300+ Resources to Help You Become a WordPress Expert

Tutorials and Tips

The tutorials featured below cover everything from basic WP installation and setup to more complicated topics like theme development, plugin development and advanced WP features and functions.

• My WordPress Install Process – A guide from Blogging Pro for installing WP.
• You’ve Installed WordPress, So What’s Next? – A great overview of steps you should take after you’ve installed WP.
• The Ultimate Guide to Setting Up WordPress after an Install – A complete guide to what to do once you’ve installed WP, from Pro Blog Design.
• Dissection of a WordPress Theme: Part 1 – A really in-depth overview of how WP themes are constructed.
• How to Create a WordPress Theme: The Ultimate WordPress Theme Tutorial – An extremely in-depth tutorial for creating themes from ThemeShaper.
• The WordPress Developer Toolkit – This tutorial and tool roundup from iThemes gives a great overview of what you need to have and learn to develop great WP sites.
• How to Edit WordPress Themes Using Dreamweaver – A great guide to theme editing with Dreamweaver.
• WordPress as a CMS – A 27-minute video tutorial for using WP as a content management system.
• How to Create a WordPress Theme from Scratch – A great tutorial for building a WP theme from the ground up.
• Create An Awesome WordPress Theme Options Page (Part 1) – A tutorial for creating a theme options panel in the backend of WP.
• WordPress Loop: Get Posts Published Between Two Particular Dates – A great guide to retrieving and displaying posts published during a specific time frame.
• Leopard: How to Install WordPress – A tutorial for creating a local installation of WP on Mac OS X Leopard.
• Premium WordPress Theme Design Part 1—The Photoshop Mock Up – The first in a series of tutorials for creating a premium-style WP theme.
• The Power of WordPress Custom Fields – A great overview for working with custom fields.
• Customize Your WordPress Login – Learn how to customize the look of your WP login screen.
• Things You Should Know When Using Post Excerpt – An overview of things to keep in mind when using the post excerpt function in WP.
• WordPress Custom Fields; Laying Text Over Your Lead Graphic – A tutorial that shows you how to add a text overlay to your graphics.
• 5 Useful WordPress Functions You Didn’t Know Existed – A rundown of five great WP functions most people have never heard of.
• Power Tips for WordPress Template Developers – An excellent resource from Smashing Magazine of advanced techniques useful to template and theme developers.
• How to: Make a Control Panel for Your WordPress Theme – A tutorial for creating a customization menu in the backend. for your WP theme.
• WordPress Ajax Commenting Revisited – A tutorial for creating your own ajax comment system.
• WordPress Screencast Tutorial—Photo Captions – A video tutorial for adding captions to your photos.
• How To: Adding an Author Page to Your WordPress Blog – A fantastic tutorial for creating an “about the author” page on your blog.
• Turning a Web Template into a WordPress Theme: A Video Tutorial – A video tutorial for turning virtually any website template into a WP theme.
• Styling Your WordPress Comments – Learn to style your comments to better complement your site’s design.
• Displaying Author Meta Information in WordPress 2.8 – An excellent tutorial for displaying the meta information included about authors within the front-end of your WP site.
• So You Want to Create WordPress Themes, Huh? – This is one of the most comprehensive and in-depth theme development tutorials out there, broken down into more than 16 parts.
• The Ultimate Guide to the WordPress Loop – A must-have resource for anyone who wants to develop WP themes or just have a better understanding of how WP works.
• Mastering Your WordPress Theme Hacks and Techniques – A great collection of hacks and customization from Noupe.
• How to Use Thumbnails Generated by WordPress in Your Theme – A guide to working with WP-generated thumbnail images.
• How to Write Your Own WordPress Theme – A complete tutorial for WP theme development.
• Tutorial: Creating Custom Write Panels in WordPress – A tutorial for adding unique data to your posts using custom write fields in the backend.
• Display Thumbnails for Related Posts in WordPress – A tutorial for displaying the WP-generated thumbnail images for your posts in a related posts list.
