Key Takeaways
- Gutenberg replaced the Classic Editor as WordPress's default in version 5.0 — content is now built from individual blocks rather than a continuous rich text field.
- Full Site Editing (FSE) extends block editing to templates, headers, footers, and site-wide settings — replacing PHP theme templates with block-based equivalents.
- Block patterns are pre-designed layout combinations that editors use as starting points — reducing the learning curve for creating sophisticated page layouts.
- Classic Editor support ends December 2024 — sites still on Classic Editor need a transition plan.
- Performance advantage: native Gutenberg blocks typically produce lighter, faster page output than page builder plugins — relevant for Core Web Vitals and mobile speed.
When WordPress 5.0 shipped in December 2018 with the Gutenberg block editor as the new default, it was simultaneously the most significant WordPress update in years and the most controversial. Long-time WordPress users accustomed to the Classic Editor found the new interface disorienting. Developers relying on the Classic Editor for structured content workflows needed to adapt. Hosting providers fielded support requests from confused users. Two years later, the Gutenberg editor has matured significantly — and in 2020, the WordPress development team accelerated work on its most ambitious extension: Full Site Editing, which aims to bring block-based editing to every aspect of a WordPress theme, not just post and page content. For businesses with WordPress websites, understanding what Gutenberg is, how it's evolving, and what it means for content management is increasingly important — whether you're the daily editor, the site owner, or evaluating a new WordPress project.
Definition: Block, Block Pattern, and Block Theme
A Block is an individual content element in the Gutenberg editor — Paragraph, Heading, Image, Button, Columns, List, Quote, Video, Embed, and dozens more provided by WordPress core or third-party block plugins. Each block has its own settings panel with styling and configuration options. A Block Pattern is a pre-designed combination of blocks — a hero section with heading, text, button, and image; a testimonial section with a quote block and attribution; a services grid with columns and icons. Patterns are available in the inserter panel and provide starting-point layouts that editors customise. A Block Theme is a WordPress theme built entirely from block-based templates (HTML files using block markup rather than PHP template files) — enabling Full Site Editing through the Site Editor rather than theme file access.
What Gutenberg Means for Day-to-Day Content Editing
Gutenberg provides a more visual, flexible editing experience than Classic Editor — content sections are individual blocks that can be reordered, styled, and configured through the interface rather than through HTML code.
The fundamental shift from Classic Editor to Gutenberg: in Classic Editor, a page or post was a single rich text field — you typed content, applied formatting through a toolbar, and switched to HTML view when you needed structural control beyond the toolbar's capabilities. In Gutenberg, a page or post is composed of individual blocks — each paragraph is a block, each image is a block, each button is a block. Blocks can be moved up and down, duplicated, grouped, and reordered through drag-and-drop. Each block type has its own setting panel for styling (colours, typography, spacing) and configuration (image alignment, button URL, columns count).
Practical editing improvements for business website content managers: adding a call-to-action button no longer requires switching to HTML view or installing a shortcode plugin — the Button block provides a visual configuration interface. Creating a two-column layout (text on one side, image on the other) uses the Columns block rather than requiring CSS knowledge. Embedding videos, social media posts, or interactive content uses a single Embed block with a URL paste. The block pattern library provides pre-designed section layouts that editors can insert and customise, significantly reducing the design knowledge required to produce visually consistent pages.
The learning curve is real for editors who've worked with Classic Editor for years — Gutenberg is a genuinely different interface, not just an updated version of the same thing. The investment in learning pays back quickly for editors who create structured content regularly (service pages, landing pages, content marketing pieces), but the initial transition period benefits from training or walkthrough time. WordPress provides interactive learning resources at wordpress.org/documentation/article/wordpress-editor.
- Each content element is an individual block — paragraphs, images, buttons, columns, galleries, embeds
- Block patterns provide pre-designed section layouts — reduces design knowledge required for editors
- Reusable blocks enable content synchronised across multiple pages (contact info, CTA sections)
- Block-level styling (colours, typography, spacing) through visual interface — no CSS required for basic styling
- Mobile preview in editor — see how content looks on mobile without leaving the editor
Full Site Editing: The Next Phase of Gutenberg
Full Site Editing extends block-based editing to the entire website theme — allowing non-technical editors to modify headers, footers, and page templates through the same block interface used for content.
