a website. This one! It’s clearly still a work in progress, but at least it exists now. As I always tell my students, you can’t improve something that doesn’t yet exist, so get it on paper, then make it better.