Der Umstieg von einem Pagebuilder zu FSE

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Sandra: Hi everyone, and welcome to the fourth episode of Greyd Conversations. Today we have a super interesting topic, one that might possibly be on the mind of a lot of agencies and freelancers out there listening today. Should we switch to Full Site Editing? And if yes, when is the best time to do so? And how the hell are we supposed to do that while keeping our regular agency business running? I’m super happy that I have a guest here today who has faced exactly these questions last year. Welcome with me Rosanne van Staalduinen, owner and co-founder of the Dutch digital agency Buro Staal. Welcome to Greyd Conversations.

Rosanne: Thank you.

Sandra: I’m super happy to have you here and to hear firsthand from your experiences. But before we dive into today’s topic, maybe, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do, what your agency does, what kind of projects and services you offer, how big your team is… Anything you’d like to share with us about you and your agency.

Rosanne: Thanks. Yeah. As you mentioned, I’m the co-founder of Buro Staal. We’re a small WordPress agency in the Netherlands, and our team consists of six people. We build, maintain and optimize WordPress websites and WooCommerce web shops. And our clients vary from self-employed to small and medium sized enterprises. Sometimes we build a smaller website with like ten pages, a blog and a few additional functionalities. And other times we are building a web shop, linked to accounting systems, post code checkers, VAT verifications, whatever. So yeah, the projects vary enormously, but that’s also something that we really like to just, do something else every day. So I think that a third of the time that we spend is, creating new projects. And the rest of the time we are maintaining and optimizing existing websites.

Sandra: Sounds great.

Rosanne: Thank you. So the reason we are talking today is that, last year in early 2024, you switched from a page builder to Full Site Editing, and you kind of did that overnight. You also gave a very inspiring talk about this move and how it went for you guys at WordCamp Netherlands recently. So I’m super excited to hear from you first hand why you made that decision, how you approached that switch and above all, how it went for you guys. And if you would do it again and what your recommendations are for our listeners. So, maybe let’s start by talking about what was before. Could you please describe how your tech stack looked like before switching to Full Site Editing in early 2024?

Rosanne: Yes. We used the Hello theme, together with the Elementor page builder. The Hello theme is basically an empty theme. And with Elementor, we could create the header, the footers, the content of the pages, but also templates for shops, for books, for whatever. And if we needed extra features like creating custom post types or filters, we used Croco Blocks. They have jet engine, jet smart filters, all those kind of add-ons, which work perfectly together with Elementor. So that was our basic set up, the Hello theme with Elementor, and if we needed it also with Croco Blocks. And we worked with that combination for, I think, 4 or 5 years. And I think we built 200, 150, 200 websites with it. So yeah, we were really experienced with it. And still we switched cold turkey to the Full Site Editor.

Sandra I was just about to say, that sounds like a reasonable set-up. And you guys seemed to work really well with that. So you just said it. You switched from Elementor to Full Site Editing cold turkey, I think in April.

Rosanne: Yeah.

Sandra: Why?

Rosanne: Yeah. The big question. It doesn’t make sense, I understand, because with Elementor, we could really make anything we could think of. And it would be very comfortable to stay with Elementor, you know, to continue working with it. But sometimes we also encounter crazy things that happen. You know, that the design all of a sudden, looks completely different. And, that made us a bit nervous. I was at WordCamp Europe in June. Yeah, in June. And I spoke with the people of Elementor, and one of the things that I really wanted to talk with them about was accessibility. And they couldn’t convince me that was their priority. And their message was mainly, okay, if you see something that we need to change, please let us know. And we will make sure that we change it or that we have a look at it. And I thought, okay, but Elementor is huge. It’s a paid plugin, because we use the pro version. It feels a bit like the world upside down that we need to tell them what they need to change to be accessible.

That made me even more nervous. And I also noticed that a few people who work a lot with Elementor switched to other themes. I thought, okay, things are happening. You know, it made me nervous. The other thing is, and maybe it’s a bit difficult to explain. But it felt like building a website with Elementor wasn’t professional enough for the projects that we did for the larger companies that we work for. And, now all of a sudden, it didn’t make sense anymore to me that we are building with Elementor. And eventually I thought, okay, what are we going to do with this? Is this a feeling that I just need to ignore? Okay, Elementor is perfect. Just go on. You know, it’s very complicated work. You know how it works. Continue. You know, people, we don’t like changing stuff, so. But then I thought, no, this isn’t the way to go. Yeah. So we made the switch to the Full Site Editor at that time.

