Have you decided to Learn WordPress in 2023 and enter the world of web design and development? Welcome to the world of WordPress, one of the most popular content management systems in the world.
WordPress is free, open source, multi-use, constantly updated, easy to learn, and you can use it to create different types of websites from simple blogs to sophisticated websites and huge online stores without the need for any previous programming experience.
In this article, we will take you on a quick tour in which we will show you the most important steps necessary for you as a beginner to learn WordPress with its latest version of WordPress and start building your sites with it.
If you have dealt with previous versions of WordPress, you will notice that there are several things that have changed in this version, the most important of which is the emergence of block templates that provide the feature of full editing of the site.
We will break down the WordPress learning process into seven basic stages or steps. When you finish learning it, you will be able to successfully build your first WordPress site.
1. Learn the basics of WordPress
At this point you have to learn what WordPress is, how to get it and what is the difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org. And how to install WordPress on a live server in the actual hosting or on your local machine after converting it to a server.
What is WordPress?
WordPress is a CMS that provides you with all the tools you need to create websites, blogs, etc. easily and efficiently. It is an open source system whose source code is freely available and anyone in the world can contribute, develop and customize it.
The WordPress platform is constantly and periodically updated, and these updates are important because they add improvements and basic features to it, solve security holes, and the version available at the time of writing this article is 5.9.2
How do I get WordPress?
You can get WordPress from two different sources:
Source 1: With self-hosted WordPress wordpress.org provides you a standalone version of WordPress that you can install on your server and have complete control over it.
Source 2: through WordPress hosted wordpress.com which provides you with the possibility to create a website using WordPress, but you are obligated to use the servers of the platform and host your website on it.
Choosing one of these two options depends on your requirements, and although the second option is easier for beginners, it is limited and does not enable you to learn all the technical aspects of the WordPress system efficiently. So, in this article, we will rely on the explanation of wordpress.org and also advise you to start learning it.
How to create a free professional website in more than one way
It's worth noting because you can work with WordPress.org in two different ways:
- It downloads locally to your computer, which means that any changes you make will only be visible on your computer. This allows you to test and develop your website as you like before sending it to a live server or publishing it.
- It is uploaded to the live server which means that any changes you make will also be instantly visible to everyone who visits your website.
Because here we are in the process of learning we will choose to install WordPress locally, i.e. we download the standalone version of WordPress and install it on our local computer after converting it to a local server so that we can build and test sites on it.
How do I install WordPress locally?
There are three main things you need to install WordPress locally:
1. Install a server simulator
To do this you need to turn your local machine into a server, by installing a program that can emulate a web server on your local machine or what is known as a web server program such as Apache or NGINX
WordPress also needs to have support for PHP on your machine, which is the programming language that was adopted in writing WordPress, and also needs a dedicated database management system such as MySQL or MariaDB.
Apache Server supports both PHP and DBMS to start a WordPress site and create databases for WordPress to then use to store information about your website.
So the first step that you have to do is to secure these requirements in your device, and there are several programs that provide you with all this in one program, such as:
- XAMPP: Free software that provides a local server environment that runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
- MAMP is a free local server environment program that runs on macOS and Windows.
- Lamp is a free local server environment program that runs on Linux machines.
- ...and other server emulators
Choose the software you prefer and compatible with your operating system -For this article we will follow the process of learning with XAMPP-
2. Create a website database
After installing the software and running Apache and MySQL servers, you need to create the database that your WordPress site will use. You can do this through the PHPMYADMIN tool responsible for managing the site's databases.
It can be accessed through the XAMPP Control Panel and clicking on the Admin button next to MySQL, or going directly to http://localhost/phpmyadmin/ in the browser.
Here you will see all the databases that have been created. You must create a new database for each new site by going to the database tab and typing a name for this database in the special text field for that (eg wp-test-db for example), then pressing the create button.
