Looking at the WordPress news, you might think that full-site editing is all about themes and plugins. And yes, that is a big market, with lots of potential.
But that is also overlooking the part of the WordPress economy in which most people work: client services. Or in other words: building custom sites for clients.
And full-site editing is a game-changer for these freelancers and agencies. But there hasn’t been that much attention given to how that space will change.
In this article we’ll first look at the impact of full-site editing on custom suite building. Then we’ll address the opportunities it presents, and look at how to best start benefiting from it.
Table of Contents
- Getting with the times
- Low-code as a default
- Building solutions, not sites
- Custom sites need custom solutions
- Ensuring the future of your business
- The fallacy of “it’s not ready”
- Skill building requires practice
- It’s time to start building
Getting with the times
As a WordPress professional, it’s easy to get caught up with all the news surrounding the project. There’s so much to read and listen that there’s little time to go beyond.
But as website builders, we work in the web design and development space. And that is much, much wider than WordPress.
So if we look beyond our space, one thing stands out: visual site building is a default now.
And as it turns out, even if users can build their website, it doesn’t mean they want to. It never has.
Low-code as a default
Some people view full-site editing as transforming WordPress into a low-code tool. But WordPress has been a low-code tool for a long time.
One of the most successful plugins as Advanced Custom Fields. Which is surprising, because it is a developer plugin. At the same time, Custom Post Type UI has over a million installs.
Plugins like these have lowered the barrier to entry for creating custom WordPress sites. And that’s great! We shouldn’t keep WordPress from lowering the barrier even further.
As established professionals, we’ll be fine. Because the value we bring to the table is about more than knowing how to build a theme.
Building solutions, not sites
What we do in our day to day is building websites. Designing, coding, configuring, etc.
But we’re not building a website for the sake of building a website. We’re designing solutions for challenges that our clients face.
And clients pay us for our experience, and expertise. Most of that expertise is not dependent on tools. For example a landing page does not convert better or worse because it runs on WordPress.
Full-site editing enables new approaches to solving our client’s challenges. We now are able to simplify and streamline many of our processes. While at the same time delivering a much better content management experience to our clients.
But the exact approach you need to take, that depends on your business.
Custom sites need custom solutions
There are a lot of resources out there, starting with this site, that teach you how to build with blocks.
And it’s important to learn the fundamentals. Starting with how to build a full-site editing compatible theme. Then how to mix full-site editing features with proven classic theme development approaches. And depending on your needs, how to build custom blocks.
But these are the foundations. Every agency and freelancer serves their own niche. And that niche requires you to come up with your own approach to using full-site editing.
And that’s part of why you’re in business. If all you did was do the same things as everybody else, then you wouldn’t be able to stay in business.
You need to come up with your own approach to how you integrate all the available knowledge and tools in your business.
So how do you do that?
Ensuring the future of your business
With over a decade of agency and freelancing experience, I know that your days are full. Between delivering projects, prospecting, and all the administrative work, you’re never idle.
Thus when I recommend that you take time to learn how to build with blocks, it’s a big ask. Because you now have processes that are efficient, and proven. So why change this?
Well we all are familiar with the Five for the Future initiative. The idea is that WordPress only can survive if people contribute back to the open source project.
I want to propose something similar: The Five for Your Future.
The concept for this comes from the Frost theme creator Brian Gardener. The idea is that you should invest 5% of your time into your own business.
5% of a typical 40 hour work week would be two hours. That seems manageable, even with the busiest schedule.
So what should you do during this time? Well that’s easy: start building.
The fallacy of “it’s not ready”
Brian Gardner and Sam Munoz from WP Engine have been hosting open discussions on Zoom about Full-Site Editing. These sessions gather professionals to look at challenges and opportunities.
And when it comes to freelancers and agencies, there was consistent feedback. Either people had interest in full-site editing, but followed it from afar. Or they had tried out a full-site editing theme. Some even rebuilt their website by customizing a free block theme.
But none of them were using full-site editing for their client projects. And that’s a mistake.
Because full-site editing is never going to be “ready”. The Gutenberg project is still getting worked on. In Full-Site Editing Is Not Only About Themes I wrote about how the WP admin experience will evolve.
So if you’re waiting for the moment at which this all will be perfect and stable, then you’re waiting in vain.
Skill building requires practice
I created my first full-site editing theme, Block-Based Bosco, in 2020. It was a rough experience, as I detailed in the What I Learned Building a Full-Site Editing Theme article.
Since then, I’ve updated the theme several times. As I did with the article. The more full-site editing progressed, the easier it was for me to create this classic design with blocks.
But I didn’t limit myself to experiments. When WordPress 5.8 came out, I updated the theme of this site to be a hybrid theme. And when WordPress 5.9 came out, I started converting the templates to use blocks as well.
Now most designers and developers say “maybe later” to full-site editing. But clients are already asking about it, and how it might be useful for them. How do you want to answer these questions if you have no idea yourself?
It’s time to start building
Now you’re saying “Alright, where should I start?”
The first step I recommend is to learn theme.json. You can add this theme configuration file to PHP-based themes without issues. And it gives you a much more fine-grained control over the editor.
Whether it’s controlling margins and paddings, configuring color settings, or customizing typography settings. Everything is available in one place.
To get you started, I got a free course called Theme.json Explained. Just sign up, and start building real world projects.
I also have a YouTube channel where I post videos about full-site editing. For example this video, in which I rebuild the header of the Wei block theme from scratch.
And finally don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter below. Every week I send one email with a helpful design and development tip. If you want a sample, check this newsletter in which I explain how to build a block theme while using the PHP header and footer template parts.