Full Site Editing (FSE) is the evolution of Gutenberg from content editing to site building. In a traditional WordPress theme, the header, footer, sidebar, and page templates are defined in PHP files that only a developer can modify. FSE replaces these PHP templates with block-based HTML templates — meaning the same block interface used to edit post content can be used to edit the site header, footer, and page templates.
In 2020, FSE was in active development — available experimentally through the Gutenberg plugin (the faster-moving development version of the block editor) and beginning to be supported by block-based themes. The full FSE experience — stable, documented, and supported across the WordPress ecosystem — was expected to land in WordPress 5.8 (July 2021) with further maturation through 2022. For sites being built or redesigned in 2020, this trajectory means designing with block-compatible themes and avoiding page builders that create dependency on non-block infrastructure.
The business implication of FSE: in a fully FSE-capable site, non-technical content managers will be able to update the site's header navigation, footer contact information, page templates, and global styling settings through the WordPress admin without developer involvement. This reduces the cost of content management updates and enables faster turnaround on site changes — but it also increases the risk of unintended changes if editor permissions aren't properly configured.
Experience Signal
The WordPress sites that transition to Gutenberg most smoothly are the ones where the editor training focused on the mental model shift ('content is blocks, not a rich text field') rather than the button locations. Editors who understand why Gutenberg works the way it does — that each block is independently configurable, that blocks can be grouped and reused, that the block inserter contains all available block types — adapt to new WordPress versions much more easily than editors who learned specific button sequences without understanding the underlying model. We invest the extra hour in the mental model explanation in every WordPress training engagement we do.
Frequently Asked Questions
For most sites, no. The Classic Editor plugin allows reverting to the pre-5.0 WordPress editor, but it will only be supported until December 31, 2024 (WordPress's own support commitment). Sites that disable Gutenberg are deferring an inevitable transition while missing genuine improvements in content editing capability. The sites with the strongest case for Classic Editor are those with heavily customised content editing workflows built on Advanced Custom Fields with the Classic Editor, or sites using page builders (Elementor, Beaver Builder) that have their own content editing interfaces and don't benefit from Gutenberg. For straightforward content creation, Gutenberg provides a better editing experience than Classic Editor.
Block Patterns are pre-designed layout combinations — a hero section pattern might include a heading, paragraph, button, and image arranged in a specific layout. Patterns are starting points for new content sections; editing one pattern doesn't affect other uses of that pattern. Reusable Blocks are saved block configurations that sync across all instances — if you have the same contact information block used on 20 pages and update the reusable block, all 20 pages update simultaneously. Use patterns for design templates that editors will customise per page; use reusable blocks for content that should be identical and stay synchronised across multiple pages.
For non-technical users building complex visual layouts, Elementor and similar page builders still provide advantages: more design flexibility through a visual drag-and-drop interface, more pre-built templates and widgets, and a lower learning curve for creating sophisticated layouts without understanding block structure. The gap is narrowing — Gutenberg's block pattern library and third-party block plugins have significantly expanded native WordPress's visual editing capability. For sites being built or rebuilt in 2020, Gutenberg with a block-compatible theme (Kadence, GeneratePress, Astra) is worth evaluating before defaulting to a page builder — the performance advantages of native blocks over page builders are significant.
Sources
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Book a WordPress ConsultationAbout the author
Jim Yang
Marketing Manager
Jim oversees paid media and growth marketing at Webnixon, specializing in Google Ads, Meta advertising, and conversion rate optimization across B2B and B2C categories. He has managed multi-channel campaigns for businesses ranging from professional services to ecommerce retailers, consistently delivering cost-efficient lead generation against competitive benchmarks. He writes about paid advertising strategy, marketing measurement, and growth tactics for businesses.
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