WordPress Simplified: How to Build Powerful Websites + SEO

In this lecture, I start off my WordPress course by defining the all-important question: What is WordPress? Get an introduction to the free and open source CMS for designing and managing websites!

The next step in your WordPress journey is deciding where you'd like to install the WordPress CMS. I cover the three main locations for a website installation: your personal computer, a third-party host, and a third-party server. I also discuss which one I recommend based on your level of technical expertise and other factors like cost and convenience.

This lecture contains terms I used throughout this first section of the course, which you can view at any time for your own reference.

In this lecture, I help you understand the full process of creating a website with WordPress by presenting a "designer flow." From purchasing your domain and hosting, to publishing your site online, and everything in-between, I cover the path you'll take to get your website designed and ready for site visitors.

If you decide to self-host your WordPress installation on your personal computer, you'll need to set some things up to make sure everything works properly. In this lecture, I walk you through everything you need to know, step-by-step, to accomplish setting up your domain and database.

Now that you have your domain and database set up, you can install the WordPress CMS on your personal computer. I walk you through the process in this lecture, showing you a detailed step-by-step guide to ensure everything runs smoothly.

A domain name is one of the most important features of your website as it's how everyone finds your site. Choosing a domain name requires some thought and important decision making. In this lecture, I cover some important question to ask yourself and answer to ensure you choose a domain name that's right for your site.

In this lecture, I cover the process for finding a third-party host to host your WordPress website. I discuss companies I've used in the past as third-party hosts, plus talk about costs and installation. Some commonly used WordPress hosts include GoDaddy, Bluehost, SiteGround, and Host Gator, though there are plenty more.

If you have hosting purchased through one provider, and a domain name through another provider, this video will show you how to connect the two services to properly display your site. I use Siteground and GoDaddy as the service providers for this video.

Before you dive in to the process of building your website, it's important to do a little planning ahead of time to make sure you know what it is you want out of your site. Planning will make the overall design process smoother while helping you produce a better website. In this lecture I introduce the 5 questions you should be asking yourself when planning your WordPress site.

When designing a WordPress website, it's important to understand the people that will be visiting your site. You can then gear your content towards this audience, which will help improve your site's performance and thus the performance of your business. In this lecture, we answer the important question: Who is my target audience?

What is the main goal you'd like your site to accomplish when visitors land on it? Do you want them to purchase a product? View blog posts? Sign up for a newsletter or contact your business? In this lecture, I explore the important planning question: What is the main goal of my site?

Now that you understand the main goals you want your site to accomplish, you'll need to consider what features your site needs to accomplish these goals. In this lecture, I walk you through the brainstorming process for determining the best features for your WordPress website.

Now that you know the main goals of your site and the features you'll need to accomplish those goals, it's time to figure out what pages you'll need on your site. The right pages can ensure users find the information their looking for, while simultaneously ensuring your business conveys the information it wants to convey. I discuss common pages found on WordPress websites and how to figure out what pages are right for your site.

Perhaps the most important planning question of all is, "What do I want my site to look like?" In this lecture, I help you determine the best fonts, colors, and other visual styling elements for your WordPress site to ensure you create a great looking site that matches your branding or vision.

In this lecture, I review the best practices we covered throughout the planning section to help you create better websites.

Test your knowledge of the best practices and common terminology for planning a WordPress website.

In this lecture, I dive into the all-important process of drawing your website wireframes to give you a rough outline of your website design. I start this series of with the "Home" page, showing you various techniques for laying out your page and linking to other pages of your site. This is part 1 of 2 for the Home page.

In this lecture, I dive into the all-important process of drawing your website wireframes to give you a rough outline of your website design. I start this series of with the "Home" page, showing you various techniques for laying out your page and linking to other pages of your site. This is part 2 of 2 for the Home page.

Let's now move on to planning out your About page layout by drawing a wireframe. We'll include important design aspects and label each element to help us out later in the course.

With our first two pages drawn, we'll now draw a website wireframe for our Portfolio page. This page will contain examples of our work, so we'll need to ensure we have spaces for images and text.

Next up, I'll show you how to draw a wireframe to help you plan the layout of your Blog page. This WordPress page will host all your blog posts or articles on your site (and is a very important page for SEO!).

The last wireframe we'll draw is for our Contact page. As with all our website's pages, we'll ensure our web design contains links to the other pages of our website to improve the user experience.

In this lecture I show you how to log in to the back-end of WordPress, which is where you'll be making edits to your site and creating custom designs.

The very first element you'll notice when you login to the backend of your WordPress site is the Admin Toolbar. This feature, located along the top of the WordPress interface, contains several important features for navigating the backend of your site, creating new content, and more.

In this WordPress customization lecture, which is a continuation of the WordPress Admin Toolbar lecture, I show you how to change your Gravatar image - which is associated with your WordPress admin account.

In this lecture I cover WordPress's "Main Navigation" for the Admin Area. This feature will be your primary means for navigating around the backend of your site. It allows you to access the various work areas for making general changes to your site (like adding pages, adjusting plugin settings, or customizing your theme). Let's explore this important feature!

