Intermediate WordPress Course

A hands-on intermediate WordPress course to polish your website

This two-day training course led by WordPress co-founder Mike Little will enhance your WordPress knowledge and take it to the next level.

WordPress is the publishing platform of choice for almost 100 million websites and blogs – including some of the most high-profile sites in the world. It has a Content Management System (CMS) market share of 58%. WordPress is quick to install and simple to get started on, with little configuration and setup.

This intermediate WordPress training course takes your  site to the next level. You will learn how to thoroughly customise themes, find the right plugin for your needs, understand the different requirements for mobile platforms (smartphones/ tablets) and how to unleash the full power and potential of this CMS platform. Mike’s hands-on course will teach you WordPress best practice, SEO strategies, security tips and caching techniques. You’ll get started with e-commerce and find out about little-known and useful features of WordPress – and all from the man who helped create it in the first place.

Who will benefit from this class?

You may already have a WordPress site or two but you want yours to be better than the rest.

You may be contemplating spending several thousand pounds on hiring a developer/ designer for your new company website.

Total beginners should go on my WordPress for Beginners course.

What you need to be familiar with

If you want to work on an existing WordPress site you are more than welcome, but  I will provide a pre-installed site for a month for all attendees.

This course is aimed at those who’ve already got to grips with the WordPress CMS. You’ll don’t need any programming experience, but a little CSS knowledge is useful.

Course syllabus

Day one

1. Introduction To WordPress: What is WordPress? A little history
2. Recap of the WordPress basics: Posts, pages and all that jazz
3. Settings in-depth: More ways to configure your site
4. Advanced posts and pages: Featured images, the kitchen sink, paging and more
5. Exercise: Getting to grips with the WordPress Editor
6. The Image Editor: Make your own thumbnails
7. Themes, Widgets and Menus in-depth: Learning the building blocks
8. CSS introduction: An overview and some useful tools
9. Pulling it all together: Improving the look of your site
10. Exercise: Customising your theme with CSS

Day two

1. Security: Hosting, plugins and good habits
2. Caching: Make your site fly!
3. Exercise: Security and caching plugins
4. SEO – an overview: The strange art of Search Engine Optimisation
5. Anti-spam techniques: Akismet and beyond
6. Jetpack in-depth: Juicy goodness form WordPress.com
7. Exercise: Getting to know Jetpack
8. E-commerce – an overview: An intro to selling your stuff
9. More useful tools and plugins

Equipment you’ll need

• Please bring a laptop computer with Windows, Linux or Mac OS installed. You will not need to install any software, but you should have a modern web browser. Our preference is for the latest version of Firefox or Google Chrome, but the latest Internet Explorer or Opera will be fine too
• For part of the course you will need Firefox or Google Chrome
• You may want to bring some sample images that you will be able to upload to your website as the course progresses
• If you feel more comfortable using an external mouse, please bring one with you

Learning outcomes

After completing the class, you will have:

• In-depth knowledge about WordPress configuration
• A suite of plugins to enhance your site to your needs
• The ability to configure WordPress to your preferences
• The ability to use industry-standard developer tools
• An understanding of site security and Search Engine Optimisation
• Practical knowledge of advanced plugins

This is a very practical hands-on course where you will complete exercises, ask questions and engage in discussions to make the most of the time.

Note: This course does not teach WordPress development (PHP coding)

Extras

Those attending the course will receive an electronic copy of the teaching materials. You will also receive one month’s free hosting courtesy of Mike Little to test and refine your site.

Upcoming Courses