A new empty wp-test-db database will be created and added to the list on the right. You don't need to add anything to this rule because WordPress' job is to create tables in this rule and populate them with the site's content.
3. Download and setup WordPress
Now you have to download WordPress from the official website. We will download the latest version of WordPress from here. The current version number when writing this article is wordpress-5.9.2
A zip file will be uploaded to your device's Downloads folder, cut and paste this file into the htdocs folder inside the Xampp folder. If you have downloaded to disk C, you will have to paste the wordpress file under the following path C:\xampp\htdocs
Now decompress the file to get a folder called wordpress. This is the main folder of your site. Change its name to a name that distinguishes your site. I'll call it wp-test-site here.
Now you have to set up your site so open your browser and go to the following path http://localhost/ wp-test-site/ This link will open for you the first time the WordPress setup wizard and in subsequent times it will open the same site for you.
The setup wizard will ask you to select the language of the site (choose the Arabic language) and specify the database name for your site (type the name of the rule you created in the previous step (wp-test-db) and also specify the database username and password as you entered during the installation of Xampp (in our case) username root and password root)
The last stage is to specify your site name, user name, password and e-mail for the site admin, and be sure to save the admin login data and not forget it. Also disable search engine indexing because you are working locally, of course you should leave it unchecked if you are working on a live website.
Now click on the Install WordPress button. After completing the installation and setup of WordPress successfully, you will see a message that the installation was successful as follows:
That's it at this point your site is now ready. To see it click the enter button as shown in the previous image. The login panel will appear in front of you, you can access this panel at any time through the link (http://localhost/sire_name/wp-login.php) and enter the username and password of the admin as you specified during the setup phase and click on the login button
You now have a WordPress site that works efficiently, and the interface that you see in front of you now is the backend of the site, or what is known as the Dashboard. You can consider it your site's operations room, from here you will be able to modify everything you want on your site and the changes you make will be reflected on the front end of the site.
To see the front end of the site, or in other words, to see what your actual site looks like as it will appear to your site visitors, click on the visit site link at the top of the control panel as shown in the previous image, or go to the following link http://localhost/wp-test-site/ with a change wp-test-site for your site's folder name.
How do I install WordPress on my hosting server?
The steps you need to take to install and create a WordPress site on a live server vary depending on the hosting you use. But in this case you will need to have two main things:
- Get a domain name from a domain registrar to get a unique address for your site like wpar.net
- Get an account with a hosting company to upload and setup your WordPress website on a physical server.
If you want to create your own website on an actual server, you must know what a domain is and what Web Hosting is, and choose a suitable hosting to create your WordPress site.
Then you have to follow the steps to install WordPress on the hosting, link the domain to the hosting, and learn how to deal with the web hosting control panel. It should be noted that most hosting companies today offer a one-click installation of WordPress - and other popular content systems - instead of the manual method.
In these hosts, you only need to request the creation of a WordPress site and enter some data about the domain and login details such as your email address and password, and creating the site will be very easy.
The rest of the steps are the same. You can access the WordPress dashboard, and you can access your website on the live server the same way you did on the local server.
Whichever method you used to install WordPress you should at the end of this stage have your WordPress site up and running.
2. Learn how to deal with the site control panel
Understanding the WordPress dashboard, or what is known as the admin panel or dashboard, is essential in order to learn WordPress in a successful way.
The admin control panel is the first thing you will see when you log in as an admin of your website, and it is the backend of your WordPress site. From here you will go and customize your site completely and make all the necessary modifications in it.
The control panel is usually accessed by adding the /wp-admin extension after your site's domain, where it will ask you to log in to the site, and then the control panel will appear, which by default consists of three main sections.
A toolbar appears at the top, and on the side is a set of basic tabs. The Control Panel basically includes ten basic tabs: (Home - Articles - Media - Pages - Comments - Appearance - Additions - Members - Tools - Settings)
With the tabs of this panel, you can manage a single site or group of sites and do all the work you want on your site such as installing and customizing a new template, writing articles or creating pages, managing comments, installing plugins, controlling menus, and so on.
