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

Learning WordPress is an exciting step toward building your own website, but it can feel overwhelming at first. With over 16 years of helping beginners, we know how easy it is to get stuck with so many features and tools, wondering where to start.

The good news is that learning WordPress doesn’t have to cost a fortune or take months. You can start with the basics for free and gradually build your skills at your own pace.

However, diving in without any guidance can lead to confusion. From understanding the dashboard to choosing themes and plugins, you might waste hours figuring things out on your own.

In this guide, we’ll break it all down step by step. By the end, you’ll feel confident navigating WordPress and ready to create your first website.

Why Learn WordPress?

WordPress is the world’s most popular open-source content management system. In simpler terms, a content management system or CMS is a platform that lets you create almost any type of website, from a personal blog to a complex eCommerce store.

To date, WordPress powers more than 43% of all sites on the internet, and that number keeps growing. Millions of people use WordPress to share ideas, connect with others, and even make money online.

What makes WordPress great is how flexible and easy it is to use.

Small businesses can set up affordable websites, while bloggers can start writing and publishing without needing any technical skills.

WordPress is also trusted by big organizations, like universities and news sites because it can handle large, complex websites.

If you want to sell products, WordPress has you covered with WooCommerce, the most popular tool for running an online store. With this tool, you can start selling physical items or digital downloads, all without learning how to code.

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

Plus, thousands of plugins and themes are available to help you customize your site’s style and needs. Whether you’re building a portfolio or launching a blog, WordPress makes it easy to bring your ideas to life.

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. Also, you just need basic search skills, like knowing how to use search engines such as Google and the ability to follow instructions.

You don’t need to know HTML or any other programming languages to code a website. While learning them can be helpful down the line, they’re not necessary for building your first site with WordPress.

In fact, the majority of WordPress users don’t have coding or programming skills and have been successfully building websites for years. Similarly, many successful WordPress developers started out just like you and went on to build full-time careers as web developers.

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

In the next sections, we’ve organized a step-by-step plan to help you learn WordPress in just five days, from Monday to Friday. Here’s a quick look at the topics we’ll cover:

Ready? Let’s get started.

Monday: Getting Started with WordPress

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, you can 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; for example, wpbeginner.com. For more details, you can check out our guide on picking 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.

Typically, 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. This lets you get started for just $1.99 per month.

If you want to look at a Bluehost alternative, then you can check out 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’s 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 you can follow through our step by step WordPress installation tutorial.

We also have a beginner’s guides on:

• How to start a WordPress blog
• How to make a WordPress website
• How to start an online store
• How to make a membership site WordPress
• How to start a podcast with WordPress

For other dedicated tutorials, you can 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.

Congrats, you have created a WordPress site!

That said, your website is currently empty and uses a basic design with 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

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

However, you may still need guidance on using each item you see in the WordPress dashboard.

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

We recommend going through these videos as you work on your WordPress 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 creating content for your website.

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

• Difference between Posts vs Pages in WordPress
• Difference between Categories vs Tags
• How to add images in WordPress

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

By now, you should feel comfortable using your WordPress admin area. Next, we’ll explore plugins and see how they can take your website to the next level.

Wednesday: Installing 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, a community forum, a store, online courses, and more.

The official WordPress plugin repository alone contains more than 59,000 free plugins, which can be overwhelming.

To help you out, we’ve put together a 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 expert picks of essential WordPress plugins for all types of websites.

Then, we also recommend installing a WordPress backup plugin, WordPress SEO plugin, and WPForms for your contact form.

Also, you might want to 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. So, you can go ahead and take your time to explore plugins that may help you grow your business.

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

Thursday: Choosing 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 and Themify.

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. For more information, you can check out our guide on choosing the perfect WordPress theme for your website.

You can even create your own custom WordPress theme without any coding by using a theme builder like SeedProd, which offers a drag-and-drop interface to design your site.

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

• Best and most popular WordPress themes (all-time)
• Best free WordPress blog themes
• Best free WordPress business themes
• Best WordPress magazine-style themes
• Best WordPress themes for photographers

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

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

Friday: Customizing Your WordPress Site

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 do I add a contact form or create a 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.

Bonus Tip: Don’t Stop Learning WordPress

By the end of the week, you should have your website set up and a solid understanding of how WordPress works.

But the exciting part is that WordPress is such a powerful platform, and there’s always something new to learn as you keep building and improving your site.

Whenever you run into a problem, you can use the ‘Search’ feature on our website to quickly find solutions and tutorials.

You can also type your question into Google and add ‘WPBeginner’ to the end of your search. With WPBeginner being the largest WordPress resource site, you’ll likely find a step-by-step guide made for beginners.

Can’t find an answer? Then, you might want to join our WPBeginner Engage Facebook group.

It’s an online community of over 98,000 WPBeginner users. Our team of experts, industry veterans, and fellow WordPress enthusiasts are there to offer free help and advice.

How do I start learning WordPress development?

Many of our first-timers eventually progress to intermediate and advanced users, seeking guidance on coding their own solutions.

WordPress is built using the PHP programming language along with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. So, we’ll recommend starting with HTML and CSS, then moving on to PHP and JavaScript.

Once you’re comfortable with these languages, you can begin creating custom WordPress themes and plugins from scratch.

You can learn these skills for free with online resources and tutorials. For more structured learning, there are also professional training courses available.

We hope this article helped you learn WordPress in a week. Next up, you may also want to see our guide on how to increase your website traffic to grow your audience and how to speed up your WordPress site to offer an excellent user experience.

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.