• How to Set Up Pretty Permalinks in WordPress – A guide to creating pretty permalinks from ThemeLab.
• Multiple WordPress Page Layouts in One Single Template – A tutorial that shows you how to create more than one page layout without having to resort to separate templates.
• Build a Newspaper Theme with WP_Query and the 960 CSS Framework – A complete tutorial for building a news-style theme.
• How-To: Create a WordPress Theme in 5 Minutes – A tutorial that shows how to set up a basic WP theme. It also includes all the code you’ll need.
• The Ultimate WordPress 2.8 Optimization Guide – A complete guide for setting up and optimizing your WP 2.8 installation.
• WordPress as a CMS: How to Think About Building a Website with WordPress – A great overview and tutorial for setting WP up as a CMS.
• WordPress: How to Get Custom Fields Outside the Loop – A tutorial for creating custom fields that reside outside the WP Loop.
• WordPress Tutorial: Blog Posts in Different Columns – A tutorial that shows how to make blog posts appear in more than one column on your site.
• Multiple WordPress Loops Explained – A great tutorial to get you started with multiple loops.
• DiggProof Your WordPress – A complete guide to making your site stand up to traffic spikes, like those caused by making the front page of Digg.
• Displaying Code in WordPress Posts – A brief overview of the methods available for displaying code snippets within your posts.
• WordPress Tutorial: Category Trick for WP 2.7 – A tutorial for applying different styles to specific categories.
• How to Make a Random Post Button – A tutorial for creating a button to take visitors to a random post on your blog.
• 10 Things to Do After Installing WordPress – A list of 10 must-do steps to take after installing a fresh copy of WordPress.
• 10 Impressive Techniques to Spice Up Your WordPress Theme – A great roundup of style improvements you can add to your WP theme.
• 20+ Tutorials and Resources for Working with Custom Fields in WordPress – An excellent collection of tutorials for dealing with custom fields.
• Top 50 WordPress Tutorials – A roundup of fifty great WP tutorials compiled by Nettuts+ and covering virtually every aspect of WP development.
• 135+ Ultimate Round-Up of WordPress Tutorials – A categorized roundup of tutorials compiled by instantShift.
• 30 Tutorials Combining Both WordPress and jQuery – A great roundup of jQuery/WP combo tutorials from Speckyboy Design Magazine.
• 40+ Awesome Tutorials and Techniques for WordPress Theme Developers – A tutorial list specifically aimed at theme development put together by tripwire magazine.
• 60+ Awesome WordPress Tutorials – A great collection of tutorials that will lead you right from installation through advanced WP development.
• 30 Excellent WordPress Video Tutorials – A collection of video tutorials for everything from theme development to creating plugins to administration tasks.
• 110+ Massive WordPress Video Tutorial Collection – A roundup of more than 110 video tutorials for everything from installing WP to using it to developing for it.
• Top 10 Tutorials for Developing WordPress Themes – A compilation of ten of the best theme development tutorials out there.
• 23+ Excellent Tutorials for WordPress Theme Developers – A great roundup of theme development tutorials from Web Developer Plus.
• 63 Essential WordPress Hacks, Tutorials, Help Files and Cheats – A great roundup of WP resources.
• Getting Past First Base…Using WordPress as a CMS – A recent guide from Foraker Design to using WP as a CMS.
• How to Speed Up Your WordPress Blog – An excellent resource for making your WP site run faster.
• HOW TO: Create a jQuery Carousel with WordPress Posts – An excellent tutorial for creating a carousel to display WP posts from a specific category.
• Customize WordPress Theme to Match an Existing Website: A Step-by-Step Blog Integration Tutorial – Create a WP theme that matches an existing website design for seamless integration.
• How to Only Show Posts With a Specific Custom Field – A quick tutorial for showing posts with content in a specific custom field.
• Create a Plugin With Its Own Custom Database Table – A tutorial for coding plugins that need to have their own custom db table.
