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How to Learn WordPress Basics for Free (Step by Step)

Last updated on by Editorial Staff | Reviewed by: Syed Balkhi

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Are you looking to learn WordPress and build a website? Ease of use is one of the best things about WordPress which makes it the world’s most popular website builder.

Learning WordPress does not require a lot of time or money. You can do it on your own, at your own pace, and then build upon it as you go.

In this article, we’ll show you how to learn WordPress for free in a week (or less). The goal is to help you familiarize yourself with WordPress, so you can build websites on your own.

How to easily learn WordPress for free in one week

Why Learn WordPress?

WordPress is the world’s most popular open-source content management system. That’s a fancy way of saying that it allows you to create any type of website.

WordPress powers more than 43% of all websites on the internet. It generates thousands of job opportunities around the world, and there are millions of websites making money using WordPress.

Apart from economic opportunities, WordPress enables people to share their stories, ideas, build communities and do awesome things.

It is ideal for small businesses to make their online presence, at the same time it is economical enough for bloggers to launch their first blog.

WordPress also powers the most popular eCommerce platform called WooCommerce. It is used by millions of small and big online stores. You can use WordPress to start an online store (without writing any code).

With a ton of plugins and themes, WordPress is easy to extend and allows you to make any kind of website imaginable.

What do I need to learn WordPress?

Learning WordPress is easy as long as you are willing to commit a few hours each day for a week.

You would need some very basic search skills (i.e know how to use search engines like Google), and the ability to follow instructions.

No, you don’t need to know HTML or other programming languages to code a website. It will be helpful to learn them in the future, but you don’t need them to make a website using WordPress as a beginner.

The majority of WordPress users don’t have coding or programming skills, and they have been using WordPress for years.

Similarly, many successful WordPress developers started out just like you, and now they are making websites as full-time web developers.

Now that you are committed to learning WordPress, we want to welcome you to the awesome WordPress and WPBeginner community.

Let’s get started.

Monday: Getting Started with WordPress

Getting started

There are two types of WordPress websites. First, there is WordPress.org also known as self-hosted WordPress, and then there is WordPress.com.

We recommend using self-hosted WordPress.org because it gives you access to all the WordPress features out of the box. For more information, see our comparison of WordPress.com vs WordPress.org.

Now that you have chosen the right platform, the next step is to choose your domain and web hosting .

Your domain is the website address that users will type to visit you (example wpbeginner.com). We have a guide that will help you pick the best domain name for your website.

The next step is to choose web hosting. This is where all your website files will be stored, so users can view your site.

Normally, a domain costs $14.99 per year and web hosting starts from $7.99 per month. This is a lot of money if you are just starting out.

Luckily, Bluehost has agreed to offer WPBeginner users a free domain name and a generous discount on hosting. Basically, you can get started for $2.75 per month.

→ Click Here to Claim This Exclusive Bluehost Offer ←

If you want to look at a Bluehost alternative, then checkout SiteGround or see our guide on how to choose the best WordPress hosting.

Once you have signed up for a domain name and web hosting account, it is time to install WordPress.

WordPress is famous for its easy installation and most hosting providers also offer 1-click WordPress installers. If you need help, then follow our step by step WordPress installation tutorial.

We also have a step by step tutorial on:

For other dedicated tutorials, see our guide on different types of websites you can create with WordPress.

If you’re just wanting to learn and create a test site, you can also install WordPress on your Mac or windows computer. But remember, local websites are not visible to other users on the internet. To make it available to everyone, you’ll need to move WordPress from your computer (local) to a live site.

Once you have installed WordPress, you’ll reach the WordPress dashboard or the admin area. It has a sleek layout with a toolbar at the top and an admin sidebar menu on the left.

WordPress dashboard

Congrats, you have created a WordPress site. However, your website is currently empty and uses a very basic design and no noticeable features.

In the next few days, you’ll familiarize yourself with the WordPress features and learn how to set it up to work for you.

Tuesday: Learning The WordPress Basics

Learning the WordPress basics

After installing WordPress, it is time to get familiar with the system. You can do so by going through options in the left-hand bar.

WordPress admin menu items

However, you may still need guidance on how to use each of the items you see in the WordPress dashboard.

The best place to start is our free WordPress video series for beginners. These 34 videos will guide you through the WordPress dashboard, show you how to add images, videos, audio, etc.

