Learning WordPress development in 30 days is an ambitious but achievable goal that can open up a world of opportunities. WordPress powers over 40% of all websites on the internet, making it a skill in high demand for web developers, designers, marketers, and entrepreneurs. If you are looking for how to learn wordpress development then this article is going to help you for creating a plan of action.
Whether you’re looking to build personal websites, start a freelance business, or enhance your career, WordPress offers a versatile and accessible platform that can help you reach your goals quickly.
Understanding WordPress: What is It and How Does It Work?
WordPress is an open-source content management system (CMS) that allows users to create, manage, and modify websites with ease. Originally launched in 2003 as a blogging platform, it has since evolved into a robust website builder that powers a wide variety of websites, including blogs, eCommerce stores, business sites, portfolios, and more.
WordPress is highly customizable and scalable, offering both a user-friendly interface for beginners and the flexibility for developers to extend its functionality through themes, plugins, and custom code. The fact that it’s free to use makes it accessible to individuals and businesses alike, contributing to its popularity.
At its core, WordPress is built on PHP and MySQL, which means it operates on a server and stores content in a database. Users can install WordPress on their own web hosting server or use a managed WordPress hosting service, which takes care of technical tasks like backups and updates.
The platform is powered by two main components: the WordPress core, which handles the basic functionality, and themes and plugins, which provide additional customization options. Themes control the design and layout of the site, while plugins add functionality such as SEO optimization, social media integration, and eCommerce capabilities.
The beauty of WordPress lies in its simplicity and flexibility. Anyone can install it and start building a website with little to no technical expertise. The WordPress dashboard provides an intuitive interface for creating and managing pages, posts, and other content. For more advanced users, WordPress allows for deeper customization through coding, creating custom themes or plugins, or modifying the underlying PHP files.
Whether you’re a beginner looking to launch a personal blog or a seasoned developer building a complex business site, WordPress offers the tools to make your vision a reality.
Setting Up Your WordPress Development Environment
Before diving into WordPress development, it’s essential to set up a local development environment on your computer. This allows you to build and test WordPress sites without affecting a live website. Here’s how to do it:
Install a Local Server: WordPress requires a server to run, so you’ll need to install software that mimics a web server on your computer. Popular options include XAMPP (for Windows, macOS, and Linux), MAMP (for macOS), or Local by Flywheel (which is more beginner-friendly). These packages provide all the necessary tools, like Apache (the web server), MySQL (the database server), and PHP (the server-side scripting language).
Download and Install WordPress: Once your local server is running, you can download the latest version of WordPress from wordpress.org. Extract the files into the server’s root directory (e.g., htdocs for XAMPP or Sites for MAMP). You’ll need to create a MySQL database for your site via a local database manager like phpMyAdmin, which is included in your server software.
Create Your First Site: After setting up the database, access your local WordPress site through your browser (usually at localhost/your-site-name). Follow the installation prompts, which will guide you through setting up your site, including choosing a site title, creating an admin user, and configuring basic settings.
With your environment ready, you’re set to begin learning WordPress development.
Day 1-5: Getting Started with WordPress Basics
The first few days should focus on understanding the core components of WordPress and getting comfortable with its interface. Here’s what you should cover:
WordPress Dashboard: The dashboard is your control panel for managing your website. Get familiar with sections like Posts, Pages, Media, Settings, and Appearance. You’ll also want to explore the Customizer where you can make design changes.
Content Creation: Learn how to create, edit, and organize content. Understand the difference between posts (for blog-style content) and pages (for static content like About or Contact pages). Learn about categories and tags to organize your posts effectively.
Themes and Plugins: Install a simple theme and explore how it affects the layout of your site. Also, learn how to install and activate plugins that can extend your site’s functionality. For example, add a plugin for SEO, social sharing, or security.
Settings and Site Configuration: Get comfortable navigating the settings to adjust basic configurations such as permalink structure, reading settings, and discussion settings for comments.
By the end of these 5 days, you should have a functional WordPress site, ready for further customization.
Day 6-10: Learning PHP – The Backbone of WordPress Development
PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is the programming language that powers WordPress. Learning PHP is essential for customizing and developing WordPress themes and plugins. Here’s what to focus on:
Basic PHP Syntax: Start with understanding variables, data types, operators, and loops in PHP. You’ll also need to learn how to create functions and how to use conditional statements (if, else, switch).
PHP in WordPress: Learn how WordPress uses PHP to generate content dynamically. Get familiar with WordPress Template Tags—special PHP functions that pull content from the database to display on your site (e.g., the_title(), the_content()).
WordPress Functions and Hooks: Understand WordPress’s action and filter hooks, which allow you to modify how WordPress operates without changing the core code. Learn about actions (e.g., wp_head()) and filters (e.g., the_content()).
Creating a Simple Plugin: Build a simple plugin that modifies a part of your WordPress site, like adding a custom message in the footer. This will give you hands-on experience with PHP within the WordPress environment.
Day 11-15: Mastering HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for WordPress
WordPress is built on web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Learning how to modify and style your site is essential for a developer. Here’s what to focus on:
HTML for Structure: Learn how to structure your pages using HTML tags (e.g., headings, paragraphs, links, and images). Understanding how HTML works within WordPress themes will allow you to customize templates and layouts.
CSS for Styling: CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) controls the look and feel of your WordPress site. Learn how to use CSS selectors, classes, and IDs to style elements. Dive into responsive design using media queries to make your sites mobile-friendly.
JavaScript for Interactivity: Learn JavaScript to make your WordPress site more interactive. For example, you can create interactive forms, sliders, and animations. Explore how to enqueue scripts and styles within WordPress themes using wp_enqueue_script() and wp_enqueue_style() functions.
jQuery in WordPress: WordPress includes jQuery by default, so get familiar with this popular JavaScript library. Learn how to manipulate DOM elements and handle events like button clicks or form submissions.
