WordPress has created a big buzz in the online world with its latest major update, WordPress 5.9. This update welcomes Full Site Editing (FSE), a long-awaited collection of features set to transform the way users design, develop and manage their websites.
If you have a WordPress site, you’re probably curious about what Full Site Editing is and how it will change your user experience.
In this article, we’ll cover the most important things you need to know about WordPress Full Site Editing, so you can decide if you want to jump in and try it out on your own site.
What Is Full Site Editing (FSE)?
Let’s start with an explanation straight from the horse’s mouth at WordPress:
“Full Site Editing is a collection of interrelated features that unlocks the ability to edit your entire site using blocks. This allows you to take advantage of the familiar and flexible experience of the Block Editor in more places.”
Now, let’s simplify it for all the non-technical WP users!
You may remember that a few years back, WordPress introduced the Gutenberg Block Editor for use in blog posts. This editor simplified the creation of blog posts by allowing you to use blocks to create the layout you were after.
Full Site Editing is the natural evolution of this concept, but extended to the entirety of your site. It allows the use of blocks anywhere on your website – from headers and footers to sidebars and widgets.
Prior to FSE, if you wanted to customise your website’s design and functionality, you either needed to know how to code, or you would have to pay for expensive page builders like Elementor.
With Full Site Editing, you can do it all within WordPress itself, including site and template editing and global style management.
There are also new tools for developers, such as a new theme configuration file.
What Are The Benefits?
The best part about WordPress Full Site Editing is that it breaks down the barriers to website design and customisation: no longer do you need to be a developer or a coding wizard to make simple changes to your site.
When you enable FSE, you’re working within a single interface that allows you to alter both page elements and global elements. You’ll be able to build an entire website using blocks.
Everything is more streamlined and straightforward, as you can now edit and preview your entire website within the editor. No longer do you need to go to different admin pages to change your site title, update your menu, arrange widgets or upload a logo – it’s all done in the same editor.
The new FSE focus on blocks is also valuable as it allows themes to add premade designs for pages (templates), site headers and footers) and block patterns. You can create and save your own unique templates by dragging and dropping different block patterns.
Using FSE On Your WordPress Site
WordPress Full Site Editing offers plenty of benefits for website owners, but before you dive in and try it out on your site, there are a couple of things to consider.
Firstly, you need to make sure your current theme supports the new FSE update. The new default theme Twenty Twenty-Two is a good one to start with.
Bear in mind that some of your plugins may need updating to ensure they work well with Full Site Editing. Make sure you head to your WP dashboard and click on “Update Now.” It may even be helpful to deactivate and reactivate plugins after switching to FSE just to make sure everything is working as it should.
Getting Some Help
Making changes to your website can be scary – what if something goes wrong and you can’t fix it? How can you make sure your site stays active even when you’re updating to great new features like Full Site Editing?
The Website Guardians can help provide peace of mind for your site with Ongoing Support Plans or One Off Fixes. Contact us today to find out more.