Building a Website on WordPress.com in 2026: My Experience Rebuilding an Old Site

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A few weeks ago, if you had asked me about Petty Debates, I probably would have laughed and said, “Oh wow, I forgot about that website.”

Which isn’t exactly what you want to admit as a website owner.

The truth is, Petty Debates started the same way a lot of side projects do. I had an idea I was excited about, bought the domain, set up the website, published some content, and convinced myself I was going to keep up with it.

Then life happened.

Arner Adventures kept me busy. Other projects needed attention. The website slowly slipped off my radar until I stopped thinking about it altogether.

When WordPress.com invited affiliates to create content based on real experience using the platform, I started looking for a website I could use for the project.

That’s when I remembered Petty Debates.

I hadn’t logged into it in over a year.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I was going to find.

Apparently, I Never Finished Building It

The first thing I noticed wasn’t a design problem or a broken page.

It was me.

Specifically, Past Shannon.

The version of me who somehow managed to publish fourteen articles without creating an About page.

Or a Contact page.

I sat there staring at the site wondering how I had skipped two of the most basic pages every website should have.

Apparently, I was so focused on creating content that I never got around to finishing the website itself.

So that’s where I started.

I created an About page.

Then a Contact page.

Then I updated the tagline.

What surprised me wasn’t the work itself. None of those tasks was particularly complicated.

What surprised me was how quickly I got them done.

I hadn’t touched the site in over a year, but I never felt lost. I didn’t spend time searching through menus. I didn’t need to watch tutorials. I just started making changes.

Within a short time, the site already felt more complete than it had when I first logged in.

The Part I Thought Would Be Annoying

I was fully prepared to spend an hour looking at themes.

That’s usually how these things go.

You convince yourself you’re going to make a quick update, then suddenly you’ve spent forty-five minutes comparing fonts and layouts while accomplishing absolutely nothing.

Instead, I discovered the site was already using the Assembler theme.

And I liked it.

It had the magazine-style look I wanted for Petty Debates, so I left it alone.

That might not sound exciting, but I actually think it’s worth mentioning because it saved me from falling into the endless cycle of redesigning a website instead of improving it.

Once I decided to keep the existing theme, I started exploring the site’s settings.

I updated the tagline.

I checked the navigation.

I looked through the editor.

One thing I kept noticing was that everything seemed to be where I expected it to be.

The site identity settings were easy to find.

The pages were easy to find.

The navigation settings were easy to find.

I never once found myself clicking through endless screens, wondering where something was hiding. Well, almost never. Read on.

The Only Thing That Confused Me

One thing I noticed while working on Petty Debates is that some customization options aren’t always located where new users might expect.

At one point, I noticed a “Learn More” button in the site’s header.

A few settings required exploring templates rather than standard navigation menus. It wasn’t a dealbreaker, but if you’re the type of person who likes complete control over every detail of your site, there may be a small learning curve while you figure out where certain settings live.

I wanted to change it, more specifically, remove it.

Simple.

Or so I thought.

I checked the navigation menu first because that seemed like the obvious place.

Nothing.

I clicked around a little more.

Still nothing.

For a few minutes, I was convinced WordPress.com had hidden the button somewhere just to mess with me.

Ok, not really, but eventually, I discovered it wasn’t connected to the navigation menu at all. It was tied to the site’s template.

Problem solved.

It wasn’t a huge issue, but it was the only moment during the entire process where I had to stop and figure something out.

Honestly, if that’s the biggest challenge I encountered after returning to a website I hadn’t touched in over a year, that’s not a bad outcome.

Three New Posts Later…

Once I finished updating the site itself, I figured I should probably add some actual content.

After all, it’s hard to call something a blog if nothing new has been published in over a year.

I decided to create three new debate posts:

• Is AI Making Us Smarter or Lazier?
• Self-Checkout: Convenient or Just Free Labor?
• Is Working From Home Better Than the Office?

This ended up being the most useful part of the entire experience.

Creating pages is one thing.

Publishing content on a new website is another.

The more I worked with the editor, the more comfortable everything felt.

Adding featured images was straightforward.

Creating categories and tags was easy.

Publishing became routine after the first article.

By the time I finished the third post, I wasn’t thinking about WordPress.com anymore.

I was thinking about what I wanted to write next.

For me, that’s usually the sign that a platform is doing its job well.

The technology fades into the background and lets you focus on creating.

What Surprised Me Most

The biggest surprise wasn’t a specific feature.

It was how different the experience felt compared to what I remembered from years ago.

I haven’t started a new website in a long time.

Most of my time is spent maintaining Arner Adventures rather than building something from scratch.

Going through the process again reminded me how much easier website creation has become.

The dashboard felt approachable.

Helpful prompts appeared when I needed them.

The editor didn’t require much explanation.

Even when I wasn’t entirely sure where something lived, I was usually able to find it quickly.

As someone who has been blogging for years, I appreciated that.

As someone imagining what the experience would be like for a brand-new blogger, I appreciated it even more.

Would I Start a Website on WordPress.com Today?

After spending time bringing Petty Debates back to life, the answer is yes.

What I liked most wasn’t a particular feature or setting.

It was the fact that I could focus on the website itself instead of spending my time figuring out the software.

That’s not something I always take for granted.

There are plenty of platforms that make simple tasks feel complicated.

This wasn’t one of them.

Is WordPress.com perfect?

Of course not.

I still had moments where I needed to poke around to find something. More advanced users may eventually want more control than a beginner would.

But that’s true of almost any platform.

What I keep coming back to is this: I logged into a website I hadn’t touched in over a year, expecting a headache.

Instead, I left with two new pages, three new articles, updated branding, and a project I actually want to keep working on. After all, who doesn’t want to debate petty topics?

That wasn’t the outcome I expected when I opened Petty Debates again.

But I’m glad it was.

If you want to start a new website or are a creator who doesn’t have a website, read more about why creators need a website!

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