Sandra: So the decision was mainly influenced by things that weren’t working anymore, or you weren’t fully convinced of Elementor anymore. So not so much that you wanted to go to Full Site Editing. How did you decide to go for Full Site Editing then? Why not have a look at all the other great page builders out there and go for any of them? Why Full Site Editing?

Rosanne: Yeah. Before we worked with Elementor, we worked with the Divi theme and the Enfold theme, and they both have their own page builder. So, we already worked with that. And, one thing was sure: We were not going to switch back to Divi or to Enfold. We also had a look at Oxygen and Breakdance, but I thought, okay, why would we choose another page builder? When there is something like the Full Site Editor and the whole Block Editor, which is, closer to core and, which is expanding and is getting better every day. So for me, it didn’t make sense to switch to another page builder. It felt like, okay, going from Elementor to another one, you know, potato, potato. It doesn’t make sense.

So, it didn’t even cross my mind to do that. For me, it was really, okay. Or we stay with Elementor. Or we are go into the Full Site Editor. And for me, the Full Site Editor felt like next level.

Sandra: I mean, you can like it or not, it is the direction that WordPress is going. And all the resources that WordPress puts into it also goes in the Block and Site Editor. And with that, also a lot of tools are focusing on that, too. So, yeah, I can totally relate to that. One question that pops into my mind is, both the Block and the Site Editor that have been introduced to WordPress at a very early stage. And there has been a lot of criticism. There still is a lot of criticism, but with each and every update, new features and improvements are shipped. So, how did you decide in April, okay, now is a good time to do that? Why not wait a little bit more to see more features added, more flaws to be fixed. Why in April?

Rosanne: Yeah, well, we made the choice mainly because of our need to start working with it. Without really thinking about whether this was the right time, from a productive perspective. And I knew that a number of larger agencies were already building with it. So I thought, okay, if they can build with it, why can’t we? And it’s also fun to be ahead of the game and discover for yourself what is really possible and what is not. And if you really want something, there’s always a way to to make it work for you. So I didn’t even think about if this was the right time to switch to Full Site Editing.

For me, it was more like, okay, we are just going to do it and we are going to find a way to make it work. Because, you know, we see a lot of websites where the classic editor plugin is still working and a lot of websites where they don’t even work with the Block Editor. And I understand it, because the first time the Block Editor was introduced, I also thought, oh my gosh, what? What is this? What are we going to do? You know. But that was six years ago. And if we all ignore the Block Editor and the Full Site Editor, which are great tools, and of course it can even be greater, but that’s something we work on. That’s the whole open source thing, you know, making things better every day. And I thought, okay, I could still ignore this, but am I really loving WordPress? Do I really want to work with it? And if so, then I need to embrace this instead of ignoring it. So that was also for me, that thought, okay, we’re just going to do this. And if things aren’t perfect, then we are going to look how we can help to make it perfect.

Sandra: Yeah. I think that’s a super interesting approach. Also that you guys didn’t really think about is the time right or not that much. Because that’s something that I see with a lot of our customers. I think most agencies out there are aware that at some point they kind of have to switch since. like I said, all the efforts of WordPress, they are all going in the direction of the Block and Site Editor. But it’s really the timing. Many say, okay, let’s wait. And there’s still so much that doesn’t work properly or the features are missing and all that. So for many people we talk to, it’s really not the WHY or the IF, it’s really the timing or the How are we going to do it? So, we will talk about this later as well.

But I can totally relate to your decision. I mean, we’ve kind of been in the same position, but just from a product owner’s perspective, more than from a user’s perspective. I mean, in order for us to being a technical leader and being one of the first to offer a fully block-based solution, we even had to make this decision to put everything on one card and to go with the Block Editor way earlier. At a time when almost none of the professionals were working with the Block Editor yet. And we had to take into account that if we wanted to be first movers, like you said, we also had to take into account that many of our customers or potential customers might not be ready for that switch yet.

