A Complete Guide on Teaching WordPress Basics to the Students

WordPress is now one of the most popular web design and hosting platforms all across the globe, with about 455 million websites using it right now. Be it for bloggers, freelancers, small businesses, large corporations, universities, or online entrepreneurs, WordPress is a great choice for creating and publishing personal or business websites. Knowing how to use WordPress will come in handy, especially if you want to grow as a tech professional in today’s world. Knowledge of this website can also be a great learning hack for college students. And if you ever find the need to teach some students how to use WordPress, make sure that you cover these topics.

Get Familiar with WordPress’ Interface

You need to help your students become more familiar with WordPress’ interface as soon as you visit the website wordpress.com. If you already have an account, you can simply log in using your username and password. On the other hand, you might need to sign up first before you can create a website. Once you have an account and have logged in, you can now get started on your website.

WordPress provides its users with an interface that is very easy to understand and use. Even if you are a newbie in web design and don’t have any basics on web programming, you can easily create your own website without breaking a sweat. Its formatting toolbar is similar to the toolbars of most word processing documents, with only a few additions that are applicable to designing your website. Tooltips also come up when you hover your mouse on each tool icon.

Identify the Purpose of the Website

You will also need to identify the type of website you are creating. Will it be a business or personal website, a blog, or an online store? Depending on the plan that you sign up for, WordPress offers a variety of add-ons and other premium features that you can take advantage of to improve your website. Once you have chosen the kind of website you plan to create, you can now design and customize it. WordPress has a number of themes customization options that you can explore to help you create a website that suits your needs.

Choose a Theme

As a popular content management system, WordPress provides its millions of users with a large selection of ready-made layouts. If you are not that good with designs, you can simply choose from the ready-to-use themes, many of which are free to use. You can also revamp any pre-made design to make it your own. Depending on the purpose of your website, you can filter through their large selection of themes based on your choice of layout, features and subject. 

Add Plugins

Apart from customizing the design of your website, you should also think about the features you will be including on it, such as contact forms, SEO, page builder, importer, firewall, and many more. WordPress provides a large selection of plugins to help users create a website that matches its purpose. Write now, WordPress supports about 55,000+ plugins that can help you optimize the use of your website and make a number of functions possible for you and your website visitors.

Create Your Pages

Once you have selected your theme and plugins, it’s time that you set up your website’s pages. Most websites have a home page, an about page, and a contact page. Depending on the purpose of your website, you can also include other pages that are more specific to the purpose of the website. Websites for businesses usually have a services page to provide more details about the services, a features page for companies that offer software as a service (SaaS), or a products page for ecommerce businesses.

Start a Blog

One of the growing online marketing trends nowadays is blogging. Many businesses with their own websites add in a blog page on their official website. This way, they get to increase the chances of getting found online in case people search for topics that are relevant to their niche. A blog can also be a great way to showcase your knowledge about your industry. For writers, a blog can be a good way to build a portfolio. It can also be a good way for businesses to promote their brand. Through a blog, you can grow the number of pages in your website, which can help improve your brand’s visibility.

Publish Your Website

Once you have all the pages in order, you are ready to publish your website. WordPress allows you to publish your website for free, but you won’t be able to customize the URL. You can publish your website, but it will still be under the WordPress domain. Whereas, if you want to choose a custom URL for your website, you will need to upgrade your account to any of the WordPress plans available. Choose from Personal, Premium, Business, or an eCommerce Plan, depending on what kind of website you want to create.
Knowledge of how to design websites can come in very handy, whether you are a professional, an entrepreneur, a freelancer, or a college student wanting to make money online. By knowing the basics of WordPress, you can easily start your own website and even pass on the knowledge to other people who are interested in using this awesome web design and hosting platform.