Let me tell you, six years ago when I launched my gluten-free baking blog (RIP "Doughn’t Worry Be Gluten-Free"), I thought picking a CMS would be as simple as choosing between Target and Walmart. Oh man, was I wrong.<\/p>\n
I started with WordPress because my cousin\u2019s neighbor\u2019s dog walker swore by it. Cue the montage of me crying over broken plugins at 2 AM, accidentally turning my recipe page into a psychedelic abstract art project. (Turns out "child themes" aren\u2019t just for nursery blogs.) But here\u2019s the kicker \u2013 WordPress taught me to stop treating websites like Jenga towers. Always back up your work, kids.<\/p>\n
My turning point? When I tried selling handmade cookie cutters during the pandemic. Shopify became my lifeline \u2013 their inventory system worked smoother than my KitchenAid mixer. But then Squarespace lured me in with templates prettier than a Pinterest board. I lasted three months before realizing drag-and-drop editors and I have the same relationship as oil and water.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what stuck from my CMS rodeo:<\/p>\n
Last summer, I helped my brother-in-law migrate his BBQ sauce biz from Weebly to Squarespace. Watching him discover "section dividers" was like witnessing someone taste brisket for the first time. That\u2019s when it clicked \u2013 the best CMS isn\u2019t about features; it\u2019s about what makes you stop muttering "for the love of Pete" under your breath.<\/p>\n
Want my real-talk advice? Start simple. Use whatever lets you publish instead of perfect. My neighbor\u2019s thriving Etsy vintage teacup side hustle runs on a Carrd site that took 20 minutes to build. Your CMS should feel like broken-in jeans \u2013 not whatever Kim Kardashian says is trendy.<\/p>\n
(Though full disclosure \u2013 I\u2019m now weirdly into headless CMS platforms. Storyblok? More addictive than my Nespresso habit. But that\u2019s a campfire story for when you\u2019ve outgrown WordPress.)<\/p>\n
Whatever you pick, just promise me one thing: backup your site before tweaking anything. My 2017 kale-chip giveaway catastrophe still haunts my dreams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Let me tell you, six years ago when I launched my gluten-free baking blog (RIP "Doughn’t Worry Be Gluten-Free"), I thought picking a CMS would be as simple as choosing between Target and Walmart. Oh man, was I wrong. I started with WordPress because my cousin\u2019s neighbor\u2019s dog walker swore by it. Cue the montage…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}