If you are new to website design and prefer to avoid coding, WordPress is one of the best options to consider. Using WordPress, you can build websites for businesses, portfolios, blogs, stores, services, brands and more, without extensive programming knowledge.
Despite this, getting started with WordPress website design can be quite challenging, especially when you are overwhelmed with themes, plugins, tutorials, hosting, page builders, WordPress terms and much more. As a result, many beginners waste months watching WordPress tutorials without actually learning how to build a website.
Instead, you should follow an easy learning pathway and focus on the essential concepts.
This article explains how to start learning WordPress website design as a beginner, including what to learn first, what tools to practice, how to build practice websites and how to progress from learning to build your own sites to designing professional WordPress websites for clients.
What Is WordPress Website Design?
WordPress website design generally refers to the work involved in building and customizing websites with the WordPress platform.
While many assume that WordPress website design is simply about selecting a WordPress theme, in reality, a WordPress website designer should have an understanding of:
✓ Websites structure and navigation
✓ Page layouts
✓ Typography
✓ Colors
✓ WordPress themes
✓ Page builders
✓ Plugins and functionality
✓ Contact forms
✓ Images
✓ Basic SEO
✓ Website performance and speed
✓ Website security
✓ User experience and more
While learning all of these at once may seem overwhelming, it is important to remember that you do not have to learn everything at once. Instead, the key is to start learning WordPress fundamentals before progressing onto more advanced concepts.
Why Should Beginners Learn WordPress?
WordPress powers a large percentage of websites online, and for good reason. As one of the most popular content management systems (CMS), WordPress allows you to build a variety of different types of websites, ranging from businesses and portfolios to blogs and online stores. For beginners, WordPress can be an ideal tool because it is highly customizable and can allow you to create simple visual-based websites first before learning how to customize them further.
With that said, learning how to use WordPress can open the door to a variety of career opportunities, ranging from creating client websites to developing WordPress themes and plugins.
If you want to get started with learning WordPress website design without spending months watching YouTube videos and are looking for an easy beginner-friendly guide to help you learn how to build websites the right way, my WordPress Website Design Beginner Checklist eBook is the perfect resource for you, as it will help you follow an organized learning pathway to building a website.
Step 1: Understand How Websites Work
Before you jump into learning WordPress, it is a good idea to spend a few hours learning about the basic concepts behind how websites work. For example, you should have a basic understanding of the following concepts and their differences:
• Domain
• Hosting
• WordPress
• Themes
• Plugins
• Pages
• Posts
• Website Menus
• Media
• Databases
While you do not need to know the exact technical details and definitions behind these terms yet, it is important to understand what they are and what they do.
Step 2: Learn WordPress Website Design Fundamentals
Now that you have a general understanding of the underlying concepts of having a website, it is time to learn how WordPress fits into the equation. Spend some time learning the WordPress dashboard, including the following fundamental elements:
• Dashboard
• Posts
• Pages
• Media Library
• Appearance
• Plugins
• Users
• Settings
• Menus or Navigation
• Site Editor
At this point you should be spending more time exploring the dashboard and learning how to add and customize content, rather than trying to build your first website just yet.
Step 3: Learn Pages vs Posts
One of the first stumbling blocks for new WordPress users is understanding the difference between pages and posts. While they might seem similar at first, pages and posts have very different purposes.
Pages are typically used to display relatively static information, such as:
• Home
• About
• Services
• Contact
• Privacy Policy
On the other hand, posts are meant to be used for dynamic content, such as:
✓ Blog posts
✓ News
✓ Tutorials
✓ Announcements
Step 4: Learn Basic Design Principles
While WordPress makes it easy to build websites, the software itself will not be able to make your website look nice. To learn WordPress website design, you need to spend time learning basic design principles, such as the following:
✓ Typography
✓ Color
✓ Spacing
✓ Alignment
✓ Visual hierarchy
Typography refers to the use and appearance of text on your website.
A good WordPress website designer should understand how to use typography to make text easy to read and create a visual hierarchy by organizing headings, subheadings, body text, and more.
When it comes to color, it is critical to use a cohesive color scheme and ensure that colors are readable against each other.
Spacing is another important element of website design that is often overlooked, as extra spacing can make your site appear fancier and more modern.
In alignment, you want to ensure that all of your website elements are visually appealing and properly aligned.
Finally, a strong visual hierarchy ensures that important information stands out and can be achieved by using techniques such as size, color, spacing and alignment.
These basic design principles apply to all WordPress themes and page builders.
Step 5: Learn Responsive Website Design
All websites should be responsive, meaning that they look good and function properly on different screen sizes. Your website should look great on desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices.
While it might seem obvious, many beginners forget about responsive design when they are learning how to use WordPress.
To test your website’s responsiveness go to your site on your desktop and check what it looks like on different screen sizes. From there, you can experiment with how columns, images, buttons, text size, spacing, and more appear at different screen sizes.
A beautifully designed website that looks great on a desktop can appear unusable on a mobile device if it is not optimized for smaller screens.