Note: This side menu will be expanded later with new tabs added, or new commands will be added to pre-existing tabs when new add-ons and functionality are installed for the site.
You must know in detail the tabs and commands of this panel well in order to be able to control your site optimally. To see how to use them in detail, we recommend that you read our comprehensive guide about the WordPress dashboard
3. Learn to manage and edit content on the site
One of the most important things that you need to learn in WordPress is to learn how to add and edit content of different types in a WordPress site, and perhaps the two most important types of content that you will need in most WordPress sites are (postes and pages).
The article mainly includes the title and content in addition to metadata such as author, ratings, tags, date of publication, and comments on the article. It is used for content that is constantly updated and belongs to a certain category such as sports news, articles about technology, or regular nutrition and health tips etc.
While learning WordPress, you need to add a number of demo articles to learn how to edit content properly, but if you are building an actual site in this case, you should include a lot of articles with high quality content for your readers and avoid content that rotates the content of other sites.
Go to the Articles tab in the dashboard and you will notice that there is a beta article created by default in WordPress titled Hello world! You can edit or delete it and start adding your own articles.
Also, specify the appropriate categories for your site's articles depending on the nature of this site and the types of topics you will publish on it to organize the content and help your visitors find what they want, especially if your site is a blog that publishes articles periodically.
The page is very similar to an article in that the page includes a title and information content except that it has no categories, no tags, and no comments by default.
By default, the WordPress site contains two pages, the first is a draft page titled Privacy Policy and the second is a published page titled Article on a page that you can modify with the content you want or delete them as you wish.
The most important pages that any site needs are the home page, which may be a custom home page, or a page that displays the latest articles by default according to your choice and your contact page, about the site page, the privacy policy page and other basic pages for you and your site visitors.
You should also learn how to edit your posts and pages within the Gutenberg component editor which has become the default editor since the fifth version of WordPress, and to learn WordPress you should learn how to use Gutenberg blocks which are pieces of content that you can simply drag and drop to create the content of the page or article.
The Gutenberg editor comes with a set of components or virtual blocks of content (images, text, columns, lists..) and you can create and design custom components according to your request
You should also learn how to deal with other types of content such as managing comments on WordPress sites and controlling their settings, ranking members in WordPress, and how to add new members and users to your site and set their permissions correctly.
Of course, you should learn how to deal with all kinds of media in WordPress and how to embed audio files, embed videos, upload other files, and organize these files in your site's media library.
Finally, if the default content types in WordPress do not suit the nature of your site, you may need to learn and use the Custom Post and the ways to use and create it in WordPress.
4. Install a new template and customize it
One of the most important things to learn about WordPress is the ability to find and install a suitable template on your site and customize this template to change the look of the site or the front end of your WordPress website.
You can start with this step before the previous step related to WordPress site content management, but it is preferable to start by learning the concept of templates in WordPress and dealing with them after you have familiarized with the content and added a good amount of articles, pages, media and other types of content to your site. This helps you to properly understand the importance of templates and to test what the template looks like on actual content.
The strength of WordPress themes is that they display your content - which is basically the same - differently. What I mean differently is different colours, different fonts, different page layouts, different spacing between elements and so on..
1- Learn to install the template
Go to Appearance > Templates in the site dashboard to see all the templates installed on your device You will see the current active template. As WordPress by default comes pre-installed with a set of default themes, the current theme installed on the site is the Twenty Twenty-two theme.
What distinguishes this new default template is that unlike the previous simple and primitive default templates that are usually included with WordPress, it is considered an elegant and flexible template and gives full control of the site for its adoption of a new concept called Block-based Theme.
You can of course add another theme of your own, so if you want to completely change how your website looks you need to install a new theme instead of the default one on your site.
