WordPress is a popular platform for freelance and independent coders and developers, but even the most skilled and seasoned users can use a hand with training from time to time. Whether you’re a hobby coder who is interested in learning more about the capabilities of WordPress, or a professional developer looking to further up skill, these are the three premium tutorial providers we recommend to extend your WP knowledge base.
WP Tuts+: from $15/month
WP Tuts is a useful free resource for hobby, freelance and professional WordPress site builders looking to enhance their skillset, or in need of the odd tutorial to help with troubleshooting. A quick browse of their free offering will uncover a range of step-by-step, crash-course overviews including topics such as:
- Styling sections in a page-based site differently using CSS
- Using custom post types for your sidebar content
- Accessibility best practice for coders
- Moving your site from a subdirectory to a root directory
- Boosting your WP site’s speed
- Getting started with Redux Framework
- Mastering the WP_Query
- Restoring your WP site with CodeGuard
Those with more advanced skills can find a wide range of video courses from expert instructors from just $15 a month (student and yearly discounts available) over at TutsPlus Premium. Premium course topics cover design and illustration, code, 3D and motion graphics, music and audio and more for WordPress and other platforms:
- Authentication with ASP.NET Identity
- Create an Image Gallery in Ruby
- Comparing Front-End FrameWorks
- CSS3 IU and Layout
- Semantic HTML: How to Structure Web Pages
- Exploring CSS Pseudo-Elements
- Wireframing with Sketch
- JavaScript Fundamentals
- Understanding Responsive Images
- Power Up Your Portfolio with Bootstrap
Pippin’s Plugins: from $6/month
If you’ve been working with WordPress for a while now, you’re probably familiar with the work of Pippin Williamson, who’s best known as the founder and developer of Easy Digital Downloads. He also offers an extensive library of paid and free plugins, including AffiliateWP, Full Screen Background Images Pro, Love It Pro for WordPress and Advanced Search Short Code, which means he has a ton of experience building useful plugins.
As well as being one of the most well-known plugin developers globally, Pippin also offers premium tutorials that are designed to walk you through the plugin development process with Pippin’s Plugins. From just $6 a month for hobby coders, members and subscribers gain access to:
- Members-only content, including source file downloads
- Previews and member-only copies of premium plugins
- In-depth tutorials that explore a diverse range of topics
- Plugin code reviews
Premium tutorials include subjects such as using template files for better shortcodes, using wp_remote_get() to parse JSON from remote APIs, separating your plugin into multiple files, registering a custom post type, using pre_get_posts to modify queries for meta data, creating a live search in WordPress with jQuery and Ajax, and much more.
Lynda: from $25/month
Lynda.com offers tons of great video tutorials for WordPress beginners, but the site also caters to aspiring code-monkeys and seasoned WordPress developers looking to further improve their skills with intermediate and advanced courses.
Browse subjects including CMS, web design, web development, servers, ecommerce, user experience and more. Learn how to implement DRY development techniques on your WP sites and build more efficient code, use information architecture and the WordPress template hierarchy to build a cleaner design process, and build a theme from scratch using the Underscores starter theme, among other useful topics.
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 expand your skillset to anything from taking
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.