
Thanks for joining the course! So glad you're here - let's dive in! Make sure to download the supporting materials in this lecture section, too!
Let's dive in to WordPress!
Let's discuss the difference between local and remote development, as well as static versus dynamic websites!
Let's get going with a WordPress local Install with Flywheel.
Let's review your preferences to speed up your workflow in "Local by Flywheel."
Great - your site is ready to start working on! Let's get you logged in!
There are a few key adjustments you will want to make any time you setup a new WordPress site. In this lecture, you will learn how to set your site preferences and settings.
Let's set up pages!
Let's create custom menus to take your website to the next level.
Let's learn about plugins and how you can effectively and efficiently use them.
Let's learn about widgets and how you can utilize them in your website.
Themes play a huge role in setting up WordPress sites quickly - let's look at some of them.
Let's dig a little deeper into some of the top themes available.
Page builders are awesome! Let's learn how you can use them to your advantage.
Installing and activating themes is the next step toward implementing them on your site. Check it out!
Child themes can save you a lot of customization headaches down the road - learn how to use them in this lecture.
Creating a Local blueprint will absolutely speed up your workflow & eliminate redundant work - let's dive in!
Reset a blueprint's username and password in Local by accessing the admin email, viewing the reset in mail hog, and logging into the cloned site.
When using the X theme, take advantage of all the stellar pre-built demo content that have; it can give you a ready-to-go website in minutes!
Let's get you started on a killer portfolio website!
You know about X theme demo content - now let's get it imported and working for you!
Make the site your own - add your logo!
Don;t have a logo yet? No problem! Let's get you going on making one!
Let's make sure the fonts on your site reflect your site design and personality.
Your homepage header images and content are the face of your site - make sure they are beautiful!
Showcase your work! Let's set up your portfolio!
Learn to add looping video backgrounds to WordPress sites using the salient theme, including self-hosted and YouTube options, file formats WebM, MP4, and OGV, with parallax headers.
Time to blog! Let's set up a blog page and learn why you should be using it regularly.
Let's customize your blog page with WordPress settings.
Let's learn about creating posts.
Categories and tags keep your content organized - learn how to use them in this lecture.
Learn how to customize the commenting settings for your site.
Let's create a contact form!
How to use Contact Form 7.
Configure settings and get your contact form completed.
Let's look at a paid form option: Gravity Forms.
A few insights on hosting and more.
Learn to set up hosting with Flywheel for WordPress, create demo sites, enable free migration, SSL, and backups, and manage your site via the WP admin.
Connect local WordPress sites to Flywheel, then push and pull between local and server with automated status updates. Create backups, monitor processing, and view changes directly from the Flywheel dashboard.
See a real client case study updating a WordPress site from the X theme to salient, adding galleries and ecommerce for season passes, with safe theme switching.
Back up your site before updating theme with a pre theme update backup in local by flywheel. Pull from flywheel to production environment, syncing updates without overwriting the live site.
Backup your site locally with Local by Flywheel, ensure SSL is trusted for local development, install the Salient theme and child theme, and manage plugins to avoid conflicts during upgrades.
Master rapid WordPress home page setup with the WPBakery page builder, templates, and front-end/back-end editors to craft responsive, animated hero sections with video options.
Learn from a real web design case study how to manage client expectations, define scope of work, and execute timely site updates while keeping projects current.
A Beginner's Guide to Wordpress!
The main goal of this course is to teach anyone, even a complete beginner, how to setup a complete WordPress website quickly and easily.
While other courses teach you all of the in-depth, complicated things about building websites in WordPress, this course focuses on only those things needed to get your website up and running as efficiently as possible.
You do not need to wade through hours and hours of lectures to create a stunning website. WordPress is wonderful because once you have your site up, you can refine it over time as you are able. If you're like most designers or freelancers or entrepreneurs, chances are good you don't want to spend weeks perfecting your website - you want something up ASAP! To help you reach that goal as quickly as possible, I move quickly through the content to help get you up and running fast - so come ready to rapidly dive into the meat of this course!
With an emphasis on design elements, I will walk you through everything you need to start building a WordPress website, including how to:
“Spin up” new WordPress sites in under one minute
Install WordPress on your local computer (Windows or Mac) so you can learn without paying for a domain and web hosting.
Download, install and configure WordPress plugins
Optimize your website for search engines
Backup, export and move your website to a different domain and/or hosting
Create pages and posts, and how to understand the difference between the two
Create custom menus and navigation systems that both visitors and search engines will find useful
Protect your WordPress website from hackers and spammers
Back up your WordPress website in case of emergency.
Set up server and hosting environments in the most economical and secure way
Build and edit websites within staging and development environments
Migrate and transfer WordPress websites from staging to live and vice-versa
Use some of the most popular and versatile WordPress Themes available
Discover multiple ways to work with various themes and frameworks
And if there is anything you don't learn from the course and want to learn, you can always ask me for help, or reach out to your peers in our private Facebook community!
What Students Are Saying About This Course:
Derrick is very clear in his instructions. It actually takes me awhile to go through each lesson because they are so full of useful tidbits that I want to write down and save, from work flow to incredibly useful shortcuts. - Tricia Havas
Genuine guy. Clear and simple instruction. - Manesh Nesaratnam
Very engaging, exciting and the content is explained thoroughly without too much industry jargon. - Luke Houselander
Great way of teaching. Feels like a friend. - Ricky Rox
I really enjoyed learning with Derrick Mitchell and will be looking forward to learning other courses from him! - Yesha Bhavsar
Derrick is an expert who is very creative and has a wealth of experience… he does a great job of explaining more complex details to beginners like myself. - Ben Cotton
He is a very good teacher!! Encouraging and comprehensive. - Jhulan Devi Dasi
One of the best trainings I have had on Udemy. I learned so much. Thank you. - Daryl Graham
Very easy to understand and I can actually start creating my own websites with the step by step instructions of this course. - Jaqueline Briel
***As with all my courses, software and online tools are always changing and evolving, so if you think of something that could be added to the course to add value, let me know!
The end goal is for you to learn how to build a functional, beautiful, responsive website with WordPress. It's that simple. By combining both backend setup lectures with design-specific lectures, you will get a broad, well-rounded look at how to create a website you can be proud of, without taking months to complete it.
The processes shown in this course are the exact same ones I have used in my design agency for years. This is exactly how I build websites for my clients.
What makes this course different from other courses is that I am approaching it from two perspectives:
my real-world understanding of how to build websites for actual clients
my understanding of graphic design and how that directly relates to website design best practices
I have over a decade of experience owning my own graphic design and website development agency, and I am so excited for the chance to pass the knowledge and tricks I have learned on to you!
With Wordpress, you have options!
I will walk you through both free and paid themes, so that you can dive in at whatever investment level woks for you.
Most themes use a similar backend layout, so once you learn the basics in this course, you can apply that knowledge to other themes down the road. This gives you the ultimate creative freedom and ownership over how your website looks and functions - both now and on into the future.
Who is this Wordpress course for?
This course is great for designers that want to learn how to build beautiful websites without the hassle of having to learn how to code. It is also great for entrepreneurs and freelancers that need a professional online presence but that also do not want to pay a lot of money to have someone else create it for them. It is also a great course for anyone that is curious about websites and graphic design, as the course serves as a great launch pad for wherever your creativity and passions can take you!
By the end of this course, you will have a beautifully designed website that you are proud of, and - if your goal is to start creating websites for others as a side gig or as a business - you will have learned some of the tricks and tools that I used to successfully build websites that clients pay very well for.