WordPress Demo Content – Why Does It Matter

Demo content? Why would I want that for my WordPress website? Well in this post I look at why demo content is useful and why themes should generally include demo content in their packages (and some reasons why some do not).

Why do we need demo content?

The biggest reason is it’s a super quick way for someone to get up and running with a theme. Some themes are pretty complex and use [shortcodeseverywhere][/shortcodeseverywhere] to make their pages look pretty.

This is a limitation of WordPress and page design really but, as a end user you may be wondering how the heck the demo website looks the way it does.

Install data, and it’s sorted. Simple. The demo content includes the post’s content (obvs) so you’ll get all the funky shortcodes into your pages and all the pages created.

Why some themes do not include it

It’s pretty simple, if the theme is straightforward (such as a post ranking theme like wpeddit.com) then the posts ARE the content and you just need to start adding posts to start seeing the new layout. Pretty neat. There’s not really many other reasons why a theme wouldn’t have demo content but it really does depend on the theme complexity.

What are the downsides of demo data?

You may be thinking by now, wow, OK. Demo data is a must. There’s no downsides surely. Well, there definitely is. Some themes may import a LOT of demo data, once you’re happy with your site you then have to take the time going through and making sure you’ve deleted the data and don’t accidentally leave any demo WordPress data in there.

What are your thoughts? Do you need demo content or are you quite happy to set up a new theme on your website without it?