So yeah, super interesting. I think with this timing it’s also like on the stock market. You always try to get this perfect point right on the top or very low of the curve to sell or buy. But you can never know for sure if right now is the best time. The only situation in which you know for sure is afterwards when you realize that maybe you’ve waited too long or should have waited a little longer or whatever. So, super interesting. Before we talk more about how you did the switch, I’d like to ask some more questions on the decision making. I mean, you said your team was like six people, so not that big. Was everyone in your team involved in the decision of was it kind of like a management level decision? Have your customers been involved in any form?

Rosanne: No. Basically, it was me. It’s all my fault. You know, we were in the race for a new project, and, I knew that we were the last to remain together with another party, another company. And I also knew that the other company worked with the Full Site Editor, and we still worked with Elementor. And in the end, the client chose us. So, we were allowed to create the new website. But for me, it didn’t feel right to sell them an Elementor website. And it really made me think, okay, they could choose They could choose between a Full Site Editing website and Elementor, and they’ve chosen us. Is this really the best decision for them? Or is this only the best decision for me? Because, hey, we have a new project.

Sometimes you need to be honest with yourself. And in this case, I thought, no, this is not the best thing for them. They are a growing company. They are very ambitious. And Elementor is not the best thing for them. So I, overnight, made the decision. Okay, guys, we sold them an Elementor website, but we are going to give them a Full Site Editing website. Hey, we have six weeks, so let’s go. Oh, yeah, that was pretty obvious. But I thought, okay, we need to start doing this. We can talk about it for hours and hours, days, weeks, you know, as you just mentioned. But it’s never a good time to make a decision like this or to make a switch like this. So what we did, we asked Remkus de Vries.

He is like a WordPress veteran here in the Netherlands. We asked him to help us and to give us a workshop about Full Site Editing. About all the things we need to know and help us create a new toolset. So we did that, and after that, yeah, we thought, okay, we can do this. It’s not that difficult. And the fun thing is that, if you’re used to Elementor and you are used to working with containers and sections and templates and you’re going to Full Site Editing, it’s basically the same.

Sandra: Not that different, yeah.

Rosanne: No, it’s also working with templates. And you can create the header and footer inside WordPress yourself. And in Elementor you’re doing the same thing. So as soon as we understood how things were connected with each other, we saw that it was basically the same set-up. And that also helped to get the people who here more enthusiast about it. Yeah. And in the end, of course I had the decision vote. But the rest was also more enthusiastic about that after that workshop.

Sandra: Yeah, I can imagine.

Rosanne: And and of course, if you know a page builder like Elementor inside and out and you suddenly need to build in a totally different way, it is a huge transition. So I totally understand that they were not very happy with me. But in the end, they understood why I made the decision. And we are now busy with building experience and discovering. And that will never stop. And that was also with Elementor, you know, because when we started with it 4 or 5 years ago, Elementor wasn’t the Elementor that it is now. So in those 4 or 5 years, we also learned a lot of new things, and we discovered new tools that we could use. And it will be the same with Full Site Editor. So yeah, in the end, it was my decision.

We did involve the team by showing, by doing that workshop with Remkus de Vries and by showing them how Full Site Editing works and that it’s not that big of a thing because, the setup is basically the same with Elementor. And that helped to get some rest and to not be that nervous to do this. So yeah, for me, that was really nice. A nice way to handle it.

Sandra: I mean, that was basically the entire idea of this part of this Gutenberg project to have, this page building experience directly in WordPress core. For us, it was similar. I mean, we had to make this one big decision to go from a page builder – we used Visual Composer before – to the Block Editor. That, yes, that was a big decision. But the migration later to Full Site Editing, that wasn’t difficult at all for us, since we kind of always had the entire functionality of Full Site Editing with all the global styles and the templates and header / footer building and all that. We always had that. But just on a custom level. And „all“ we had to do was migrate that into the core functionality. But I can understand it. It really is a page building experience. I mean, that was the whole goal. How did it go with the customer? How did you tell them that they wouldn’t be getting what they actually bought?

Rosanne: Well, I basically told them, okay, guys, you don’t know the difference between Elementor and Full Site Editing, because then they worked with a custom CMS. So they didn’t have any experience with WordPress whatsoever. So for them, it really didn’t matter whether it would be Elementor or the Full Site Editor, because everything would be new for them. So I told them, okay, I sold you an Elementor website, but I don’t think it’s the best approach for you. So we are going to create the website with the Full Site Editor. It will cost us more time, but that’s our problem, not yours. And they said okay.