• How to Add Sidebars to a Theme – A very basic tutorial for theme developers.
• Post Image the Easy Peasy Way – A quick tutorial for creating a function that automatically displays images with your posts.
• How to Add an Announcement Box to Your WordPress Theme – A complete tutorial for creating a news or announcement box that can be switched on and off from the dashboard.
• Create Your Own Private Twitter Site Using WordPress – A quick tutorial for creating a private, Twitter-like network using WordPress.
• How to Add Pagination Into a List of Records or WordPress Plugin – A very thorough tutorial for adding pagination to records generated by a WP plugin.
• Creating Widgets in WordPress 2.8 with the Widget API – A great overview and tutorial for working with the new widget API included in WP 2.8.
• Use WordPress as a PHP Framework for Your Static HTML Pages – A very interesting tutorial on how to use WP as a PHP framework.
• Tutorial: Multiple single.php Templates in WordPress – A guide to using more than one single.php file in WP.
• How to Create a Beautiful Dropdown Blogroll without JavaScript – A complete tutorial for creating dropdown menus using just plain HTML.
• Custom Header Images for WordPress Pages – A tutorial for using custom header images on different pages using custom fields.
• How to Display Recent Comments Without Using a Plugin or Widget – An excellent tutorial for adding recent comments to your theme using the functions.php file and some code right within your theme files.
• Display a Random Post (with AJAX Refresh) – A complete tutorial for creating a random post display using jQuery.
• Get More Traffic: An SEO Guide for WordPress – Thorough coverage of changes to make to improve your blog’s SEO.
• How to Design and Style Your WordPress Plugin Admin Panel – A complete tutorial for styling the admin panel for your WP plugins.
• Wicked WordPress Archives in One Easy Step! – A complete tutorial for creating stylish WP archives.
• Make a Mobile Friendly Version of Your Blog with Google Reader – An awesome method of making a blog better-formatted for viewing on mobile devices by using Google Reader.
• Designing for WordPress: Complete Series and Downloads – A complete video tutorial series from Chris Coyier for designing WP themes.
• 100+ WordPress Video Tutorials, from Basic to Advance – An awesome roundup of video tutorials for virtually every aspect of working with WP.
• Complete WordPress Theme Guide – A three-part tutorial series from Web Designer Wall for creating WP themes.
• Import and Export WordPress Data – A video tutorial that shows you how to import your data from other blogging platforms (including TypePad and Blogger) and how to export your data for installing on another version of WP.
• Create a Tabbed Featured Posts Area in WordPress – A tutorial for creating a tabbed area for displaying multiple featured posts.
• A Crash-Course in WordPress Plugin Development – A video tutorial for creating your first WP plugin.
• List of WordPress Thesis Theme Tutorials – A collection of tutorials for working with the Thesis parent theme.
• Tutorial: Add a Background to Your WordPress Theme – A very basic tutorial for adding a different background image to a standard WP theme.
• 26 Complete WordPress Blog Design Tutorials – A roundup of 26 tutorials for creating specific WP designs from scratch.
• Installing WordPress on Tiger – A great tutorial for installing a local copy of WordPress on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.
• Integrating BuddyPress, WordPress MU, and bbPress – A great guide if you want to build a complete social networking site.
• 12 Great Tutorials on Creating a New WordPress Theme – An awesome roundup of theme development tutorials compiled by [Re]Encoded.com.
• 5 Useful and Creative Ways to Use WordPress Widgets – A great guide to using WP widgets.
• How to Easily Customize the WordPress Image Caption – A tutorial for customizing the appearance of the built-in WP image caption text.
• 10 Steps to a Client Friendly WordPress CMS – A guide to making WP more end-user-friendly as a CMS.
• An Elegant Featured Content Slider for WordPress – A tutorial for creating a slider to display your recent posts.
• WordPress Theme Guide – A complete guide to building WP themes from Urban Giraffe.
• Mastering WordPress Shortcodes – A great guide for learning all about WP shortcodes.