Last Updated on December 5, 2021
The Gutenberg editor was launched along with WordPress 5.0 back in 2018. Originally offered as a plugin, it is now the default editor on WordPress.
The goal for the WordPress block editor was to create a more visually intuitive experience in building pages and creating posts. It simplifies adding rich content by minimizing the need for shortcodes—virtually making it easier for anyone to run their own website!
If you’re used to more advanced page building tools and tried using Gutenberg in the last year, your experience with it may not have been the best. However, Gutenberg has come a long way since it first rolled out. Now on its tenth version, there have been many improvements on its features, and even more developments are underway.
In this article, we enumerate some reasons why the Gutenberg WordPress editor might be your new primary choice for page building. Read on and we might just convince you to give Gutenberg another shot.
Why You Should Make the Gutenberg Switch Now
Gutenberg is part of WordPress Core
Gutenberg is here, and it is here to stay. What you can expect the most from the editor is its stability. It was envisioned to be the foundation for future improvements on WordPress, as Matt Mullenweg has said on his blog. What you do or make with Gutenberg will always be compatible with WordPress Core’s plan for the future of WordPress.
The Editor is just the start. In upcoming phases[,] blocks will become a fundamental part of entire site templates and designs.
— Matt Mullenweg
Additionally, since it is part of WP Core, any update to WP will include Gutenberg. Especially since there are many contributors that work to improve it. They’re constantly working to improve users’ experience on the editor. There is no assurance that any other option will be as updated as Gutenberg is when it comes to WP updates.
Endless Possibilities with the WordPress Block Editor
When you’re using Gutenberg, there are thousands of plugins at your disposal. It’s like a tool box. There are already so many Gutenberg-compatible or Gutenberg-based plugins that you can mix and match to suit your needs. Currently, there are about 400+ plugins that offer block extensions for Gutenberg alone!
You won’t have to worry about waiting for your page-building tool to release an update that includes the features you are looking for. You can easily find a plugin that addresses your needs in the WordPress plugin repository.
Be it a plugin that converts your site into an e-Commerce store, adds dynamic elements to your website, or one where you can build websites from scratch (Stackable *wink wink nudge nudge*), there will be a plugin for you. Most plugins even collaborate through integrations to give Gutenberg users the best experience in building websites.
Like we said, endless possibilities.
Ease of Use
Gutenberg was built with the aim to make page building easier and more intuitive. It’s so easy to learn and use even for the average Joe. Since it’s a visual editor, you get to see how your pages and posts look during your editing process.
With blocks, people will be able to edit and manipulate everything on their site without having to understand where WordPress hides everything behind the scenes.
— Matt Mullenweg
The team behind WP Rocket is a testament to this! They launched a new website just last January 2021 as part of their rebranding. Their plugin of choice: Gutenberg. They wanted their backend to be as easy as possible to use even for their Marketing team to create content on their website.
They showed us how visual Gutenberg was. It was possible to see exactly how a page would look from the backend!
— Valentina Orlandi, WP Rocket
Any other page-building system might be too complicated for other types of users. This might make it easy for non-technical users to mess up the entire website. We wouldn’t want that, right?
You won’t need any technical skills, nor hire a website developer to create and maintain your website. You can effortlessly do it yourself with Gutenberg’s easy-to-learn interface.
Increase Your Website Performance with the WordPress Block Editor
Not only is page speed essential for conversions, it is also now an integral factor in SEO. It is part of the ranking algorithm on Google. If you score low on page speed, your chances to rank on search engines will be low. Why do we mention this here? Because of Gutenberg’s light HTML code. It also has to do with Gutenberg not needing any additional PHP server processes. Your website will load faster than most page builders.
But design alone doesn’t cut it! what if your customer left before the page load [sic]. The design holds no value.
— Deepak Ghimire, Medium
This rang true when DearHive built a website for one of their products, DearFlip. Their website scored an 86 on page speed with Elementor. When they made the switch to Gutenberg, this increased to a score of 98. Talk about major improvement!
Not convinced yet? Kyle Van Deusen from The Admin Bar took a shot at it as well. He tried to build the exact same landing page using two different tools: Elementor and Gutenberg. Admittedly, it took him longer to build the Gutenberg version. However, the page speed results on his experiment might just be the tipping point to convince you to try Gutenberg.
The Elementor version scored 46 for mobile, and 83 for desktop. On the other hand, the Gutenberg version scored a whopping 94 for mobile, and 99 for desktop.
By using the Gutenberg WordPress editor, you can be sure that your website will perform better and increase your chances of ranking higher on search engines.
Final Words
Gutenberg has made big steps to improve user experience. With more developments looming, there is no doubt that Gutenberg is the future of WordPress. We broke down why the Gutenberg WordPress Editor might be worth giving a shot into four reasons:
Give the block editor another chance, and you might be surprised with what you can do with it!
Does this mean that Stackable is no longer viable and won’t be updated, so you’re trying to switch people to the core functions? It’d say it’s a very questionable move after collecting money for lifetime license.
On the contrary, Stackable is here to stay! What we mean by switching is towards Gutenberg from other solutions for building pages. Stackable will continue to empower Gutenberg, with lots of updates planned for the future.
For a few months now I have been building all my websites using just Gutenberg and one or two blocks plugins, and it goes without saying Stackable is my favourite blocks plugin because of the enormous amount of ready-made sections included in the plugin. Stackable also makes it incredibly easy to create your own custom designs.
Using Astra Theme, Gutenberg, Stackable, a good caching plugin and a CDN I have been able to consistently achieve A rating on GTMetrix and 100% for performance with Lighthouse metrics, my websites loads in under 2 seconds.
I previously used Page Builders because that’s all that was available to create awesome designs but those tools come with a lot of code bloat that just slows down a website, Gutenberg is the answer to the cons of those Page Builders.
Gutenberg is turning into a very good page editor and with the right blocks it is now capable of competing with many of the Page Builders and it will only get better.
Lee
Impressive GTMetrix and Lighthouse scores 🙌