I can spend hours on the internet looking for information on how to use different apps or products. Sometimes I feel like it is a waste of my precious time. For this very reason, I am writing about WordPress tutorials for beginners to save time for others.
WordPress is a free open source system released by Matt Mullenweg on May 27, 2003. It is computer software used to manage digital content. WordPress does not house the content; instead only manages how it is displayed on the internet.
WordPress manages 40% of all websites on the internet. The remaining, 60%, is split among the other 250 – 350 CMS companies.
The content is housed by a hosting company that provides a server to store your website. A website is only visible on the internet if it is on a hosting server and managed by a CMS company.
3 Awesome Places with WordPress Tutorials For Beginners
WordPress has come a long way in the past 18 years. It can be complicated to navigate all options, especially with the new Content Block Editor when you are learning. I will talk about 3 awesome places you can find tutorials to learn about WordPress and manage your website.
Each area that provides tutorials is slightly different but will offer the support and training a new beginner may need. Tutorials are good, but the support behind the tutorials is the most important.
- Training in WA (A complete training platform that uses and teaches WordPress)
- YouTube videos (videos to walk you through different aspects of WordPress)
- WordPress Support (https://wordpress.org/support/) (plans and paid services to help you begin a website along with documentation and support forums)
Wealthy Affiliate
We will begin with Wealthy Affiliate. WA is like an all-inclusive platform. It is a program that offers almost everything a new affiliate marketer will need to set up a niche website. Things like:
- Step-by-step video training
- The support of 1000’s
- Experienced affiliate marketers
- Live chat room
- Question and answer platform
- The ability to blog to other members
- Live weekly training sessions by Jay
- The use of a keyword research tool
Wealthy Affiliate Offers
At Wealthy Affiliate, when you set up a website, everything is included. Everything you see is a part of WordPress because WordPress is the foundation, and everything else is built on it. Wealthy Affiliate offers:
- Extreem site speed
- SEO plugin and training on SEO
- Google Analytics with training to connect your site
- Site SSL (security)
- Spam Blocker
- BotNet security
- Site health checker
- The ability to have 10 websites
- The ability to have 10 Free websites on Siterubix.com
- Daily Website backups
- Free unlimited emails
- A sitebuilder platform
- 24/7 access to server admins
- A comments and feedback area for your posts and website
- 1 on 1 marketing mentorship
I included all of these items because, ,you may not know what you need on a website to protect yourself and make your experience smooth as a new affiliate marketer. All of what you see includes and incorporates WordPress. It all flows together.
Wealthy Affiliate WordPress Tutorials
The entire program is set up to walk you through WordPress, and you have your hosting included. Every training session is about WordPress because you will use WordPress as the CMS company to manage your presence on the internet.
Wealthy Affiliate offers tutorials in blogs, written training, and videos that the whole community produces.
The Premium plan offers over 52+ expert classes per year to learn WordPress. While the Premium Plus offers over 200 expert classes per year also to learn WordPress.
Pricing
Wealthy Affiliate offers a 7-Day free trial. In this trial period, you have access to the first 10 training sessions to set up a website and learn how to manage it with SEO and Google analytics. During the 7 days, you will have full access to all that WA offers and all of the support.
After that time period, you can stay free for up to 6 months, or purchase a plan.
WA offers 2 plans:
- Premium plan – $49 month or $484 a year
- Premium Plus Plan – $82.92 month or $984 a year
Both plans include full support from the community, the platform, your mentor, and site admins.
YouTube
YouTube is a bit different than WA and WordPress. On YouTube, one can search for videos on how to do almost anything in our world today. I use YouTube a lot to enhance my WA training. Anyone can go to YouTube and learn things like:
- How to grow a banana tree
- Affiliate Marketing for beginners
- How to set up a website for beginners
- How to build a wordpress website for beginners
- What is SEO for beginners
My list can go on and on because, in 2020, there were 26.1 billion videos on YouTube.
