5 Online Resources for WordPress Users

5 resources for WordPress users

WordPress is a free and user friendly platform used  by millions around the world.  If you’re just getting started, the volume of information you have to sift through can overwhelming and you don’t always know what is reliable and what’s not.  Using best practice from the start will hugely benefit any future development for your website  We’ve complied a list of five useful online resources for new WordPress users.  If you’ve found a good resource that’s not on the list, tell us about it in the comments section below.

1. The official WordPress site

The best place to start is with the platform’s official website – www.wordpress.org. Here you will find documentation and support forums as well as update notifications and plugin reviews.  The forum is a great place to start if you encounter a problem – someone else is likely to have had the same issue and if not you can simply start your own thread.

The WordPress Codex (https://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page) is an authoritative technical resource for WordPress users.  There are sections for beginners and experienced users with detailed information about design, theme development and general site development.  This is definitely a link that you want to bookmark.

2. Easy to understand written userguide

Easy WP Guide offers a free WordPress user manual designed with absolute beginners in mind so you won’t be bombarded with “tech talk”.  It explains all the basics for example the difference between a post and a page, how you should set up your post/page URLs, how to create menus and much more.  The guide explains native WordPress functionality and is not aligned with any paid theme, making it an excellent basic reference.   Download your copy here https://easywpguide.com/

3. Video tutorials

If you are a visual learner and would prefer video tutorials over a written user guide take a look at  http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/courses/a-beginners-guide-to-using-wordpress.  Here you will find 21 free videos teaching you everything you need to know about WordPress.  Most videos are less than 10 minutes long making them easy to digest and viewings can conveniently be fitted into a coffee break.

The author guarantees that “after taking this free course you’ll be completely comfortable with installing WordPress, adding new content, customising WordPress themes, using WordPress plugins, and managing existing blogs or websites.”

4. What’s that theme?

Often a design for a website is inspired by an existing site.  An easy way to work out what them is running is to us this handy theme detector tool: http://www.wpthemedetector.com/.  Just enter the URL and like magic you’ll know their secret.  Keep in mind that some site’s are heavily customised so installing the same theme does not guarantee the same look and feel.

5. Theme library

Melbourne based, Envato, have created a market place for WordPress themes and templates. Theme Forest is the place to go to find a modern, reliable and, importantly, responsive WordPress theme.  There are thousands to choose from with filtering options for different features, popularity and highest reviews.  Interact with live demos, read user reviews and contact the support team if you have any questions. There are many free themes available, including the basic blogging theme automatically activated when you create your WordPress install, but good paid themes have a lot of built in functionality (which reduces the need to install many plugins) and allow you a greater degree of customisation to achieve a unique look and feel for you website.  Choose your theme based on functionality and good reviews – you don’t want a theme that looks good but is full of bugs.  At Create Hosting we recommend Enfold.

Need reliable hosting for your WordPress site?

Create Hosting offers fast and reliable WordPress website hosting, starting at $20 a month.  Get in touch to discuss your specific hosting needs and we can suggest a plan that best suits your requirements.  Call or email us.

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