Day 16-20: Diving Into WordPress Themes and Theme Development
Once you’re comfortable with the basics, the next step is to delve into theme development. WordPress themes control the visual layout of your site, and understanding how to create and modify them will greatly expand your development skills.
Understanding WordPress Themes: Learn about the core structure of a WordPress theme. Understand files like index.php, style.css, functions.php, and header.php. Get familiar with the Template Hierarchy and how WordPress chooses which templates to display.
Creating a Basic Theme: Follow along to create a simple, functional WordPress theme. You’ll work with WordPress loops to display posts and pages dynamically, and use WordPress Template Tags to pull in various site data.
Theme Customization: Learn how to make themes customizable using the WordPress Customizer API. Allow users to change colors, fonts, and layout options directly from the WordPress dashboard.
Child Themes: Understand how to create child themes. These are extensions of existing themes that allow you to make customizations without affecting the parent theme’s files, making it easier to update the parent theme without losing changes.
Read Article What is Enterprise WordPress Development?
Day 21-25: Plugin Development – How to Create Custom WordPress Plugins?
Plugins are what extend WordPress’s functionality. Learning how to develop plugins will allow you to add features to a site that aren’t available by default.
What is a Plugin?: Understand the purpose of plugins in WordPress. Explore how plugins interact with the core WordPress system using hooks and filters.
Creating Your First Plugin: Start by building a simple plugin that adds a custom feature to your WordPress site. For example, create a plugin that displays a custom message or adds a custom post type.
Plugin Structure and Best Practices: Learn the basic structure of a WordPress plugin, including creating a main PHP file, adding headers, and using register_activation_hook and register_deactivation_hook.
Working with the WordPress Plugin API: Explore how to interact with WordPress through the Plugin API, including creating custom settings pages, saving options, and displaying custom content on the front end.
Day 26-30: Advanced Topics and Optimizing Your WordPress Skills
With the basics covered, now it’s time to dive into more advanced topics to make your WordPress development skills stand out.
Advanced PHP Techniques: Learn object-oriented programming (OOP) in PHP and how to work with WordPress Classes. Explore custom post types and taxonomies to create more sophisticated sites.
WordPress REST API: Understand how the WordPress REST API allows you to interact with your WordPress site from outside of it. You can use this to build custom front-end applications, mobile apps, or integrate with third-party services.
Security Best Practices: Learn how to secure your WordPress site by using best practices such as sanitizing user input, escaping output, and preventing SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.
Performance Optimization: Understand how to speed up your WordPress site by optimizing images, minifying scripts and CSS, using caching plugins, and managing your database. Learn about tools like GTMetrix or Google PageSpeed Insights to measure performance.
By the end of these 30 days, you should have a solid understanding of how WordPress works, the ability to build custom themes and plugins, and the knowledge to optimize your sites for both performance and security. You’ll be well on your way to becoming a proficient WordPress developer.
How To Learn WordPress Development with 5 Best Tools
1. Elementor
Elementor is one of the most popular drag-and-drop page builders for WordPress. It allows developers and designers to create beautiful, custom pages without writing a line of code. Elementor gives you total design freedom with an intuitive interface that includes widgets, templates, and advanced styling options.
Why it’s useful: For developers, Elementor simplifies the design process. It allows you to quickly prototype and build stunning pages with ease, and it integrates well with WordPress themes and custom post types.
When to use it: Ideal for quickly building custom landing pages, portfolios, blogs, and even full websites without the need for advanced coding knowledge.
2. Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is the most widely used SEO plugin for WordPress. It helps you optimize your site’s content and meta-data to improve search engine rankings. With Yoast, you can optimize each post and page for specific keywords and ensure that the technical aspects of your site are SEO-friendly.
Why it’s useful: It simplifies on-page SEO, making it easier for developers and site owners to ensure their content ranks well. Yoast provides in-depth recommendations for improving content, readability, and keyword optimization.
When to use it: Every WordPress site, especially those focused on content marketing, blogs, or small businesses, can benefit from Yoast’s features for improving search engine visibility.
3. WPForms
WPForms is a drag-and-drop form builder that allows you to create contact forms, surveys, polls, payment forms, and other types of interactive forms for your WordPress site. It’s incredibly user-friendly and has a wide range of form templates that save you time.
Why it’s useful: WPForms helps developers quickly build customized forms without having to deal with complicated code or third-party integrations. It’s highly extensible and can integrate with services like MailChimp, PayPal, and Zapier.
When to use it: Ideal for any site that requires user interaction through forms, such as contact forms, registration forms, surveys, or eCommerce order forms.
4. Advanced Custom Fields
Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) is a powerful plugin that lets developers add custom fields to WordPress posts, pages, and custom post types. Custom fields provide flexibility by allowing users to enter and display additional data (e.g., images, text, numbers) specific to their site needs.
Why it’s useful: ACF is essential for developers who want to create highly customized content layouts. It’s perfect for building complex websites that require custom post types, fields, and layouts beyond what’s available in standard WordPress.
When to use it: If you’re working on a project where you need custom content fields (e.g., portfolios, property listings, event calendars), ACF is a must-have tool.
5. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the go-to plugin for building an eCommerce store on WordPress. It transforms your WordPress site into a fully-functional online store, complete with product listings, shopping carts, checkout pages, and payment gateways.
Why it’s useful: WooCommerce is an essential tool for developers looking to build scalable and feature-rich online stores. It integrates seamlessly with WordPress, offering a wide range of extensions and customization options.
When to use it: WooCommerce is ideal for developers building eCommerce websites of any size, from small online shops to large-scale stores.