We recommend going through these videos as you work on your website. Don’t worry if you can’t watch them all at once. You can always come back and resume where you left off.

As you work on your website, you’ll come across terms that you may not understand. We have a handy WordPress dictionary with a list of commonly used WordPress terminology along with detailed explanation of each term.

Next, you should familiarize yourself with the WordPress block editor. This is where you’ll be spending most of your time when creating content for your website.

While you are at it, let’s go through some key WordPress concepts along the way.

If you still have some time left today, then you should explore our beginners guide section which is full of useful information.

Hopefully by this time, you have a good grasp of your WordPress admin area, and you’re probably eager to play with plugins.

Wednesday: Using WordPress Plugins

WordPress plugins

The real power of WordPress is in the plugins.

Think of plugins as the apps for your WordPress website. They allow you to add new features to your website such as adding contact forms, create a store, etc.

There are more than 60,000+ free plugins available in the official WordPress plugin repository alone. This abundance of plugins can be overwhelming for beginners.

That’s why you should look at our beginner’s guide on how to choose the best WordPress plugin.

Now, as a beginner you may be wondering which WordPress plugins you should install. We have prepared a list of essential WordPress plugins for all types of websites.

We recommend every user to install a WordPress backup plugin, WordPress SEO plugin, and WPForms for your contact form.

Also, check out our WordPress Plugins category where you will find the best WordPress plugins to do anything you want on your WordPress website.

Exploring plugins will keep you busy for most of the day. Take your time to explore plugins that may help you grow your business.

When you come back, the next thing we’ll cover is WordPress themes.

Thursday: Using WordPress Themes

WordPress themes

WordPress themes control the look of your website. Themes are pre-made templates that you can install and customize for your site.

There are thousands of free and premium themes available for WordPress. You can download free themes from the WordPress Themes directory.

For premium themes, you can go to commercial theme shops like Elegant Themes, Themify, etc.

A perfect theme should be a balance of beautiful design and powerful features. Too many features are not always a sign of a good Theme. Check out our guide on choosing the perfect WordPress theme for your website.

You can even create your own custom WordPress theme without touching any code using a theme builder like SeedProd.

It gives you a drag & drop interface to build your site (no-coding needed).

SeedProd Page Builder

If you want to look at specific WordPress themes, then see our WordPress theme showcases:

Once you have found a theme, follow the instructions in our guide on how to install a WordPress theme to properly install it.

After that, refer back to our WordPress videos from Tuesday to see how you can change the background, add header images, add menus, and more in your WordPress theme.

Friday: Customizing WordPress

Customizing WordPress

Each website has different customization needs. Depending on what you want to do with your website, you will come across new questions.

For example how to add a contact form, or create separate page for blog posts.

We recommend browsing through our WordPress Tutorials section which has 700+ step by step tutorials for beginners.

You can also subscribe to WPBeginner’s YouTube Channel for free WordPress video tutorials. We have hundreds of video tutorials there for you to watch at your own pace.

Continue Learning WordPress

Continue learning WordPress

Hopefully, by the end of the week, you have been able to set up your website and familiarize yourself with how WordPress works.

However, WordPress is an incredibly powerful platform, and you’ll keep discovering new things as you work on your website.

The following are a few tips to help you continue learning WordPress.

As you come across a problem, you can search for it using the Search feature on our website.

Search WPBeginner

Alternatively, you can simply enter your question in Google and add WPBeginner at the end of your search query to find the most helpful answer.

As the largest WordPress resource site in the world, there is a good chance that you’ll find a step-by-step guide written specifically for beginners.

Can’t find an answer? Join our WPBeginner Engage Facebook group. It is an online community of WPBeginner users with more than 90,000 members. Our team of experts and other industry veterans are actively helping out users there (for free), and you’ll also get advice from other WordPress users as well.

How do I start learning WordPress development?

Many of our beginner users often graduate to intermediate and advanced level users. They ask us for guidance on learning how to code their own solutions.

WordPress is mainly written in the PHP programming language along with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. We recommend starting with HTML and CSS and then move on to PHP and JavaScript.

Once you have learned a good bit of these languages, you can start learning how to code your own plugins and custom WordPress themes from scratch.

You can learn all these things for free using Google and free resources available. However, there are websites offering professional training courses in different WordPress development areas.