In this lecture I explain the "work areas" in WordPress. Each page in the backend of the WordPress Admin Area has a work area for performing various functions. For example, the "Pages" work area allows you to view all your site's webpages in a list view, add or remove pages, and edit existing pages. The "Themes" work area lets you view all the downloaded themes for your WordPress CMS. and finally the "Users" work area lets you view user accounts created for your site and edit their settings.

Test your knowledge of the different areas and features of the WordPress admin area layout!

In this lecture, I show you how to install and activate new WordPress themes directly within your WordPress website. Plus, I provide important information regarding switching themes, as well as advice for selecting the best WordPress theme for your design needs.

In this lecture I show you how to create your first webpage inside of WordPress, plus provide an introduction to the Block Editor. The Block Editor is important because it allows you to add elements to your webpage and style your pages without needing to code.

In this lecture, I provide an introduction to the "Top Menu" section of the Block Editor. Then, I cover the very important "Block Inserter" feature for adding blocks to your webpage. Blocks are a vital method for adding elements to your webpages without needing to code. They are highly customizable to help your site look exactly how you envision.

Next up, I cover the "Edit" and "Select" tools found in the Top Menu of the Block Editor. These settings allow you to change how your mouse pointer interacts with blocks on your webpage. Plus, I discuss how to easily cycle between these features using shortcut keys.

Did you make a mistake while designing your website? Thankfully, the Block Editor includes "Undo" and "Redo" icons to easily go backwards or forwards in your workflow. I also discuss shortcut keys for these tools.

In this lecture, I cover how you can save page drafts inside the block editor to ensure you don't lose your work and can pick up where you left off in new sessions. I also show you how to preview what your webpage will look like on the web, as well as on different devices like a tablet or mobile phone.

WordPress 6.2 rolled out some updates to the Top Menu, including merging the "Document Details" with the "List View" feature of the Block Editor. The list view allows you to view and arrange all blocks on your webpage. On the other hand, the document details give you a word count and character count, as well as an estimate on how long it will take a site visitor to read your page.

In this video I show you the publishing and scheduling features in WordPress's Block Editor. With the "Publish" button you can set your site live on the web, and with the "Schedule" button you can schedule your page to be released at a later date.

The "Options" in the Top Menu allow you to customize the Block Editor and change settings to speed up or improve your workflow. 

In this lecture, I walk you through the visibility settings found inside the Page Settings sidebar of the WordPress block editor. These settings allow you to publish or schedule a page, make a page private, public, or password protected, assign an author to a page, and determine whether a page requires review from an admin prior to being published.

In this lecture, I cover the "Template" settings found in the Page Settings sidebar of the Block Editor. These settings allow you to select a template to apply to your webpage, as well as edit and existing template or create a new page template.

Next up we take a look at the "Revisions" section of the WordPress Page Settings sidebar, which provide a list of all the recent changes you've made to your webpage. Plus, I show you how to customize your webpage's URL slug via the "Permalink" settings, and explain why this feature is important for your WordPress website's SEO.

This lecture shows you how easy it is to set a "featured image" for your webpage. This handy feature can help you control how your webpage looks when posting links to social media like Facebook or X. Plus, it helps with your search engine listings and can even be used as your page's cover image.

In this lecture, I show you how to enable or disable comments, plus show you how to assign a page as a parent or child page.

In this lecture, I discuss the updates made to the Block Editor's Sidebar Settings in WordPress 6.1 or newer. The changes are mostly related to the layout or organization of certain items in the Page Tab of the Page Settings Sidebar. In other words, some items in the Page Tab have been reorganized or moved to a new location.

This lecture covers the "Content Area" of the Block Editor - a crucial feature of WordPress where you can design your website directly on the page WITHOUT needing to code. This area of WordPress is where you can add blocks to your page, style them, rearrange them, or delete them.

Time to learn about the "Block Toolbar!" This feature is located above whatever block you are actively editing, and provides quick links to block editing features. This is yet another code-free design tool that helps you design a website using only on-screen controls, and without needing any developer experience.

In this lecture I discuss the "Settings Sidebar" for the WordPress Block Editor, which contains various settings that allow you to customize your blocks when designing your site. In Part 1, I discuss the discuss the more design-focused features of this sidebar using the Cover block as an example. I also highlight a new feature introduced in WordPress 6.2 - the "Styles" tab.

In this lecture I discuss the "Settings Sidebar" for the WordPress Block Editor, which contains various settings that allow you to customize your blocks when designing your site. In Part 2, I discuss adding padding to your blogs, as well as setting up alt tags for SEO and anchors for in-page linking.

WordPress release WordPress 6.2 with some incredible new updates to the Block Editor! I cover these latest updates in this video, including an improved Block Inserter with newly organized tabs, a drag and drop feature for adding Openverse images to your site (WordPress's free and freely licensed stock image website), and some new UI features. WordPress appears to be heading in the right direction with these latest changes.

