This week, I got a pre-sale question for my Block Theme Academy course:
Can you send me a custom website built with the Site Editor?
This isn’t the first time I got this question.
Many WordPress professionals know they should learn block theme development. And they know that random tutorials aren’t the most efficient learning method.
But these people hesitate because of the nagging doubt that “nobody uses this.”
This has to do with social media algorithms. A person posting about how Full-Site Editing sucks, why it doesn’t work for the Enterprise, or only in the Enterprise (funny enough) gets a lot more engagement than a case study or a launch announcement.
So, in this post, I’ll show you 7 websites using block themes. For each, I’ll provide some background, the agency that created the site, and any resources.
The Harvard Gazette
The Harvard Gazette is the official news source for Harvard University (Cambridge, USA). It sends a daily email to over 300.000 subscribers and is known beyond the university community.
My colleagues at Human Made built the site:
- Read the case study.
- Learn more about the technical implementation.
- Watch a presentation on how this website fulfills all required accessibility standards.
Felicia Day
Felicia Day is an American actress, singer, writer, and web series creator.
What’s so interesting about Felicia is that she is interested in technology. She works on her website, so she is excited about the new website and using the Site Editor.
WebDevStudios created this website:
- Read the case study.
- Watch the demo video with Felicia.
Eloomi
Eloomi is a company selling a learning management system to Enterprise clients.
This website was created by my colleagues and me at Human Made.
I’m including this website because it was migrated from Elementor to WordPress without any design changes. And we could achieve most of the design without custom blocks.
Now, how much sense does it make to change the tech but not the design? That’s another question, which will be left for a follow-up article.
However, this website also reminded me why I don’t like page builders without good export functionality. To say that the project was painful would be an understatement.
Optin Monster
The Optin Monster website is entirely built with blocks.
This website wasn’t at all on my radar until I stumbled over this tweet:
The website was built by Muhammad Muhsin, who is a student of my Block Theme Academy course.
Unfortunately there’s no case study here, only a few tweets. But it would be cool to have one. Because the website is now not only easier to use for content editors, but also faster as data that was stuffed inside of ACF fields is now in blocks.
Smart Passive Income
The Smart Passive Income website was built by 8px.studio, which is run by long-term WordPress designer Rafal Tomal.
What’s so special about this website is that it is based on the Rockbase theme, which I wrote about before.
In modern website development, designing from scratch is not the default anymore. And this is especially true for commerce websites.
There are proven designs that do convert. And there’s no point in reinventing the wheel. So by using a base theme, you can get these proven designs, build faster, and also have a website that’s easier to maintain.
Leaflet Lion
The Leaflet Lion website is a creation of Mike Hindle, the company founder.
The theme is based on OllieWP, which again shows that you can build unique designs from existing themes.
What’s so interesting about this is the Mike is all about eco-responsibility. Meaning making a website as efficient as possible.
I wrote numerous times before about how block themes are more efficient, which is good for user experience, good for SEO, and also good for the environment.
NASA
The NASA website was built by Lone Rock Point, an agency specializing in the public sector.
There are two case studies here:
- About the website redesign.
- On how the project uses the free and open source Asset Manager Framework plugin to integrate external media sources into WordPress.
7 among many
These were just seven websites using block themes that are a good showcase for how Full-Site Editing works in a variety of use cases.
If you know about an interesting block project, or even built one yourself, let me know!
