Why I Use Blocksy With Elementor To Build Boofkay.com
WordPress gave me the foundation.
Elementor gave me a way to build the pages.
Blocksy gave me an easy space to fill in.
That might be the simplest way I can explain why I use it.
When I first moved Boofkay from Wix to WordPress, I started with the Hello theme.
And once again, I got frustrated.
Not because Hello was bad.
Because I still didn’t completely understand what I was doing.
I didn’t understand the hierarchy of all these tools yet.
WordPress.
Themes.
Plugins.
Elementor.
Headers.
Footers.
Templates.
Posts.
Archives.
Every time I learned one thing, I discovered three more things I didn’t understand.
At some point I decided maybe I needed a theme that gave me a little more to work with right out of the box.
Then Darrel Recommended Blocksy
Darrel Wilson recommended Blocksy.
I respect Darrel’s opinions when it comes to websites, so I figured I’d give it a shot.
I installed it.
Clicked around.
Broke a few things.
Asked ChatGPT what I had just done.
Clicked around some more.
And eventually it started making sense.
The funny thing is, once I understood Blocksy, I stopped thinking about Blocksy very much.
That’s probably one of the best compliments I can give it.
It does what I need it to do without constantly asking for my attention.
I Need A Website And A Magazine
Boofkay isn’t just a basic business website.
I wanted a place to explain what I do as an advertising agency, but I also wanted a growing collection of articles, local business features, resources and ideas.
Basically, I needed a business website that could also behave a little like a magazine.
There was one problem.
I’m not a blogger.
I love writing.
I’d even argue I’m ridiculously good at it.
But sitting down and figuring out all the technical nonsense behind organizing a blog was not what I wanted to spend my time doing.
I wanted to write.
I wanted to create.
I wanted to publish.
Blocksy gave me a clean way to do that without making me redesign the entire system every time I added something new.
What Does Blocksy Actually Do?
This took me a while to understand.
The way I think about it now is something like this:
WordPress is the foundation and structure.
Elementor is the builder I use to create many of the individual pages.
Blocksy is the theme that gives the website its overall starting style and structure around those pages.
That’s not a perfect technical explanation, but it’s how it finally clicked in my head.
Blocksy gives me a framework for things like the header, footer, blog posts, archive pages and the general look of the site.
Then I can change things where I need to.
Elementor can handle a lot too, which is probably part of what confused me in the beginning.
There can be overlap.
The important thing for me wasn’t memorizing which tool technically could control every little thing.
It was figuring out a system that worked and then leaving it alone.
I Don’t Want To Build The Website Every Day
This may be the biggest reason I like Blocksy.
I don’t have to keep fiddling with it.
Once you navigate it a few times, it’s pretty straightforward.
Things are organized in a way that makes sense to me.
I can make changes when I need to, but most of the time I don’t need to.
That’s a good thing.
I don’t want to wake up every morning and redesign my header.
I want to write something.
Create an ad.
Build a page.
Feature a local business.
Come up with a ridiculous idea.
Get the word out.
The website is supposed to help me do those things.
It shouldn’t become the thing itself.
The Free Version Is Enough For Me Right Now
Blocksy has a free version and paid options.
I’m using the free version.
And right now, it does what I need.
Could I use some of the paid features?
Sure.
There are little things I’d like to do.
For example, I like the clean look of a hamburger-style navigation menu on desktop.
With the setup I’m using, getting exactly what I want would mean upgrading or finding another workaround.
I could ask ChatGPT to write code.
I could start installing more plugins.
I could spend three hours trying to force it to work.
Or I could ask myself a much better question:
Does anybody visiting the website actually care?
Probably not.
That’s a vanity want.
And vanity wants can wait.
Subscriptions Add Up Fast
One thing I learned very quickly while building a WordPress website is that subscriptions start multiplying.
A plugin here.
A video service there.
Email marketing.
Hosting.
Page builders.
Premium themes.
Scheduling tools.
Before you know it, every little feature comes with another yearly bill.
There’s nothing wrong with companies charging for good software.
They should.
But when you’re building something from scratch, figuring out what you actually need and what can wait is a skill in itself.
If I can get 95% of what I need from the free version of Blocksy, I have a hard time justifying another yearly subscription for the other 5%.
Maybe that changes later.
Right now, it hasn’t.
Sometimes Removing Something Is The Better Upgrade
I ran into the same thing with an email signup form I wanted in the footer.
I wanted it connected to MailerLite.
It became more complicated than it needed to be.
There were ways to keep working at it.
There were ways to spend more money.
There were probably six more YouTube videos I could have watched.
Instead, I removed it.
And something funny happened.
The footer looked better.
Cleaner.
Simpler.
Nothing important broke.
The world kept spinning.
That has become one of the bigger lessons of building Boofkay.
Every problem does not need another plugin.
Every limitation does not need a workaround.
Sometimes the right answer is:
Get rid of it.
Simple Works For Boofkay
I like the way Blocksy handles the blog side of the website.
It’s clean.
Simple.
Easy to read.
That fits Boofkay.
I run a simple creative marketing agency.
The creative part should come from the ideas, the words, the images and the videos.
The framework holding all of it together doesn’t need to scream for attention.
It just needs to work.
Blocksy does that for me.
Would I Use Blocksy Again?
Yes.
The more I work on Boofkay, the more I understand that a lot of my frustration building the site came from my own shortcomings.
My own ignorance.
My own impatience.
Sometimes my own stupidity.
That’s part of learning.
You don’t know what you don’t know.
Then you screw something up.
You figure it out.
And eventually the thing that once looked impossibly complicated becomes normal.
Blocksy helped remove some of that friction for me.
It gave me enough structure that I could move beyond constantly feeling like a beginner and spend more time doing what actually matters.
Getting the word out.
Learn More About Blocksy
If you’re thinking about using Blocksy with WordPress, these are a few good places to start.
The main Blocksy help library, with guides for getting started, theme options, headers, footers, extensions, integrations and troubleshooting.
The main Blocksy help library, with guides for getting started, theme options, headers, footers, extensions, integrations and troubleshooting.
A library of ready-made WordPress site designs you can import and use as a starting point, including options built for Elementor.