The template you install will be responsible for defining the look of your content and the overall look of your website so you need to choose a template that matches your branding and design guidelines and you can then modify some aspects of this template as you like.
If you want to install a new theme on your site, you have several ways and options as there are many free themes to choose from from the official WordPress theme directory where you can search for templates with specific features and filters.
If you want paid templates that support the Arabic language and fit the identity of your site with updates and support, you can look at Arab stores for templates, such as the digital products store Bekalika, which contains a number of Arabic templates for WordPress sites.
Take your time searching for a fast and reliable WordPress theme that fits your brand identity and site requirements. After you decide what template you want, you need to learn how to install it and activate it correctly on your WordPress site.
There are three basic ways to install the template that you can find in the following article.
2- Learn to customize the template
Then you should learn how to customize the template according to your requirements. It should be noted here that the customization method in WordPress varies according to the type of template enabled on your site:
Customizing traditional WordPress themes
This type of template is customized through the Customizer which enables you to change some template appearances as different templates come with different customization options.
You can access the Customize Templates window by selecting Appearance > Templates > Customize. The customize.php page will open for you
On the right side, you will see the Customize Appearance window, which includes several tabs for different template settings. The customization options in this window vary depending on the template used.
The actual site preview (the front end of the site) will appear on the left side, and a pen icon will appear next to the editable template parts for you to modify according to your request.
The template customization window allows you to customize the site identity such as customizing the name, title, site icon, site colors, customizing menus, controlling widgets, home page settings, etc.. There is also the option to add additional CSS codes to further customize your site.
The template customizer also has a very useful feature to preview your site on three different screen sizes (desktop, tablet, mobile) to see how your site pages and menus look on smaller devices.
Customizing block templates (or component templates)
This type of theme appeared with the release of WordPress 5.9 as part of the full site editing project. This new generation of WordPress templates depends entirely on blocks or components (Block Themes), and the 2023 template is the first default template that adopts this concept in the design.
In this type of template, you can create and edit article and page templates, and edit all parts and areas of the template easily and flexibly as all website settings are concentrated in one area called Global Styles area instead of distributed in different areas.
This type of template is customized through Control Panel > Appearance > Editor > You will see the site-editor.php editor, where it will show you the entire components of the template in blocks or blocks, and you will be able to edit them in the same style as the Gutenberg components editor, allowing you to edit all areas of the site Easily.
Note: This project is still in beta, and many WordPress themes and plugins are still not undergoing this radical new change in WordPress.
To find free templates of this type, you can search the official template directory for templates that feature Full Site Editing.
5. Learn to create and customize menus in WordPress
After you learn how to customize your site template, you should learn how to deal with some other aspects of this template that contribute to determining the appearance of your site such as dealing with menus and widgets as part of customizing the appearance of your sites.
Menus are an essential part of any website. Where each website contains one or more navigation menus in different locations, the templates include links to the different pages on the site. It is essential that you learn how to edit existing menus or create a new menu and use it in your website.
In traditional WordPress themes, you can control menus through the control panel and choose the Appearance > Menus tab to see all the menus created on the site and edit their items, or create new menus and select the items you want in the menu.
You can also control menus in traditional templates through the Customizer window, which can be accessed through Appearance > Customize > Lists tab.
As for the new templates in WordPress that are based on blocks, they do not support the ability to edit menus through the control panel, and you will not see the menus option in the control panel as usual, nor the other customization options that are familiar.
If you install this type of template, you will be able to access and edit these menus and all other template components by directly editing the template. So go to your site control panel and choose Appearance > Editor and edit the menu blocks you want directly from there.
By the end of this step, you should have learned how to customize your site's menus, add links to your site's static pages, define what subpages are, add custom links or category links to the menu, and know how to define the available placements to display the lists on your site (header, footer, ribbon). side..) which varies from one template to another..
