How can you tell if a web design company is worth your investment? In this guide, we’ll explore how much it costs to build a website in today’s market, highlight key considerations in your evaluation, and recommend questions to ask potential providers. By the end of this post, you’ll be able to make the right decision with confidence. What is the average cost to hire a web designer? Outsourcing web design can cost anywhere from $500 to over $5,000. Your final investment depends on various factors, including your website’s complexity and project timeline. To illustrate, a basic five-page site built via our website design service costs $499, excluding hosting. This…

So, you want to become a WordPress developer? That’s the best idea I’ve heard in a while! After all, WordPress powers over 40% of the web — and behind every great WordPress site and product is someone who knows how to build and manage it. Why shouldn’t it be you? Now, where do you start? Well, how about right here? This guide walks you through everything you need to begin developing with WordPress professionally. You’ll learn what WordPress developers actually do, how to gather the right tools, skills, and knowledge, and how to start building a career. What is a WordPress developer? A WordPress developer is someone who builds, customizes,…

When the non-profit Net Literacy launched 20 years ago, it started with a simple but powerful idea: Empower those without Internet skills or resources to get online, with youth volunteers serving as teachers and ambassadors. Today, they have grown into a global nonprofit reaching over 250,000 people through digital inclusion and financial education while growing  into new areas, such as AI literacy. However, sustaining that impact across generations requires more than passion; it needs digital permanence and peace of mind that their resources will always be available online. This is what inspired Net Literacy to become one of the first customers to adopt WordPress.com’s 100‑Year Plan. “A number of things…

iOS 26 brought some significant updates to Apple’s mobile operating system, and we’re keeping pace with updates of our own in the Jetpack mobile app. With the release of Jetpack app 26.4, we’re shipping three new features designed to save you time, eliminate friction, and improve your experience. Let’s dive into what’s new. Improved Stats The new Stats screen retains the original structure, but improves every single aspect of the experience — better design, better interactions and animations, new features, and new technology to power it. A new line chart with comparison periods, hourly data, trend indicators for metrics, significant data points on charts, custom date ranges, engagement and newsletter…

Starting a new site in WordPress Studio just got faster: Blueprint support is now enabled in version 1.6.0.  With Blueprints, you don’t have to start with an empty WordPress site; simply predefine your preferred setup once and reuse it. If your team relies on a standard scaffold, turn it into a Blueprint and keep every project consistent and efficient. With Blueprints in Studio, you can create sites from your own custom Blueprint or pick from a curated set of Blueprints to get up and running quickly. Here’s a brief demo of this new feature in action. Try Blueprints in Studio How Blueprints work in Studio Blueprints are lightweight JSON “recipes”…

Whether you manage a single blog or a roster of client sites, it typically involves logging into dashboards, checking posts and comments, reviewing traffic statistics, and monitoring plugin or theme updates. Every question about your site’s health or performance takes time to answer. Now you can simply ask an AI assistant like Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor: “Show me my latest posts and how they’re performing.”  Within seconds, the results appear, pulled via WordPress.com’s new support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Get started with MCP Today’s manual back-and-forth AI assistants are already part of many creative and development workflows, helping people brainstorm copy, generate code, and analyze data.  But when…

Creating a portfolio website is one of the easiest ways to showcase your work as a creative — whether you’re a designer, writer, photographer, or developer. Initially, in my career as a freelance writer, I thought a static PDF or Google Doc collating my best work would suffice. Having a professional portfolio website, however, makes quite a difference. For starters, it raises your stature because it signals a certain level of credibility and commitment to your craft that isn’t evident in other formats (like PDFs or online portfolio makers). Beyond first impressions, creating a portfolio website has tons of functional benefits — it’s interactive, easier to keep up-to-date, and more…

The more time I spend on social media reading posts by AI influencers, the more I see web developers (like myself) worrying that they’ll be out of a job in less than a year. It reminds me of something I read a few years ago, the golden rule of software development: No matter what the question is, the answer can almost always start with ‘It depends…’ Whenever a developer asks me if I’m worried that AI will replace me, I find myself saying, “Well, it depends…” We’re standing on the threshold of a web development revolution I think about the recent progress of AI the same way I think about…

As a WordPress developer for more than a decade, I’ve built numerous WordPress blocks, ranging from simple callouts and icon blocks to multi-block forms and slideshows. The process can be demanding and requires a solid grasp of how WordPress works under the hood, as well as familiarity with React, JavaScript, PHP, and other relevant technologies. Scaffolding tools like WordPress’s create-block help. Modern AI code editors, such as Cursor, and assistants like Claude Code, also speed things up. With the right setup and context, you can abstract away much of the complexity. The catch is that you still need to provide the AI with WordPress-specific context and wire everything together. That’s…

Typepad, the veteran blogging platform that has served creators for years, recently announced it will be shutting down permanently on September 30, 2025. According to their official announcement, all user accounts will be terminated on that date. This means you’ll need to export your content before the deadline — or risk losing it forever. If you’re a Typepad user, time is running out to find a new home for your blog. The good news? We’re here to help make your transition as smooth as possible. Import your Typepad site to WordPress.com now Why WordPress.com is your best choice We’re built to last. WordPress powers over 40% of the web and…