So, the tech savvy among you will have dropped a “Wait, What?” over the title of this article. Full Site Editing, or FSE? WordPress has had that all along. It is one of the most flexible content management systems (website builders) on the planet, hence its unparalleled success.
On the other hand, you have to remember that few people are WP Masters. You have to put yourself in the shoes of a non-programmer, or somebody who hasn’t dedicated massive swathes of their time to learning how WordPress works. On the surface, WordPress does a lot of the hard work for people who are looking to build their own websites. However, it is quite possible to edit a full site using the tools at WordPress’s disposal. In fact, there are many templates that allow you to do just that, so that even people without programming and technical knowledge can have absolute full control over how their websites look.
However, WordPress is adding new features and tools all the time that more closely match the tools set out on Blogger (of all places).
Blogger Tools?
On Blogger, the content management system created by Google, you can see a template of your entire website. You pick a certain layout, and then you may add and remove widgets that further customize your website. It is pretty basic and that is why people may gravitate toward systems like WordPress. However, as a site-wide editor, it makes things very easy to control. WordPress keeps adding little tools like these to allow people to edit their entire website from a single point.
Editing Using Blocks
Gutenberg is a triumph of technical wonder, and it was a bold move for WordPress to install such a system despite the nutty backlash they received from many WordPress users. Gutenberg has made WordPress far more customizable than it ever was. Gutenberg has made it far easier to create easily optimizable and integratable content and has made the use of dynamic and responsive technology far easier. Yet the sudden and abrupt change on such a big level seems to have upset a fair amount of outspoken people.
Now that people are finally settling with the idea of blocks, WordPress is not making the same mistake twice. They are adding tools that make it easier to edit an entire website using blocks, but they seem to be sneaking the tools out slowly so as to not create the same negative backlash.
Is Full Site Editing The Future of WordPress?
The tools required for full-site editing are certainly a part of WordPress’s future, but are they going to be a big part of WordPress’s future success? Well, probably not. WordPress is not going anywhere. It is still great at what it does and that is what people care about.
However, the new tools are going to change WordPress templates, especially free templates, will be structured. At the moment, there are plenty of free WordPress templates that allow a fair degree of customization. However, if you want better tools and the sorts of customization features that allow you to change things on a website level, then you need to pay for upgrades or subscriptions. If WordPress is going to integrate these sorts of tools into their base systems, then WordPress template creators will be forced to add these features for free. Ergo, site-wide adjustments, be it with blocks or with template tools, will likely be a selling point for WordPress in the near future.
Will FSE change WordPress’s fortunes and put them ahead of the game? Though website builders like Shopify and WooCommerce are making a massive impact at the moment, WordPress is still far ahead of the pack. All that FSE will do is add yet another reason (another of many reasons) for people in the future to opt for WordPress over other website builders.
