How to Build Lightweight WordPress Websites with GeneratePress & GenerateBlocks

I think most of us start out pretty hesitant about using "blocks" to build a website. If the reviews of Gutenberg are any indication, then I'm not even sure how it's made it this far!

But as time has gone on — and especially once third parties have gotten involved — block-based websites have become more and more viable.

But why would you ditch the pagebuilder for something so more "basic"? For me, it's all about performance.

You don't have to be a code ninja to see that the code output from blocks vs that of a page builder are night and day — and all the tests backup how much of a difference that makes.

PageSpeed Insights was a tool I never felt like I could make happy building websites with Elementor... but after my first block-based website got 100% on mobile, I became a believer.

Though blocks are, themselves, simple — wrapping your head around how to build this way isn't intuitive... At least it wasn't for me. Thankfully, Mike Oliver (one of my all-time favorite designers!) has put together a quick, actionable course on how to get up and running with GenerateBlocks and start building block-based websites in no time!

What's great about this course is it's not all "theory". Sure, you get plenty of explanation of how everything works — but it's all presented in an applicable way.

Throughout the course, Mike takes you through an entire website build — from installing WordPress to being launch-ready.

This style of course made it easy to consume, wrap my head around, and start building my own block-based website right away.

Besides the tutorials on how to use blocks, Mike shares lots of design wisdom (did I mention he's one of my all-time favorite designers?) which was a great added bonus.

I wasn't super familiar with the course platform (Podia), but it was easy to keep track of where you were, and you can change the playback speed on all the videos (a must for me!).

You also get access to lots of other goodies, like imports that make getting started simple and allow you to follow along to build the site he's demonstrating as you go through the course.

The course is based on two products you'll want to have to get the most out of the course: GeneratePress (theme) and GenerateBlocks (plugin). You can most definitely get away with the free version of each (and he uses the free version of the plugin in the course), but having the premium version of GeneratePress makes all the templating possible.

I've been recommending and using GeneratePress for years now, so if you haven't checked it out, this may be the perfect opportunity!

As of the time of writing this endorsement, I've just finished my first full GenerateBlocks website... which scores a perfect 100% on PageSpeed Insights (mobile):