Well, for them it wasn’t a big thing. And of course some features that we have built in Elementor, it took us way more time now to create it. Especially because this specific project had a lot of animations, you know, like moving things. And in Elementor, there were basic setups for that. But in the Block Editor not. Not yet. So, we needed more customization from our side. But in general, I noticed that customers ask for WordPress or for WooCommerce, but they don’t ask for a specific page builder. Sometimes they already have an Elementor website, and they want to have a new one in Elementor because they know how it works. Or, they really want to use Elementor because they read a lot of good stuff about it. But that’s 1 in 20, 30, 40 websites, you know, for the product projects. So for customers, yeah, they haven’t been really involved and they don’t notice a lot about it.

Sandra: Yeah. I mean, the only point where they really have something to do with what kind of tool the website was built with is when they do content management or something like that later. But other than that, like I said, for them it doesn’t really make a difference with which tools you work. But I really like the perspective that you bring in here, to ask what is best for the customer? Because it might not be important to them which tool to use, but I think it does make a difference, because a customer, they don’t buy a website every few months. They do that maybe every 3 to 5 years, if even.

And while you can definitely argument that Full Site Editing has some flaws today, how sure can you be that this will still be the case in one year, two years or three years? And what will the customer say when they realize that the website they just bought from you was built based on an outdated technology that is now causing more and more compatibility issues, for example, with new tools they want to add to their site? So I really like that. The perspective.

Rosanne: Yeah. And also from the accessibility perspective, you know, if we trust on Elementor, we also need to trust on them to make sure that it’s accessible. And of course, if you want to create an accessible website, you also need to have your own knowledge about it. You know, it’s not that. Okay, I install Elementor and whoa, my whole website is accessible. But Elementor should be by default, be accessible with all the tools that they have, and that you’re using. And for me, that was really something, thinking about the future. Okay, if we now stay with Elementor and the new European Accessibility Act is coming in June this year, are we still able to create websites that are totally accessible?

And of course, I can think about, okay, I just pretend like I don’t know about this. But I don’t think it’s honest to clients to sell them a website and in about 4 or 5, 6 months, it’s not accessible. While it should be. So yeah, that’s also something that we need to think about. It’s not, of course, you want to work in a way that’s comfortable for you and that works for you. But you also need to think about your client and what they need. And yeah, if maybe Elementor isn’t the best, wait for them.

Sandra: I think that is a general issue that many page builder or in general tools that have been there for quite some while, I mean, for them, they have much more legacy to work with. And then it might be much more difficult for them to add basic accessibility features. While the Block Editor and the Site Editor and in general newer tools, for them it’s much easier to to get all these new requirements met. Yeah. Okay. I think we have covered the decision making. Now, you already hinted a little bit, how you actually approached it. That’s what I think is actually the thing that’s most interesting for all the agencies and freelancers listening today. How to make such a big change, such a big switch, while still meeting all the deadlines and have your regular agency business running? You mentioned that one project that was kind of the first one. I also know that many of our customers use their own website as kind of a testing or learning project, and they rebuild it with Full Site Editing. And as soon as they feel safe with that, then they move on to customer projects. You started with a customer project right away. Was it just that one project or did you do everything from then on just with Full Site Editing?

Rosanne: No, we started with that one project and with our own website. Because we did rebranding for ourselves and we needed a new website, so we did it parallel. But the client project was the first one that we started with. And we finished all projects that we were building with Elementor, and we started with this specific project in Full Site Editing. And all the other new projects that we started, we also built with Full Site Editing. And our own website was a really nice playground to just see how everything works. Yeah. So we did it this way. Cold turkey, yeah.

And of course, you know, if you’re starting with your own website, there is no drive to finish it. Because whether you finish it in two weeks, two months or six months, no one is complaining. And when you start with a client project, we had six weeks. Six weeks is insanely fast for a website. And if you have to do it with a whole new tool, really crazy fast. But this gave us the drive to work with it every day and to be focused. And for me, it couldn’t be better. This was really the right way for us to do it, because otherwise you are postponing things and you think, okay, yeah.. Full Site Editing… Yeah, we will do it with the next project. And the next project you are just starting with Elementor again. And you think, oh, yeah, we should do this with the Full Site Editing. Oh, wow. yeah, we already started with Elementor, so, Okay, the next one. Yeah. Before you know, your at a year and nothing happened. So, sometimes you just need to go, you know.