6. Learn to work with widgets in WordPress
Widgets are an effective and simple way that most types of WordPress themes known as widget-ready WordPress themes provide for customizing some aspects of the look and functionality of your website.
Widgets are small blocks that perform a specific function. They are originally independent areas of code that perform a specific function and display specific things in specific areas of the site.
Widgets are displayed in designated areas (such as sidebars or site footers). For example (recent posts, calendar, archive, recent comments, and list of categories and tags) are examples of widgets or widgets.
It is essential to learn how to control these bars and widgets or the items that are displayed within them as well as how to add and remove widgets from your website.
It is worth noting that the way these areas appear on the site, the widgets within which they can be displayed, and how they are displayed and customized depends on the template you have installed on your site.
Another way to customize widgets if you're using a traditional WordPress theme is Appearance > Customize > Widgets.
Note 1: Some templates do not provide such elements and you cannot use widgets in this type of template and you will not see anything when viewing the Edit Widgets window.
Note 2: In versions older than WordPress 5.8 and with template types that don't support blocks, the widget editor will appear in the traditional form of several sections.
Section 1 shows the widgets available on your site that are provided by your template, and Section 2 shows the areas where widgets can be included. All you have to do is drag the widget you want from the list of available widgets and drop it in the place you want and set it up as you want to be displayed on the front end of the site. And in case you want to cancel its display, all you have to do is drag and drop it in section 3 that displays inactive widgets.
In the latest versions of WordPress and with modern templates, the appearance of the widget management panel has changed, and the widget editing has become also dependent on the blocks (Block-based Widgets Editor), and it has become possible to add components and widget elements in the form of blocks directly inside your site.
7. Learn to use plugins in WordPress
A WordPress plugin is a program written in PHP whose job it is to add certain features or functionality to your WordPress site. WordPress has a large number of plugins that you can choose from among them.
To access all the extensions installed on your site, choose from the Control Panel the Add-ons tab to see a list of all the extensions installed on your site and some options for each.
There are plugins that are present and enabled by default on your site, and of course you can find different free and paid plugins on the official WordPress site or other sites.
Of course, there are a huge number of plugins available, and your job as a WordPress site owner is to be able to find the right plugins for your site from trusted sources, and learn how to customize them correctly. This will help you expand the work of your site, enhance its performance, and provide more functions in it easily without the need to write any code.
For example, if your site is slow, you can rely on an extension like Wp Rocket to speed it up and improve its performance.
And if you need to sell products on your site, you can activate the WooCommerce extension, learn how to use it and customize it to turn your site into an integrated online store, and you can install plugins that enhance the way products are designed.
And if you need to integrate Zoom meetings into your site, you can install the Video Conferencing with Zoom add-on, and so on..
After you understand the idea of plugins and their role in your site and how to find the right plugins, you should learn how to install and activate plugins on your WordPress site, how to disable plugins that you do not need correctly, and how to customize each plugin you need to use and manage to suit your requirements.
Why should I learn WordPress?
Learning WordPress will bring you many benefits, as WordPress, as we mentioned at the beginning, is the most famous open source content management system in the world, and learning it will bring you many benefits, most notably:
- WordPress is free, open source, easy to learn and constantly updated.
- WordPress powers more than 39% of websites on the Internet. Thus, learning it may provide you with many future job opportunities.
- Even if you are not thinking of working in the field of web design with WordPress, you can learn WordPress to take advantage of it on a personal level, build your own site, and share your ideas, stories, and information with others.
- If you are the owner of a startup company, learning WordPress will help you build your site for your company and launch an introduction site or blog for your company, which contributes to establishing your presence in the digital world.
- WordPress supports one of the most popular e-commerce platforms, WooCommerce, which is used by millions of online stores. You can also learn WordPress and WooCommerce and start your own e-commerce online.
Should I start with WordPress.org or WordPress.com?
Most of the beginners tend to start using and learn hosted WordPress.com because it provides them with free domain and hosting.