We hope this article helped you learn WordPress in a week. You may also want to see our guide on how to increase your website traffic, how to create an email newsletter, and how to speed up your WordPress site.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Reader Interactions

107 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Hey WPBeginner readers,
    Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
    Every month, our top blog commenters will win HUGE rewards, including premium WordPress plugin licenses and cash prizes.
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  2. It is a treasure house, I would say. Even we can learn deeply whatever we want to learn through the links within the blog. And above all, the videos and courses are completely free. It’s a big heart of yours.
    Thank you very much!

    Reply

  3. It’s an amazing reality-based motivational and informational blog. I’ve made the decision to restart my learning journey with WordPress again after reading this article.
    I had skipped it a long time ago because I got frustrated due to incomplete information, a lack of guidance, and the unavailability of sufficient resources. Finally, this post has fueled me up for work.
    No doubt, hard work pays off. I’m now resolved to continuously learn and build a great WordPress website, as I have gotten a lot of inspiration here.
    Thank you for such great and wonderful free, in-depth informational materials and resources.

    Reply

    • You’re welcome, we wish you luck in your journey learning and we hope our guides are a good staring point for you :)

      Reply

      Admin

  4. I’m working at a place where they already have a WordPress website set up. I need to learn more about making changes to it.

    Reply

    • Our guides should help you get started learning. You may want to look into creating a local site for a safe place to start learning :)

      Reply

      Admin

  7. Thank you so much, but I want to create a website(not live one) just to test and learn,, how do I do that

    Reply

  8. Please I want to start a WordPress site but I want to be sure that I don’t need to code.

    Reply

    • It would depend on what you were specifically looking to do with your site but for most if not all applications you should not need to code.

      Reply

      Admin

  9. Hello, what is the approximate cost of designing a site?
    With WordPress…For example, a small store site or a personal site and not very professional
    Can it be seen as a job?

    Reply

  10. i am very excited and encouraged to have come across this platform. I hoping that i will be able to be a wordpress expert through your guidance and support.

    Reply

  12. I am new here.
    With your support (Team wpbiginner.com) I will learn WordPress. I A.

    I shall be very thankful to all of you for your kind attention and hassel free discussions.

    Reply

  13. Hello! This has been extremely helpful. I was wondering… I want to create my own website on WordPress for my company, should I do it by myself by learning all of your videos? Or would you recommend that we get someone who is a pro at this? The company is not that huge to be honest. So I am torn in between but its not a small business either.

    Reply

    • That would be a personal preference question for what is best for you, you can always start from scratch and if you run into an issue, you can look for a developer then.

      Reply

      Admin

  14. Hey! I am much more thankful to you for helping me out in using wordpress. You have given almost every useful information about using word press. Now it will be my fist step to jump into it.

    Reply

  19. This looks to be exactly what I need!

    I purchased a turn-key set up for my website, but am now having problems understanding how to make changes and customize it the way I want.

    Having the information broken down in bite-sized pieces will allow me to do the work as I have the time/brain space.

    Reply

  20. Get post on how to get started with WordPress. I like the easy to follow steps and the extra posts that explain the sections in WordPress such as the Categories vs Tags. Very Helpful!!!

    Reply

  25. OK–I filled out the form and added you to my email list. Now, how do I see the videos? I’m confused.

    Reply

    • If you signed up for the videos you should have received a message with an activation url, if not then you would want to check your spam and reach out to us using our contact form if you’re unable to find the email.

      Reply

      Admin

  26. I tried many times to create my accounts for watching the videos serie, but the system didn’t work.

    That’s a pity.

    Reply

  27. how to add another address in contact us page.i have watch many tutorials on youtube but no bady showing how to add secondy address in contact us page in wordpress.pls resolved it waiting your reply.thanks in advance

    Reply

    • It would depend on what contact form plugin you’re using. If you reach out to the plugin’s support they should be able to let you know how to add a secondary email address to your contact form.

      Reply

      Admin

  28. I’m new to WP too, been building my WP website with ecommerce for the past 2 weeks, needles to say, I’m struck with http errors, upload errors, json errors, website down errors, blank page errors, no preview, publish errors. Not giving up yet but I’m close. Been on long chats with blue host 5 times already, but no solution, asked to reset the WordPress, and start from scratch. Back to square one, and the same issues.! I’ll be looking very closely at all your videos before I do anything else, have 2 more weeks before I reach deadline for cancellation.

