Mario Peshev Explains the Advantages of Gutenberg for Users who Rely on Page Builders

Mario Peshev, CEO of DevriX, has published a video that explains how Gutenberg will change the way users create content. If your background as a WordPress user is maintaining your website with the help of a page builder like Beaver Builder, Divi Builder, Elementor, or a similar plugin, this video will acquaint you with a few advantages that Gutenberg will bring to content creation in the future.

Peshev demonstrates how Gutenberg will make it easier for users to add and arrange page content that actual websites need, such as call-to-action buttons, testimonials, headers, and columns. In the past, users have relied on page builders, page templates, widgetized areas, shortcodes, custom meta boxes, and a host of disparate ways of trying to place content in a certain arrangement on a page. All of these seem rather clunky now when compared to Gutenberg’s united interface, despite the new editor’s less than perfect implementation.

This video helps users understand the problems Gutenberg aims to solve. Peshev explains that page builder tools usually have heavy, complicated code bases in order to work around the problem of adding blocks of content to a page. Gutenberg is not replacing page builders. In fact, most of them are updating to provide a better experience for users in the Gutenberg era, so agencies should be able to utilize some of the same tools they have used in the past while setting clients loose in the new editorial framework.

“The video was first published on my LinkedIn feed, which is comprised of business leaders, marketing experts, freelancers — many of whom use WordPress at work or for their own businesses,” Peshev said.

“They are not WordPress experts by any stretch, and rarely spend the time to test the ‘latest cool thing.’ Odds are, some may have heard of it, but 95% haven’t even seen screenshots or demos of the new editorial experience.”

As a digital consultant and the CEO of DevriX, a 30+ person agency, Peshev understands the need to assure users that their traditional content editing experience will still be available if they don’t want to use Gutenberg. He has been preparing his clients who fall on both sides of the 5.0 release – either to move forward with the new editor or employ the Classic Editor to maintain the old one.

“At DevriX, we’ve been testing every site we manage and maintain monthly,” Peshev said. “We want to ensure that there are no unexpected regressions or fatal errors we have to deal with last minute. That said, half of our customers can benefit by using Gutenberg — we’ve had continuous conversations with them and align the roadmap accordingly. Others, on the other hand, are purely content-driven, a traditional WYSIWYG experience, and we have the Classic Editor ready to go once Gutenberg is live.”

Peshev said his agency has had to find the balance between improving the editorial experience as needed (for things like landing pages and more robust sections), versus ensuring the stability and consistency of content development for traditional editorial teams. He urges other agency owners to push forward and embrace the custom work that Gutenberg will require.

“Gutenberg is still in its infancy; there’s a lot of work left for us, agency owners and developers,” Peshev said. “Just as we used to build custom widgets, shortcodes, and page templates, we should build a series of Gutenblocks for every customer, prepare the corresponding templates, design the resulting front-end experience, and a lot more. Realistically, the editorial experience alone is a tiny chunk of the scope of WordPress development as a whole.”