Sandra: Not having a deadline is a good thing, but it also is not a good thing.

Rosanne: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sandra: How many nightshifts did you have to do to meet this six weeks deadline? Well, no nightshifts But well, at the end, it took us 100 hours more than we had. So, yeah, that was a lot of extra hours. But we did manage to build it in six weeks. And just to jump in the deep, we learned so many things, and it really helped tremendously to do it this way. And of course, we’re not done learning, you know. Because as I just mentioned, the Full Site Editor, it continues to develop. So we continue to discover things. So even though we now completely switched. So that’s not true.

We are creating one website now with Elementor. But that’s because the client really wants to use that. That’s why I try to convince him to do it with the Full Site Editor, but he wasn’t convinced. So that’s the one that we are creating with Elementor. But all the other projects we are doing now with the Full Site Editor. Yeah. So we switched completely now.

Sandra: And, I mean, you mentioned this workshop with Remkus. I know Remkus. He is a really great guy. So you you pick the right one to do that. So, what did you do afterwards? Was it like learning by doing and just finding everything out on your own? Or did you have, like, any other forms of training? Did you all do it together or was everyone doing it for themselves? And then you put all the pieces together?

Rosanne: Yeah. We basically, divided the team in two parts. So half of us kept doing the Elementor websites and the support for it, and the other half, including me, we went into Full Site Editing. So I definitely didn’t do this all alone. And because we were with the three of us working on that one specific project, we very quickly came across each other’s mistakes or things that didn’t work so well. And then together we looked for other options to do it until it really was perfect. And because we could focus on this project, we learned very quickly. So, in those six weeks, we were with the three of us, completely focused on Full Site Editing, and the other three were working with Elementor.

And after that, we kind of involved them and showed them around in the Full Site Editor and explained how we did certain things. Remkus was also our, I’m not sure how to say it in English, in Dutch we would say our Fragbag. So, the person who we could send all our questions to like, okay, we want to do this. And we tried this, this, this and that, but nothing works and help. And then he will send me an email with okay, you could have a look into this plugin or check this video or, you know, so he showed us around. We didn’t watch a lot of videos or read a lot of articles, because it’s so time-consuming and it’s something that, okay, you can read articles and watch videos for one, two, three weeks without even starting.

So I thought, okay, now we’re just going to start. And if something isn’t working or if there’s something that we really can’t figure out, then we will start looking for articles and videos or we ask Remkus. And that worked really well for us.

Sandra: I mean, this is a pretty cool thing, and I think also a pretty unique thing of the WordPress community, that there are so many people out there, people you might not even know personally, but who are eager to help. There’s so many places where you can raise questions and ask for help. I didn’t know that from any other industry that I’ve worked before. And that was one of the things that surprised me so much when I started working in the WordPress community. Like, people were always eager to help and offering support without wanting anything back. And then at the beginning, I didn’t know how to handle that, because I wasn’t used to it. I was like, okay, where’s the loophole here? What do they want? And I think that’s just how the WordPress community is working. And I think it is a really great thing.

Rosanne: Yeah. Everyone wants to help. And that’s also something that I mentioned at my talk with WordCamp Netherlands, last November. Just start. And if you have questions, there are so many people who are willing to help you. Also in the WordPress Slack channels. And that’s really something amazing from our community.

Sandra: Absolutely. You mentioned some things that were issues, like animations. We will be talking about your tech stack entirely and how it looks like now. But besides from that, have there been any major setbacks or bigger issues you ran into, especially during those first six weeks where you definitely had to meet this deadline?

Rosanne: Not really with the website. We did encounter a few issues, but we would have them with Elementor, too, because we needed to create animations which were just not, default. We didn’t really have issues with that project. We did have a few with another project that we did after it, but that was a web shop. And web shops are always more complex, you know? So, we had issues with the filters. We had issues with the templates. We had issues with the queries. We had a lot of issues. So, that was a bit hard because we, you know, you think, oh, it’s working. Yay! And then you change something at a certain place, and then you’re testing it again, and… Oh, maybe not.