Put your knowledge of the Block Editor to the test with this quiz!

Are you ready to dive in to WordPress's Full Site Editing?? WordPress 6.0 introduced a brand-new feature known as the "Site Editor" to make it easy to make site-wide changes to things like your header, footer, or styles, all from one easy location.

Templates are a WordPress styling feature that let you pre-design page layouts to quickly access for multiple pages across your site. Templates are a handy feature because they ensure design and styling consistency across your site. WordPress's Site Editor makes it easier than ever to create Templates from scratch.

In this lecture I provide an introduction to Template Parts. Common examples of Template Parts include the Header and Footer found in your site's Templates. Multiple Template Parts make up a Template, which creates a granular site editing experience for WordPress.

Now that you've been introduced to Template Parts, lets dive in to customizing your template parts! I'll show you how to create a custom design for your site's header to match your branding and improve the functionality of this important section of your site.

Next up, we'll discuss the "Styles" feature found inside the Site Editor. Styles allow you to set common fonts, colors, and layout characteristics across your site. I'll cover the "Typography" section of Styles for this lecture.

In this lecture, I cover the latest updates made to the Typography Styles section for WordPress 6.1! With these WordPress updates, you can now edit the font style, size, and colors - all within one easy-to-access location.

The WordPress 6.5 update introduces the ability to easily add custom fonts to your WordPress website by uploading fonts from your computer or linking to Google fonts. I show you how to perform both methods to improve the look of your website!

The next features for Styles inside the Site Editor are the "Colors" and "Layout" features. Colors allow you to set site-wide color schemes for easy access while designing your site. You can use colors from your branding guidelines, or simply select colors you like from the available color tools. I then cover the "Layout" section of the site editor.

Learn about the latest updates to the Colors Styles in WordPress 6.1! WordPress updated its Color Styles options to include more customizations for your typography, buttons, and blocks. For example, you can now customize the color of your site's links - including the "hover" cover (when someone hovers their mouse over the link).

In this lecture, I cover the new features found in the "Layout" section of the Style Editor for WordPress 6.1 (released in 2023).

The last area I'll discuss for the Site Editor is the "Blocks" area for customizing the styles or settings of blocks. Blocks are used to design all the elements of your site and site pages, so this feature is really handy for saving the settings you want to use for commonly used blocks. I then recap the Site Editor to reinforce what you've learned in this lecture.

Test your knowledge of the Site Editor's features with this quiz!

WordPress 6.2 introduces a brand-new feature, the "Style Book," that allows you to view and edit the styles of all elements and blocks across your entire site. I cover where to find this new feature and how to use it to make your site editing experience more convenient and powerful!

Check out the revamped Site Editor for WordPress 6.3, which includes a new UI and more ways to make site-wide changes to your website.

A Homepage is arguably a website's most important page, as it's often the first page site visitors see when landing on your website. In this section of the course, I'll show you how to design your home page from top to bottom, plus show you how to set your homepage to display properly in WordPress.

If the Homepage of a website is the most important page, then the "Hero Image" on the homepage is perhaps the most important element of a website. That's because this design element is the first thing people see when they land on your homepage. In this lecture, I show you how to use the WordPress Block Editor (also known as the Gutenberg Editor) to design a full-width hero image with parallax scrolling.

Taking the Hero Image design one step further, in this lecture I show you how to add typography to the hero section (with a heading and paragraph text) along with a button. These elements make it easier for site visitors to know what your site is about and navigate the website.

To add the finishing touches to the Hero Image, I'll show you how to adjust the margin and add a spacer in this lecture!

In this lecture, we'll start creating the Services section of our website's homepage by adding a multi-column layout that divides a single section into equal columns.

With our three column layout now created using groups and column blocks, we can add the content to our columns and keep everything organized using nested groups. I show you how to add an image, heading, paragraph text, and button to a nested group.

With our first column group designed, we can now save time by duplicating the group and making edits to the content for each column.

In this lecture, I show you how to add a simple full-width image divider to separate content on your home page. I also show you how to add a small caption to the image, while showing off more features in the WordPress 6.0 Block Editor.

We'll now move on to adding a "Latest Posts" section to the homepage to showcase all the latest blog posts we've published on our site. But, wait, we don't have any blog posts on our site... Aha! I'll also be introducing you to adding posts to your site - a feature that's made WordPress famous over the years.

In this lecture, I'll show you how to customize the styling of your Latest Blogs list to include photos and more stylistic elements for headings and text.

The last design element for the homepage before we reach the footer is the "Contact" section. This section will allow users to easily navigate to the Contact page of our site, where they can email the business or give it a call. I will show you how to design the Contact page in a future lecture.

Since WordPress can act as a blog or a professional website, it comes standard with an option to set your homepage as a "Latest Posts" page or as a "Static" homepage. For traditional websites, it's best to have a static homepage that can be custom designed how you want it. In this lecture, I show you how to set your newly design homepage as a static homepage in WordPress 6.0 (it's a little different than it was in previous versions).