WordPress - the evolution of the popular publishing platform and the most interesting technical innovations

13.8.2024

WordPress is one of the world's most popular publishing systems, and has gone through an impressive development path. Launched in 2003 as a blogging platform, the tool has evolved a highly versatile content management system.

In recent years, a whole new kind of spice has also been added to the soup - Gutenberg, the WordPress block editor that makes it easier to create content sections, and Site Editor, which makes editing the whole site faster.

In this article we sum up our views on the latest WordPress
reforms - what is already good and what needs to be improved. We also tell you what technical solutions we use for our own website projects.

A brief history of WordPress

The popularity of WordPress as a publishing system is solid, with its flexibility, scalability and advanced security features. The global reach of WordPress market share of more than 43 %, and is firmly in the top position of publishing systems.

WordPress has a global market share of over 43 %.

In the early years, building websites with WordPress required some nifty coding skills. The system was only designed for blogs, so building a full site was challenging. In response to this, themes - pre-built styles and page templates - came fairly early on in WordPress to make it easier to build sites.

In addition to themes, WordPress can be customised with plugins, or add-ons. These are pre-built building blocks that can be used to add useful features and functionality to your site. In fact, there are now a huge number of different plug-ins, almost 60,000. The most popular plug-ins provide additional features such as content management, forms and search engine optimisation.

Woocommerce, the most popular commerce plugin for WordPress, was released in 2011. It is a reliable shopping system that allows you to build versatile customized shops and product catalogues.

The rise of content editors and Gutenberg

Next, the WordPress world was rocked by various content editors and page builders, such as Beaver Builder, Elementor, Divi and Oxygen builder - as well as WordPress' own block editor, Gutenberg. These brought much-needed flexibility to content management, and made building and maintaining a site more visual.

WordPress launched the Gutenberg block editor in 2018 as a counter to the third-party content editors on the market. In Gutenberg, web pages are built using blocks, which can be used to create different page layouts, columns and image elements.

Our website projects typically involve customising the main blocks available to customers. This helps to maintain a consistent look and feel when the site is subsequently updated with new pages and content.

Gutenberg can also be used to create ready-made blocks (Patterns) tailored to the brand image. These allow the user to create content areas that can be easily used on any page. With Patterns, page content can be easily presented in a versatile yet brand-appropriate way.

At Digiteam, we make extensive use of website editors - such as Elementor and Gutenberg - for our clients' website projects. Elementor is the most popular site editor after Gutenberg, with the advantages of more editing options and what many consider to be an easier interface, while Gutenberg is the free WordPress "standard editor" with features and benefits suitable for larger projects.

Evolving Site Editor

WordPress has been actively developing the Gutenberg block editor, and it has become quite a versatile tool. However, the evolution of WordPress has not stopped there.

WordPress' own Site Editor extends the site editing capabilities from editing blocks to editing the entire site, including various page templates and site top and bottom bars.

In the past, the theme has determined where things related to the look and feel of the site, such as fonts and colours, are edited. The content of the header and footer sections of the site has also been located in different places depending on the theme, which can be a headache for corporate marketers. The Site Editor will standardise and streamline these configurations.

Is Site Editor then the ideal solution for all your website projects?

No, at least not yet.

In our view, the Site Editor is still quite new and has some corners to round. It is also not yet compatible with all WordPress themes, although WordPress has made this easier with its own theme updates.

We are hopeful about Site Editor, but on the sidelines. Once the initial "kinks" have been worked out, it will certainly become a very useful tool in the toolbox of website projects.

The best solution for your website project?

It is undeniable that opinions are divided among experts in the field. For one, the only real solution is raw site coding. Another sees the use of a content editor as a way of improving the customer experience.

At Digiteam, we believe in personalised solutions. We don't try, nor do we want, to fit a square into a circle, but we always tailor the way we build a website based on the client's needs, desires and budget.

Our team has the expertise and proven track record in both demanding coding and content editing. The best solution is always chosen on a client-by-client basis, using a specific method and tool or a combination of several.

Is it time to renew your website? Download here Our website redesign guide.

Article photo: Dall-E and Adobe Firefly AIs.