So we thought that we had everything completely ready, and then one thing didn’t work, and then we had to change everything 180 degrees. So, yeah, there were some curses involved in that project. So creating a web shop is like, it’s more difficult. But now that we know everything, it’s also very possible to do it. But we did write a few things down, like, okay, if you want to create like an attribute template, you have to be aware of this, this and that. Okay. If you want to use filters, use this with that. And, so we made a kind of, process about which blocks you can use, which add-on plugins you can use. So, yeah, that was kind of a setback, because in the first web shop that we released with the Full Site Editing, I think it took us 40 extra hours to make everything work as it should be. We thought that we were done, so. Yeah, but like you said, these things they just happen in website projects.

Sandra: Yeah. And with new technology definitely more than with the ones that you’re used to, but still, you never know…

Rosanne: That’s true.

Sandra: So in hindsight, from what you’ve told me, I take it that you would do it exactly the same way again. Just dive into it. Don’t ask too many questions, just try it out. So, that’s the advice you would give to other agencies who are trying to work out how to switch to Full Site Editing?

Rosanne: Yeah, I would definitely do it the same way. The only thing I would change is: Sometimes we were too quick, with the design. So. Okay, can we create the design like it should be done? And we ignored the functionality. So then the design was ready, and then we figured out, oh, but we can’t make it work how it should be. So we need to use another block. And that’s a waste of work, you know, and a waste of time. So my advice would be to first make kind of a framework, with all the blocks that you need for the functionality. And also test it in the different templates, because in the last web shop that we released, we needed templates for categories, but also for the attributes.

Some things worth in the one, but they don’t work in the other. So create all the templates that you need. And all the functionality that you need. And when that works, then you can go to the design, but I’m not sure if all of those agencies have it. But for us, you know, you want to create something nice and you want to add the design. And so most of the time you start with the design. But it’s better to start with the functionality. I think it’s always better to start with the functionality. But specifically when you switch to a new way of working, it’s really important to just make sure that everything works and then you can add those nice layers of design.

Sandra: So you would say that switching to Full Site Editing for you, it wasn’t like entirely just a switch of tools. But there are also some processes that you changed and some things in a website project how and when you did which parts?

Rosanne: Yeah, yeah. That’s also something that we changed, because when we were building with Elementor, we didn’t make a design in advance. We basically designed directly in Elementor. And that worked first for us. But it also has a kind of limiting function, because you only build what you know, and as a result, we didn’t really challenge ourselves much. So when we started with Full Site Editing, we didn’t know how it works. So it’s a bit difficult to design something with blocks that you have never used before. So we thought, okay, we’re also going to change our process. So now we first design three pages in Figma. And when those pages are approved, then we are going to build it in WordPress itself.

And we are now even considering to designing all pages in Figma first. So now it can happen that something has to be made that we have no idea how to. But if it can’t be done with the standard options of a block, our developers jump in to make something custom. So, yeah, we did change our process also.

Sandra: Okay, interesting. Yeah, we all already talked about your tech stack pre-switch. What tools are you working with now? Is it just plain FSE and some some custom features, or do you also work with any extensions, any other tools additionally?

Rosanne: Yeah, we do use Kadence Blocks Pro as an addition and we use the Ollie theme, we use the pro theme. To be honest, I don’t think that we need the pro theme, because the free theme is also very, very good. But we really like Ollie and we just bought the pro theme to support them. And we just talked about the community that we have and what’s really cool with Ollie is that they have a dedicated Slack channel / workspace – I don’t know the Slack chat terms- – but they have a dedicated, workspace I think I should call it, where you can highlight the things that you made with Ollie, but where you can also raise questions. And the creators of the theme are very active in the channel, so it feels really like you can help them to create something that’s even more cooler than it already is. So, yeah, the Ollie theme is great for us.

And then there’s Kadence Blocks Pro as an addition to the Block Editor. Mainly because their blocks have more options for the responsive settings. That’s something that, in the Full Site Editor, or in a Block Editor I should say, there aren’t a lot of responsive settings. And we are currently testing – I have no idea how to pronounce it, I think Blockera. They have responsive controls and advanced design options to the default blocks. So I really like that approach because, with Kadence Blocks Pro, they have their own blocks. Custom Blocks, yeah. So you use more of their blocks and less of the default blocks. And with Blockera you use the default blocks, but then on steroids, because you have those extra options. So yeah, that’s an approach that I really like. So we are testing apparently. So no, we are not building a whole project with it right away. We don’t do this one cold turkey. But we are testing with it, and it really, really looks amazing. So there is a possibility that we will switch to Blockera.

