WordPress Business Website

Your WordPress business website. The current WordPress visual editor has remained relatively unchanged for several years, and it’s about to see the biggest update yet.

Whilst the current visual editor does require a lot of shortcodes and HTML to make things work, the new update, named “Gutenberg“, is about to make strides towards a more robust and accessible visual option.

It’s an exciting proposition: Gutenberg comes out the creative quarters of WordPress and is heading to a website near you with an aim to make things easier.

Whilst Gutenberg is still in beta, there is increasing concern about the real impact it may have on current WordPress business websites. With no alternative options available to us come the release of WordPress 5.0, Gutenberg has potential to become the default editor. Here’s what’s new.

The big draw to Gutenberg is that the new visual editor makes for an improved, less distracting website page experience, and an environment that is easier to use for beginners. With that said, it’s important to take a step back and look at the potential for negative outcomes.

WordPress website themes and plugins have continued to develop over time and there are literally thousands of site themes and WordPress plugins available.

Many of these are actively maintained by global networks of developers. But there are also many unsupported themes still in use, because of either abandonment by the original theme developers, or “forked” to be customised to the business’s unique website requirements.

Gutenberg is likely going to require thousands of developers to need to do a lot of work to ensure that their WordPress themes are compatible with this new update.

So, you may be asking, do we have an option to exclude our WordPress website from this update? Sadly, the answer is No!

I predict chaos will reign for businesses currently using abandoned and unsupported WordPress Themes. Inhouse development action will be required where themes have been customised, to bring them up to spec and again become suitable for business purposes.

If you have any questions, feel free to be in touch with us. Our developers are ready to assist your company with all manner of digital services, including the incoming WordPress update.

To our Net Branding WordPress business website clients.

Much of this change, whether it is developers abandoning themes, older websites or purely the impact of the Gutenberg release on your site is well and truly beyond our control.

This being said, please be assured that we are monitoring the situation and minimising any impact where possible.

This email and newsletter is intended to make you aware of the wider changes that we are dealing with in the ever-changing world of websites.

Regards,
Cathy