    Reply

      • there was something wrong with the configuration of my website, hours on bluehost chat, got a senior technician and the issues were fixed but my website lost some feutures and pages. All was visible on line but not in the design view. Eventually i have asked to cancel the subscription – so i can have the website closed and i am going to purchase the subscription again next week. the good thing was the chat people were trying to help , quick to answer questions offer support , i actually am imperssed on how good the experience was, and i was on the chat at least 2x per day. It is possible that ive messed up something there with the wordpress myself, im trying to learn as much as i can before i start again. once i familiarised myself with the design and customisation I found the wordpress and woo commerce got progresively easy to navigate , and if it wasnt for the errors i would keep building it. So much to learn …

        Reply

  32. Hi
    I’m using elementor plug in ( both free version)
    My design theme is black and gold
    I need to switch it as white and gold or something else with a button, as most of website has option as (dark/ light mode) but more customisable.
    Please help
    Thanks!!

    Reply

  33. I think the free version of wordpress limits a lot of options. But still, its free so I guess we can’t complain to much eh!

    Reply

  34. Can’t comment as yet to go through the guide and youtube tutorials. Well I’m sure will enjoy going through the Guide and am wishing myself GOOD LUCK.

    Reply

  35. how can i build an blogging interface for users/authors in wordpress just like blogger.I am struck where a user will write its post and have some features like to make some text bold or to add bullets to text,i’m missing knowledge to add that panel.please help me.looking forward for an answer thank you in advance.

    Reply

  36. Many thanks for this. Clean and easy understanding. I’m a new to WordPress. Let me know how can I add freely live chat option for my WordPress web site ? Already I following these lessons. Thanks !

    Reply

  39. This doesn’t tell me what I really need to know which is formatting. I am already on WordPress but can’t figure out how the heck to get the formatting to do what I want it to do. it always has these huge gaps in between the sentences and I hate that. It didn’t used to be this way as far as I remember. I stopped using it and came back and now it is a total pain.

    Reply

    • Hi Mary
      I’m just a beginner with WordPress but also believe as you do that the formatting could be improved but since I’m an early beginner I have had to put the thoughts aside until I am a bit more advanced. My thoughts are at this stage that maybe PDF pages may be the answer. Or formatting a page in a program such as Dreamweaver and loading it to WordPress. Will be trying these things when I get a bit further along. The current line spacing though readable is very limiting. Where there’s a will there’s a way. ♥♥♥ (alt+keypad 3)

      Reply

  41. I want to create an entertainment website alongside with a blog. I want to use a welcome page to be different from the homepage so if they click on ENTER someone can now get to home. is it possible to do this on WordPress?

    Reply

  42. Can I add music to my wordpress web page ? So when people land on my website, my music starts playing.

    Reply

  43. I can hardly wait to get started. I will soon begin learning how to use WordPress. I want to create an online store. Thank you for sharing this invaluable information.
    Best wishes!

    Reply

  44. Hello- Can I use wordpress to edit a website that a website company set up and is already on the web? I need to add photos and text.

    Thanks!
    Carleigh

    Reply

  45. Hello

    My name is Bryan and I am working in the field of public relations. I have written press releases, articles and other stuff in the past that I would like to put up in a personal website to aid job seeking and hopefully get writing jobs on a freelance basis.

    Could I seek your sagely guidance on whether it is possible to set up a personal website, showing a bio and past works, with a blog?

    Thanks
    Bryan

    Reply

  46. Hi,
    I have taken over a word press site and wish to keep the same style in follow up content. When I try to update the new content I find that what I see in the editor is not the same when publisher.

    MJM

    Reply

  48. At first i was a bit afraid of the Dashboard and all but after 1 hour of investing in testing and doing random stuff, i’m able to make a whole Website! It is so easy and of course this article helped me a lot. Thank you!

    Reply

  49. Very helpful stuff. It encouraged me to learn more about wordpress.Keep it up. I wish you all the best in future.

    Reply

  50. Good website! I really love how it is simple on my eyes and the data are well written. I am wondering how I might be notified when a new post has been made.

    Reply

  51. Hi

    I had a designer build my site. I would like to learn how to make changes myself. Would this be what I would need?

    Thanks

    Reply

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