But it is best to start by learning to use self-hosted WordPress.org as it gives you access to all WordPress features and helps you learn properly.
If you just want to learn and create a test site, you can install WordPress on a local computer, and then you can think about moving it from your computer to a live server.
What types of websites can be created with WordPress?
It is true that WordPress started as a blogging system but it has evolved into a powerful and versatile content system that today you can use to create any type of website you can imagine from simple blogs to mega stores.
Today, WordPress provides a lot of plugins and templates that enable you to expand your site and create different websites easily without having to write any code.. In addition to the support and continuous updates it receives periodically, what makes its capabilities and popularity increase day by day.
What add-ons should I install on my site?
WordPress plugins provide a great deal of customization and flexibility for your site, and the number of plugins you need on your site depends on your site's needs.
In the beginning, you may not need a lot of plugins and you can just stick with some basic plugins, but the longer you use WordPress and build more advanced sites you just need to install other plugins and learn how to set them up.
The most important tip for you is to be careful when installing plugins, to check their source, security, and compatibility with the current version of WordPress you are using so that they do not cause you unnecessary problems.
How do I market my new website and make it popular?
Marketing the new WordPress site is done through several things, the most important of which is taking care of the content of the site, writing it in a way that is compatible with search engine optimization (SEO) and making sure that your pages contain relevant keywords in the title, description and body text. You can also install add-ons to help improve your site’s SEO such as Add Yoast SEO or Rank Math.
You should also take care of marketing your site in several ways, such as using social networking sites, sending email marketing messages, you can also consider activating guest articles and commenting on blogs, forums and communities to build your social connections and increase the popularity of your site.
Can I learn WordPress on my own?
It doesn't take a lot of time or money to learn WordPress. You may do it alone, at your own leisure, and add to it afterwards.
How can I learn WordPress at home?
Whether you're creating a blog or an e-commerce site, WP101 is an educational video subscription service that makes it simple for novices to learn how to use WordPress. Users may select from WordPress courses on platform fundamentals, Yoast SEO, and more, with more than 100 videos and counting in their teaching collection.
Is WordPress free for beginners?
WooCommerce Beginner Guide and WordPress Beginner Guide are two of the free courses that are designed for beginners and teach the fundamentals of WordPress. You may learn how to install WordPress, how to build an online store, and other basic WordPress use skills from each of them.
How long will it take to learn WordPress?
Within 14 days, beginners may learn how to utilise WordPress. You require six months of learning time to do complex activities. To study WordPress professionally and work with clients, you will need two years.
Do I need to learn HTML, CSS or other web programming languages like php and JavaScript to create WordPress sites?
WordPress is primarily written in the PHP programming language along with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Therefore, learning these techniques will definitely be useful to you at a later stage, but as a beginner you do not need them at the beginning of your journey in learning WordPress and creating sites using it.
I know a lot of people who have been using WordPress for years to build successful websites even though they don't have any programming skills, so don't let this be a hindrance to you to get started All you need is to have the skills to find and apply the information.
So after you master the basics, you can go a step further and learn to use HTML and CSS and then move on to learning PHP and JavaScript and learn how to develop plugins, custom themes, and advanced programming concepts like APIs.
On our site, you will find several specialized articles explaining advanced technical topics in the WordPress system that can help you learn.
Conclusion
Learning WordPress may be confusing for you at first, but with persistence and persistence, you will be able, God willing, to create an integrated and professional website using WordPress.
In this article, we tried to explain to you all the basics that you must learn step by step, and we explained to you the most important Arabic and foreign learning resources that help you as a beginner in learning WordPress. And remember that the learning resources are many and varied, all you have to do is search and choose a source that matches the learning style you prefer. .
Finally, if you have difficulty understanding an idea related to WordPress, or you have a good advice or resource to learn that you would like to share with us, we welcome it in the comments section at the bottom of the article.