Start Here

New to WordPress? This is your home base.

WordPress powers 43% of the web.

That means there has been an enormous amount already written about it, but most of it assumes you know things that you probably don’t. This website fills in those gaps. This page is a map telling you what to learn, in what order, and what you can safely ignore for now. If you work through it from top to bottom, you’ll go from “I have an idea for a website” to “Thanks for visiting and come back soon.”

Nothing on WordPress for Newbies costs money, and none of our lessons assume you can code. Start learning WordPress here.

How this site works.

Two things make finding what you need easy here:

Lessons by skill level

Every article or lesson has been assigned one of three levels of difficulty.

Beginner

You’ve never used WordPress, and probably haven’t used any other CMS, either. You’re a true newbie. Don’t worry, there’s no coding in these lessons.

Intermediate

You’re comfortable in the WordPress dashboard, and you have moved beyond basic settings to fine-tuning and optimizing your website. Lessons here involve using plugins and may include some light use of code or CSS.

Advanced

You’re still not a code monkey, but the topics are more advanced. Custom code, SSH, server settings, edits to wp-config.php. Always back up your site before trying any lessons with the red icon.

Guided learning paths

Lessons designed to lead towards WordPress mastery

Getting Started

Themes & Design

Content & Publishing

Plugins & Tools

SEO & Traffic

Speed & Performance

Security & Maintenance

Troubleshooting & Errors

Ecommerce, Monetization

Our goal with the lessons on this website is that they impart enough information for you to understand why you’re performing each step. Thus, if and when those steps change, you’ll be able to still use the lesson to achieve your goal. We want you to understand WordPress, not just copy steps.

But first…

…before you begin your learning journey, the following two stories are must-reads.

Before you begin building, make two decisions

Before you start creating a website you need these two things figured out: web hosting and domain name. We demystify that process and help you figure all this stuff out.

curated garden vs the open wild landscape

A tale of two WordPress websites and figuring out which one speaks to you

WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com can be thought of as two different gardens: a curated and beautiful paid garden (.com) or a free community garden with unlimited potential (.org).

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