Use a Step-by-Step Learning System
One of the best ways to stay on track while learning how to use WordPress is to have a learning checklist. My WordPress Website Design Beginner Checklist eBook makes it easy to keep track of what you have learned and ensures that you do not miss any important concepts while you are learning how to build a website.
Step 6: Learn WordPress Themes
Themes are one of the most important aspects of WordPress because they determine how your website looks. As a beginner, you should spend some time learning how to:
• Install a theme
• Activate a theme
• Customize branding
• Customize page layouts
• Customize fonts and colors
• Customize headers and footers
• Customize menus
• Customize page templates
At this point you should not spend too much time trying to find and install new themes, as the goal is to learn how to customize one theme rather than constantly looking for new ones. The key is to understand what each theme option does so that you can make the necessary adjustments to your website.
Step 7: Learn a Page Builder or Site Editor
Modern WordPress themes and page builders make it easy to design and build websites visually without any coding experience. Depending on the tools you are using, you may want to spend time learning how to:
• Use Sections, Columns, Containers, Blocks or Widgets
• Add and customize buttons
• Add and customize images
• Add and customize spacing
• Use responsive settings
• Use reusable components
While there are many different page builders to choose from, it is best to start with one solution and learn the basics before experimenting with other tools.
Step 8: Learn Essential Plugins
Plugins add extra functionality to your WordPress website. For example, plugins can add contact forms, SEO features, security features, caching, backups, analytics, ecommerce features, social media features, and more. However, it is very common for WordPress beginners to get overwhelmed by the number of available plugins.
Instead of spending hours browsing through plugins marketplaces, you should learn what plugins are and the different types of plugins. It is normal to take a while to learn what each type of plugin does, but you should avoid spending too much time trying to learn about specific plugins because there are simply too many.
Turn Learning Into a Repeatable Process
If you want to build your first few websites in an organized manner, it is best to use a learning checklist, such as my WordPress Website Design Beginner Checklist eBook. Download the Checklist eBook and Start Building
Step 9: Build a Practice Website
Now that you have learned the basics of WordPress website design, it is time to put your knowledge to the test by building a practice website. Avoid wasting time trying to learn how to build a website for months and invest this time into actually building a website.
For your first practice website you could create a fictional company called ‘ABC Digital Services’ and build the following pages:
✓ Home
✓ About
✓ Services
✓ Portfolio
✓ Blog
✓ Contact
After that, you can try to apply what you have learned by building your own:
✓ Header
✓ Navigation bar
✓ Hero section
✓ Services section
✓ Call-to-action section
✓ Testimonials section
✓ Footer
✓ Contact form
While building this practice website may take longer than you expect, it is guaranteed to teach you much more than any tutorial ever could.
Step 10: Learn Basic SEO
You do not need to know everything about SEO to create an SEO-friendly WordPress website, but you should spend a few hours learning the following fundamental concepts:
• Search-friendly page titles
• Headings
• Content
• URLs
• Images
• Internal links
• Mobile-friendliness
• Website performance
• Metadata
• Search engine indexing
While these concepts might seem overwhelming at first, this knowledge will enable you to make your website easier to find and use by both search engines and your customers.
Step 11: Learn Website Speed and Performance
A beautiful and functional WordPress website will not benefit anyone if it is too slow and hard to use. As a WordPress website designer, you need to understand the following concepts related to performance:
• Image compression
• Image sizes
• Performance caching
• Website speed optimization
• Keeping WordPress, themes and plugins updated
• Animations
• Performance tools
• Website performance audits
While you might not know much about these topics yet, this is the bare minimum that all WordPress designers should know.
Step 12: Learn Basic Website Security
Similar to performance, you should also know the following fundamental website security concepts:
• Strong passwords
• WordPress, theme and plugin updates
• Reputable plugins
• Backups
• User permissions
• HTTPS
• Uninstalling unused plugins and themes
• Security-focused plugins
While these concepts might seem scary at first, it is much easier to build good security habits from the ground up rather than having to fix mistakes later.
Build Your WordPress Skills With a Checklist
It is normal for you to make mistakes while trying to build your first website. The main objective is to build a website, spot the errors, fix them and then repeat the process until you can consistently build a functional and aesthetically pleasing website.
If you want to make this learning process easier, you should always keep a learning checklist with you, such as my WordPress Website Design Beginner Checklist eBook. Get Your Copy of the WordPress Checklist eBook
Step 13: Rebuild Websites as Practice
Once you have built a few practice WordPress websites, it is a good idea to rebuild them using different methods and page builders to challenge yourself.
Additionally, you should also try to rebuild real-world examples by studying the websites of large companies or organizations and then recreating their design using your own content, images, and other assets. For example, you can try to recreate the following type of websites:
✓ Restaurant
✓ Real Estate
✓ Digital Marketing Agency
✓ Personal Portfolio
✓ Consulting
✓ Local Business
This will enable you to see what changes are needed for different types of industries.
Do not recreate the branding, content, or products of other companies for your own project, as this could potentially violate copyright laws. The aim is to use these examples for inspiration and to understand what goes into developing a website of this type and size.
Step 14: Learn Basic HTML and CSS
While you are not required to know how to code to use WordPress, learning some basic HTML and CSS will greatly benefit you in the long run.