You can use any of these videos to learn and supplement your business website and to navigate WordPress but there are some drawbacks.
Most of the people on YouTube who rank high and have knowledge are trying to sell you a product. This is one of the ways a YouTuber makes money. The other way is by having ads placed on their videos.
For example, if a person teaches “what is SEO for beginners,” they are more than likely selling an SEO company package like AIO or Yoast or SmartCrawl. They will be biased toward that SEO company. You can still pick up some good learning experiences from that video.
If you watch 3 different videos by 3 different people, you may hear 3 different takes on what you searched for.
There is no support. You can leave comments on videos, but you probably won’t get an in-depth explanation to help you troubleshoot the issue.
An excellent positive aspect of YouTube is the videos are free to watch.
If you want to use YouTube to build a website business, just be aware of these drawbacks. It is for these reasons that I only supplement YouTube as a learning tool for my business.
WordPress
Now we come to WordPress and the support they offer. I use WordPress.com for all of my websites. I love the new block editor and what WordPress has done to make it easier to manage a website.
You can actually set up a website on WordPress and find a hosting company through them.
Pricing For WordPress
WordPress does offer a free plan to set up your website, but the extensive support we discuss here only comes with the top 2 plans.
WordPress does have support in many different forms. You can choose one of 4 plans:
- Personal – $4 month billed yearly – $48
- Premium – $8 month billed yearly – $96
- Business – $25 month billed yearly – $300
- eCommerce – $48 month billed yearly – $540
As a business owner, you will probably need the plan that is $300 a year or the one that is $540 a year. These 2 plans include many of the things you will need. You can look at the pricing and what each plan offers at WordPress Pricing.
WordPress Offers
WordPress offers an array of tutorials which all require you to have a WordPress plan. The tutorials are in categories of:
- WordPress learn
- Blogging University
- WordPress support
- WordPress video tutortials
- Lynda
- Word Camp
Each one is a bit different and will take your learning experience a step further.
A beginner can probably create a website on WordPress with tutorials and extended support. But just setting up the website is not enough. There are other things you will need such as:
- An SEO plugin
- Training on SEO
- A keyword research tool
- Training on how to interpret the keyword tool
- The ability to download and install plugins
Most of these things are included in the Top package for $540 a year.
WordPress has a fully dedicated support team to contact through a 24-hour chat session for those on the annual Premium, Business, or eCommerce plan. Weekend support is available to the top 2 plans Business and eCommerce. WordPress states that when their volume of chat sessions is too high, they will respond in email form to shorten the wait times for many.
WordPress does offer 30-minute quick-start sessions with video sharing for an additional $49 per session. That’s not too shabby, but it is an extra cost and a short session.
Then you have forums and documentation you can search for troubleshooting any issue you may have.
You can check out the support at WordPress Support.
Summary
All three of these businesses offer tutorials for WordPress but in different forms. YouTube, in my opinion, is a great place to extend your knowledge but not the best place to begin.
However, WA and WordPress both offer great packages for an affiliate marketer. Wealthy Affiliate is an all-inclusive platform where as WordPress offers tutorials to meet the needs of each individual.
If you are a beginner, I believe the best place to start is Wealthy Affiliate. When I started, I knew absolutely nothing. Everything I know I learned from WA and extended my knowledge with YouTube.
WordPress also offers some good plans that include what an experienced business owner will need. I do believe that as a beginner in affiliate marketing you will need to weed through a lot of information to find what you need.
It does appear that WA is more expensive. But when you add the cost of other items such as various plugins, the 10 – 50 sites you can host (included in the plans), and the cost for a quick start session, the pricing of WA and WordPress are comparable.
Both WA and WordPress have good support options. WA does offer live chat within the platform at any time of the day or night. WordPress also offers chat sessions on their website.
Both have a free option, just set up a bit differently.
But for Beginners, I am partial to Wealthy Affiliate because of the step-by-step training. Ultimately you can make a choice and check out all three places to find WordPress tutorials for beginners that will fit your needs.
