How-to Videos for WordPress Beginners

Brand, spanking new to the WordPress platform? Want to know how to create your site step-by-step, from scratch? WordPress is marketed as being easy to use, but for absolute newbies it can be tricky terrain to navigate. The good news is, there is a wide range of resources available online to help you get started. Our own tutorial and YouTube channel offers some great tips and tricks for beginners, but if you’re looking for an online course of video tutorials to walk you through the entire process, here are three we recommend.

WPBeginner: FREE

One of the most popular WordPress resources for absolute newbies, WPBeginner is the perfect site to bookmark if you’re DIYing a website on your own, or if you’re a developer looking for a good free resource to send your clients to (so they know how to use the site you just built them).

WPBeginner offers several types of content including written articles, videos, guides – and all of it is FREE. You’ll need to sign up to get access to their free training videos, which cover 17 useful topics:

1. The Dashboard
2. How to Create a New Post
3. How to Edit an Existing Post
4. Using Categories and Tags
5. How to Create and Edit Pages
6. How to Add Photos and Images
7. How to Embed Videos
8. Using The Media Library
9. Enabling and Managing Comments
10. How to Create a Link
11. How to Change the Theme and Header
12. Using Sidebar Widgets
13. Building Custom Menus
14. How to Find and Install New Plugins
15. How to Add New Users
16. Helpful WordPress Tools
17. Settings and Configuration

WP 101: from $19/month

The self-proclaimed gold-standard in WordPress tutorials, WP101 is perfect for absolute beginners, though it also offers WP101 Plugin for WordPress professionals who want to teach their clients WordPress.

Free getting started videos include

• What is WordPress?
• WordPress.com or WordPress.org
• How to Install WordPress

WordPress 101 is a 20-part video tutorial series, covering all the basics of how to use WordPress. While you can pick-and-mix if you’re looking for something specific, WordPress 101 is designed to be viewed in order, since each video builds on concepts covered in previous tutorials.

• The Dashboard
• Posts vs Pages
• The Editor
• Creating a New Post
• Post Formats
• Edit and Existing Post
• Categories and Tags
• Creating and editing pages
• Adding Images
• How to Embed Video
• Using the Media Library
• Managing Comments
• Creating Links
• Changing the Theme
• Adding Widgets
• Custom Menus
• Installing Plugins
• Adding New Users
• Useful Tools
• Settings and Configuration

WP201 offers a series of video tutorials for those who have already completed the 101 courses and have a firm grasp of WordPress basics, and are ready to take the next steps in the design and development of their WordPress site.

Subjects include Getting Started with Custom Fields, Understanding Permalinks and Updating WordPress. There are also a number of WordPress SEO tutorials by Yoast, covering everything from general SEO for WordPress to page analysis, titles and meta, social settings and more.

Choose a subscription plan of $19 a month or $49 a year to get unlimited access to all videos during that time. You can also gain lifetime access for a one-off payment of $149.

Lynda: from $25/month

If you haven’t already heard, Lynda.com is the word in industry expert-presented video tutorials, having offered thousands of online video courses in software, creative, and business skills since the site’s launch in 1995.

A quick browse of Lynda will reveal 74 WordPress courses, including 1,752 video tutorials, to date – searchable skill level, subject, author, and even WordPress version. For beginners, video tutorial topics include:

• Small business website DIY
• WordPress workflows
• Setting up WordPress
• Creating photo galleries with jQuery
• Essential training
• Backing up your site
• Integrating Shopify

One of the great things about Lynda is that your subscription will also give you access to a ton of non-WordPress tutorials as well, so you can hone your skills on anything from taking your own product photos to managing your business expenses while you’re in the learning zone. Plus, as you get a handle on the basics of WordPress, you can move towards intermediate topics and continue to upskill.

Lynda is based on a subscription service, with Basic and Premium options, and monthly and annual billing, starting from just $25. You can sign up for a 10-day free trial to try out Lynda’s courses risk-free.