Sandra: Sounds super speed testing. I mean, I haven’t worked with Blockera personally, but I can totally relate to what you just said about custom blocks versus integrating into the core blocks, because this is also something that we do. We always try to stay as close to core as possible and to work as much as possible with the core functionality and to add features to the core blocks rather than having custom blocks. Because this just gives you more flexibility in terms of combining it with with other tools. For example, you mentioned Ollie. Also a really great tool. We’re actually having Mike, one of the founders, in one of our next Conversations episodes. And they also work really close to core.

And they also try to be compatible with as much as possible. And I think this is one of the big advantages of the Block in the Site Editor, that the more solutions that stick as close to core as possible and just integrate in that, the better the entire environment works together and the better you can create your own personal WordPress ecosystem with tools that just work together. I mean, you don’t need that many tools anymore. I mean, this is one advantage of the Block and Site Editor, that a lot of functionality that usually would have required you to have a page builder, for example, or any add-ons, it’s now integrated. But if you do need other tools, then the Block and Site Editor are a good way to make sure that they work together in a good way, and they function well together.

Rosanne: Yeah, I remember that Thomas told me about Greyd, as you mentioned, that you add functionality to the default blocks and that if a one of those options is integrated in core, that you just remove it out of Greyd. And I think that’s a really nice approach to kind of be ahead of, okay, our customers already need it, but it isn’t in in Block Editor, yet. So let’s add it. And at the moment that it is in core, just remove it from your end of the game. And that I think, that’s a really good, a nice approach to it.

Sandra: Yeah, absolutely. We do it exactly like you just described. I thin a good example, I think we also talked about it, was a fluid typography. That was something we added to the to Greyd global styles because it just wasn’t there. And I’m not 100% sure if it already is in core or if it’s still one of those experimental features in the Gutenberg plugin, but it will soon be a core feature. And whenever this happens, we either deprecate our feature or we migrate whatever we offer on top into the core functionality and just stay as compatible as possible to any other tools out there. Okay. So, a couple of more questions before we wrap up for today. I mean, even though you are obviously convinced of Full Site Editing, I mean, I don’t have to ask you about that, but I assume there are still some things you’d like to see improved or changed.

Rosanne: Absolutely.

Sandra: What are they?

Rosanne: Well, one of the things that I really… Yeah, it’s just something for me, it works so unlogic, is the the whole way to add a menu. I really appreciate the classic menu editor that we have, because now you have a header which you can create, and in the header you can add a navigation menu. Okay. That makes sense. But in that menu itself, you are not able to create like a whole new menu. Then you need to go to the Site Editor to the navigation. And okay, you already lost me. So that’s something. It could work way easier. So I really hope that’s something that they are going to change. If you want to add a mega menu, you need to use a plugin because it’s not possible by default. And if you use that plugin, it brings back the classic menu. So yeah, we are creating a lot of mega menus, because we are really happy with it and also with the classic menu. So that’s something I really hope that they are going to improve.

I also noticed that if you are now going to add extra CSS in the Site Editor, there is no syntax. So you don’t see if you made any mistakes or whatsoever. So we found a snippet to activate the syntax and at the end we copy all the extra CSS just to the theme, you know. But it’s something I think that you could add. Very simple. And that would help a lot. So, yeah, that’s something that isn’t working very well. And something that’s a bit confusing for customers.

So we just talked about Ollie. If you add Ollie, Ollie also has its own patterns. And in the general settings, you can add your brand colors and you can add your brand fonts. And the cool thing is that all those patterns changed right away. Adapted all those fonts and all those colors. But for a client, it could look like all those patterns from earlier are made for them, because, hey, it has my colors and it has my fonts. But that’s not true. It’s just a default standard pattern. So how are you going to tell your clients which patterns you made and which patterns are default? There’s no way to do it. And you also can’t hide those patterns. So, what we are doing now is that we are creating categories in the patterns. And we are just saying, okay, one, two, three, four or five, so that those categories are on top of it. And then we’re telling the customer, okay, only use patterns from those categories that are listed with 1 to 5. The other categories don’t look good. But you know, it feels a bit, yeah. So that’s something that should improve I think for agencies. And for everyone who is creating websites for customers, that’s something that we should do better.

