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The world wide web started to gain prominence around 1993 with the release of the first commercial web browser, Mosaic, which made the web accessible to the general public. Prior to this, the web was primarily used by scientists, researchers, and academics.
Mosaic’s user-friendly interface and graphical design made it easy for anyone to browse the web and access its growing number of resources. With the release of Mosaic, the world wide web was suddenly a resource that could be leveraged by businesses as an excellent way to reach an audience and connect directly with leads and customers.
However, there was a problem: building websites required a knowledge of complex coding languages in order to build.
Even the simplest of early websites were complex and highly technical collections of digital documents brought to life via the interplay between Mosaic or other early browser platforms and the visualization instructions embedded into the digital documents by programmers using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).
As web technologies have evolved, website developers and administrators have had to learn how to navigate myriad complicated technologies and related tasks, such as how to establish a domain name and managing domain name servers (DNS) and secure web hosting.
Today, businesses and individuals can find everything they need to build and launch a website of their own through content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress.
In this article, we explore whether or not the average website owner needs to have significant coding skills to build a WordPress website, or if CMS tools bridge that gap sufficiently.
Web development and today’s World Wide Web
Web developers can still use programming languages to customize and craft websites for businesses and individuals.
But the rise of software platforms that make coding and building a website accessible to the common user has allowed anyone with basic computer skills to create a functional website in less than a day, without any special programming skills. This was made possible by popular CMS platforms such as WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix.
The most popular website builder is WordPress, which currently has a 63.5% market share of the CMS industry. The second most popular is Shopify, with a 5.5% market share, and then Wix, with 3.6%.
WordPress is by far the most popular website builder in the world and commands a huge market share. Amazingly, WordPress now powers more than 43% of all the websites in the world.
What sets WordPress apart from other CMS?
While Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify are powerful website builders with a host of features available to users, WordPress has set the standard with advanced content management tools and a degree of versatility and integration with third-party tools not seen in other products.
A user-friendly, no-code platform
One reason WordPress has become so popular is that it doesn’t require any coding skills. You simply need to choose a theme, which is the template for your website, then add your content through one of several user-friendly interfaces, most of which are built off of drag-and-drop functionality.
Freedom of ideas with great customization options
With WordPress, you can create pages, add text, add images, create hyperlinks, and perform all content management functions without writing a single line of code. You can also manage many of your website’s colors, fonts, menus, and other elements easily through drop-down menus and modular elements.
A wide array of integrations allow users to extend website functionality easily
In order to add complexity to websites, users are able to add advanced functionality to a WordPress website, such as a contact form, image gallery, online store, membership section, and a calendar of events.
WordPress, in a sense, has democratized the web design process and offers tremendous power and almost unlimited features to anyone willing to invest some time and effort.
How much coding skill do you really need to build and manage a WordPress website?
In theory, a basic WordPress website doesn’t require any coding skills at all. However, most professional websites will require at least a little bit of coding in order to fully complete the project. Let’s take a look at some use cases in more detail.
Little to no coding: building a basic website or web page
If you are building a basic website or blog for personal use and can find a website theme that matches your vision very closely, then you are in a good position. You can spin up a WordPress website easily and be up and running in no time.
The assumption here is that you don’t need to make a lot of customizations to your site and are happy with it “out of the box.” You should also not mind that there are hundreds or perhaps thousands of other websites that look similar to yours since you are using a widely-available template.
Basic understanding of coding: Building a professional website with more customization
The above scenario is not ideal for everyone. Most established companies and organizations want to have a unique web presence that reflects their brand and voice, and doesn’t look like a hundred other websites out there. It’s still possible to start with a commercially available theme and then customize it using the built-in settings.
However, the theme settings will not provide full control over every single element in the website. A simple example would be changing the spacing of a heading or a bulleted list. Or changing the color of a specific element on a page.
A more complicated example would be creating a custom page layout that is not included in the theme. In these examples, someone needs to write code or dive deeper into the technicalities of WordPress to make it happen.
Now, this doesn’t mean that the website owner should run out and purchase “HTML for Dummies” and study all night in order to change the color of a button on their website. It would be more efficient and a better business decision to simply hire a WordPress professional to do the work for them.
Outsourcing WordPress development to freelancers or agencies
Most business and website owners don’t have the technical skills or development skills to build highly complex business websites, and that’s okay.
They are not professional web designers, and should instead be focused on running their business and taking care of their customers. They don’t have time to tinker with WordPress, beyond keeping the content updated and perhaps publishing blog posts and articles. Fortunately, these people don’t have to learn code and can get by perfectly fine through the use of the WordPress interface alone.
If you’re looking for a more polished feel for your website, you should look into hiring a professional web designer, who needs to know a significant amount of code in order to do their jobs effectively.
At the minimum, this would include working knowledge of HTML and CSS and a basic understanding of the WordPress file structure. Furthermore, some of the more advanced WordPress features—such as integrating WooCommerce to manage shopping carts or other custom WordPress plugins—may only require some code to be fully customized.
So if you aspire to build a professional website using WordPress, you either need to develop the professional skills and technical knowledge and consult the very knowledgeable WordPress community for guidance and help, or find a professional that can support your efforts to build your own website.
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Small business owners should turn to professionals to guarantee a great user experience
In my experience, most professional WordPress projects will require some coding, especially when the website is initially being built. So I would recommend that a professional web designer be involved during the design and development phase.
Once the website is built and launched, the content can be updated by a non-technical person who has received some basic training in WordPress.
I often tell my clients they will be able to handle over 90% of the content management themselves, which is one of the huge benefits of using WordPress. And then they can hire a WordPress expert for any “heavy lifting” and back-end development that is beyond their basic skills. This is the combination that leads to the highest-quality and most cost-effective website.