Courses

Learn how to build a website in WordPress Content Management System (CMS). WordPress is the most commonly-used CMS in the world, and for good reason. It’s very friendly for non-technical users, and suitable for many types of websites from simple blogs to ecommerce websites, serving small businesses, enterprise-level corporations, and everything in between. For website developers, knowing how to work with WordPress is an excellent feather in your cap for getting more clients or opening up more job possibilities. While WordPress is designed to enable non-technical users to build beautiful websites, in this Bootcamp, students will also learn fundamental theme customization skills that will open the doors to building anything they want with WordPress, empowering them to stand out from the crowd.

This course has five classes:

Class One: WordPress.com vs Self-Hosted WordPress

In this class, students will learn how to build a website in WordPress using the WordPress point-and-click, drag-and-drop dashboard. We’ll start our journey with a free account on WordPress.com, exploring the easy dashboard interface within this proprietary, hosted WordPress environment. Students will discover the benefits and limitations of using WordPress.com, while becoming familiar with universal WordPress fundamentals, such as the difference between posts and pages, creating pages, creating posts, using the block editor to create content, setting the homepage, navigating and using the media library. Students will also learn how to choose suitable services for website hosting and domain name registration.

Class Two: Getting Started with Self-Hosted WordPress

In this class, we begin to explore the world of self-hosted, self-managed WordPress. Students will learn how to install the WordPress CMS in any cPanel hosting account using the Softaculous installer. Students will learn how to configure WordPress settings, customize navigation menus, add and manage users, and search for and install plugins to add custom functionality to their WordPress website. Students will install and become familiar with fundamental security plugins that should be included on every WordPress website.

Class Three: Customizing WordPress Functionality

In this class, students will deepen their knowledge of how to customize WordPress with custom post types and forms using the workhorse plugins: Advanced Custom Fields and Formidable Forms. Students will discover how to customize select theme template files to display their custom fields exactly how they want to.

Class Four: Customizing WordPress Themes

In this class, students will discover the anatomy of WordPress theme files, how to choose a theme to build with, and how to create a child theme for best practices in advanced customization so they can make any WordPress website look exactly the way they envision in their mind’s eye.

Class Five: WordPress Maintenance and Optimization

In this class, students will learn best practices for optimizing and maintaining their WordPress website, including performance enhancements, on-site search engine optimization, and site protection through backing up and updating core and plugin software. Students will also learn how to migrate a WordPress website to another server or local development environment so they are never stuck with any one hosting company because they can always move their website to wherever they want it.