Sandra: It’s super interesting that you mentioned this, because we are working on a very, very similar issue on our side at the moment. We have some big UI/UX changes on our roadmap at the moment, because we have to make sure we integrate ourselves into core. And at the beginning we wanted the customer to see only one experience and don’t necessarily point out, oh, this is a Greyd feature. That’s a Greyd feature. So we blended in the core functionality. But the result now is that, yeah, people just don’t know if this is a core feature and which is a Greyd feature. And if I run into an issue, do I report it to Greyd? Do I report it here or there?

We had a very interesting live product walkthrough just, a couple of days ago by someone and experiencing exactly that sort of case. Is this now a core feature? I don’t know, so that’s definitely an issue. And I also think, what we found, I mean, you guys obviously did a pretty good job with just diving into and just finding your way around on your own. But this is actually something that we are facing, that some people we know or some of our customers are struggling with when they just start with the Block and Site Editor, when they have no experience yet. And it’s a little bit difficult to find out where to do what and where to find what. And also there are like 100 different ways to doing one and the same thing, which gives you a lot of flexibility.

But it also makes it really difficult to find your way around if you’re new, and probably also if you’re not an expert. I mean, one other issue we are trying to tackle at the moment is that there are very different user groups in the Block and Site Editor. And the editors offer you a lot of possibilities as a designer, which might also be overwhelming for other target groups. For example, if you hand this website and over to your customer and they have no WordPress experience at all, they just want to manage content, for example. Then this is something that, at the moment, you have to make sure that you either educate your customer really well or you also use features that enable you to offer your customer an experience where they don’t need to worry about breaking anything, for example.

Rosanne: Yeah, but that’s the cool thing with the default blocks. They have the override functionality. So what we now do is, that we create a pattern and with the override functionality, we can kind of lock it, so customers can change the images, they can change the content, but they don’t see the styling settings. And that’s really helpful because they can add patterns wherever they like. They can switch patterns, they can add and change the content, but they are not overwhelmed by all those extra options.

Sandra: Yeah. Exactly, that’s one of the ways you can do it. But yeah, that’s one thing that we think could be improved in form of having more guidance for the different user groups. So that’s something that we plan to work on. Yeah. Okay. I think we could go on for hours talking about this topic, but this might actually be a good point to wrap it up for today. So, on behalf of our listeners, thank you so much for sharing all those insights and your experiences and your thoughts. I’m pretty sure that a lot of agencies and freelancers out there can totally identify with the situation that you’ve been in last year. And they will definitely benefit a lot from everything that you’ve shared today. And maybe this conversation is inspiring them to find the courage to follow your example. So, thank you very much. Is there anything that we haven’t covered today that you’d like to add?

Rosanne: No, I think we’ve covered everything. Thank you for your invitation. I think you did a pretty amazing job, hosting this episode. And I really hope that we inspire agencies and freelancers to just start using Full Site Editing. Because, you know, you can complain a lot about that WordPress isn’t changing or whatever, but it is changing a lot. But if you don’t use those tools and if you stick with everything you know, then yeah, you don’t have anything to complain about. But you’re also not helping the project to grow. And to go further. So I think that everyone who is as me, kind of a bit in love with WordPress, you just need to go for it. And you just need to go working with Full Site Editing. Embrace it. Try to find out how you can help with it. And I think, if we look back in about three, four years, I’m really curious how the WordPress world will look like at the moment. But I really hope that a lot of agencies and freelancers embraced the Full Site Editor.

Sandra: Absolutely. I won’t add anything to that, because that have just been perfect closing remarks. So, thank you very much. For those of you who are listening today: If you haven’t subscribed to our YouTube channel yet, now would be the perfect time to do that. Also, to make sure you don’t miss out on our next episode, which will also be a very interesting one. We will have our CEO Mark Weisbrod for the first time in the show. And we are super excited to have Vito Peleg from Atarim and Aurelio from WP Umbrella with him on a super interesting discussion on how technology can be the driver to boost productivity in your agency. So, see you in the next episode. And again, Rosanne, thank you very, very much for being my guest today.

Rosanne: You’re welcome.