HTML and CSS are two fundamental programming languages that add structure and styling to web pages, and knowing how they work will give you greater control and flexibility when designing your website.
Start by learning the basics of both languages and gradually move onto more complex topics, such as:
• Headings
• Paragraphs
• Links
• Images
• Classes
• Colors
• Fonts
• Margins
• Padding
• Borders
• Widths
• Responsive styling
While it might seem intimidating at first, you do not need to be an expert HTML and CSS developer. The objective is simply to gain a fundamental understanding of these concepts so that you can get more out of your WordPress experiences.
Step 15: Create a WordPress Portfolio
Once you have built several practice websites, it is time to build a WordPress portfolio to display your work and attract clients. Your portfolio should include a variety of different types of projects so that potential clients know that you are able to handle a variety of different types of jobs.
You can add images of your completed websites, describe what you did, mention what services you provided and add your website to the mix. If you know how to code, you can also add responsive versions of your projects to your portfolio.
If you want to offer your website design services to clients, your portfolio will quickly become one of your most important assets.
A Simple 30-day WordPress Learning Plan
Your first month can be broken down into the following sections:
Week 1: Fundamentals
Learn WordPress terms, dashboard, pages, posts, media, themes, plugins, and settings.
Week 2: Design
Practice typography, colors, spacing, layouts, navigation, headers, footers, and responsive design.
Week 3: Website building
Build a complete practice website with several pages, forms, calls to action, images, and mobile optimization.
Week 4: Optimization
Learn basic SEO, performance, security, backups, testing, and portfolio presentation.
Keep Your 30-Day Learning Journey Organized
Instead of trying to remember every step, use a checklist to track what you have learned and what still needs attention.
Download My WordPress Website Design Checklist eBook
Common Mistakes For WordPress Beginners
While everyone makes mistakes while learning WordPress, the following common mistakes should be avoided by all beginners:
• Watching tutorials without practicing
• Getting overwhelmed with too many plugins
• Changing themes often
• Ignoring mobile design
• Focusing only on the design
• Trying to learn everything at once
How Long Does It Take To Learn WordPress Website Design?
There is no definitive answer to this question since everyone learns at a different pace. A complete beginner can learn the fundamentals of WordPress pretty quickly, but it will take them much longer to become proficient at website design and development.
Instead of aiming to say, ‘I have learned WordPress,’ you should set goals such as, ‘I can build a complete website on my own,’ ‘I can make my website responsive,’ and ‘I can optimize my WordPress site for performance and SEO.’
Once you can accomplish these tasks without much assistance, you will be well on your way to learning how to build a website.
Final Thoughts
Learning WordPress website design as a beginner does not require you to learn everything about coding first. Instead, you should start with WordPress fundamentals, learn basic design principles, find a good workflow, and practice building websites. From there, you can continue to learn more advanced concepts, such as responsive design, SEO, performance, security, HTML and CSS, and much more. Most importantly, you should always continue to practice and build new websites.
Every website you build will teach you something new, and there is no better way to truly understand WordPress than to simply build and design websites. If you want an easy learning companion that will help you keep track of all the concepts you need to practice while learning how to build WordPress websites, my WordPress Website Design Beginner Checklist eBook is the perfect solution to help you learn how to build a website the right way.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Can I learn WordPress website design without coding?
Yes. Beginners can learn how to build WordPress websites without coding by using themes, page builders, blocks, and plugins. Later they can learn basic HTML and CSS to gain more control over their WordPress website design.
2. Is WordPress difficult for beginners?
WordPress fundamentals are relatively simple to learn, but it takes practice to become proficient with website design.
3. How should I start learning WordPress?
You should start learning with the fundamentals, such as understanding domains, hosting, WordPress, themes, plugins, pages, posts, and the dashboard. After that, you can build a practice website.
4. Do I need to buy hosting to learn WordPress?
Not yet. You can explore WordPress using a suitable local development or hosting environment. A proper hosting environment is recommended when you are publishing a live website.
5. Should I learn coding before WordPress?
No. You can first learn WordPress and then learn how to use basic HTML and CSS to get more control over your WordPress website design and development.
6. Which WordPress page builder should beginners learn?
There is no specific tool required for WordPress beginners. Start with one WordPress Site Editor or page building system and learn the fundamentals before exploring other options.
7. How many websites should I build while learning WordPress?
While there is no specific number of websites you should build while learning WordPress, it is a good idea to build a few different practice projects so that you can experience the differences in design, industries, and content.
8. Is WordPress useful for freelance website design?
WordPress can be useful for freelance website design, since it can be used to power a variety of different types of businesses and personal websites.
9. What should I learn after the WordPress basics?
After learning the basics of WordPress you should continue to learn responsive design, visual design principles, SEO fundamentals, performance, security, accessibility, basic HTML and CSS, and client-focused website design and development.
10. What is the best way to become confident with WordPress website design?
The best way to become confident with WordPress website design is to continue to build websites. By spending time creating complete projects, testing them on different devices, identifying issues, and fixing them, you will soon gain the confidence and experience needed to learn how to build websites.
