Top WordPress Certifications for Developers and Freelancers

Last Updated on September 30, 2019 by Nick Braithwaite

WordPress is, without doubt, the world’s most popular content management system. It powers over a third of websites on the Internet. Which means that a good portion of web developers are, in fact, WordPress experts. So it’s surprising, to say the least, that there is no official WordPress accreditation that would confirm this expertise. No certification, no WordPress curriculum backed by the platform’s developers, nothing. Instead, the only way to get good at WordPress is, well, by getting good at WordPress.

However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to make the journey from beginner to WordPress professional easier. In this article, we’ve compiled a list of the top online courses that can help you get better at WordPress faster, and that could serve as a replacement for any official WordPress certification.

1. WordPress 101 for Beginners

The WordPress 101 for Beginners course over at wp101.com is a great way to learn the essentials of WordPress. This course consists of 34 video tutorials that guide you through the basics of WordPress, from touring the dashboard and creating your first posts and pages to customizing and managing a WordPress website. The course has recently been updated to incorporate Gutenberg – the new WordPress block editor. This means that upon completing this course, you’ll be up to date on all the latest developments within WordPress itself.

You can view the first 7 videos in the course completely free. If you like them, you can unlock the rest of the course for just $19 per year. Alternatively, for $39 per year, you can buy an All-Access Pass which unlocks all the courses on wp101.com, including their complete guides to plugins such as WooCommerce, Yoast SEO, Jetpack, and more.

2. Web Development Career Path

The Codecademy Web Development Career Path is a must for anyone serious about building websites of any kind. This thorough course will teach you the basics of web dev. It covers everything from HTML and CSS – the markup languages that are the backbone of the entire Internet – to more advanced topics like JavaScript, React.js, Git, and SQL databases. While not all of these technologies are mandatory for working with WordPress, knowing them will not only make you a better developer, but also help you out later in your career when you start getting into more advanced WordPress topics.

If all this seems like too much, you can try out a huge number of Codecademy courses for free just by signing up (we suggest going through the Introduction to HTML, Learn CSS, and Introduction to JavaScript courses, at the very least). If, however, you choose to go with the whole Web Development Career Path, you should know that it requires Codecademy membership, which can get as cheap as $15.99 per month.

3. Learn PHP

Learn PHP is another Codecademy course that should be a no-brainer for anyone interested in WordPress development. The WordPress platform is built on the PHP programming language, so if you ever want to change some WordPress functionality to better fit your needs or perhaps create a WordPress plugin or theme, PHP is the language you’ll be working in. This course will lead you though everything you need to know to get started with PHP, including fundamental programming concepts, data types, variables, functions, arrays, and more. When you’re done, you’ll understand WordPress a lot better and be miles closer to becoming a bona fide WordPress developer.

The best news is that the Learn PHP course is completely free. All you need to do to get started is create a Codecademy user account.

4. WordPress Theme Development with Bootstrap

The WordPress Theme Development with Bootstrap course over on Udemy will teach you how to create fully responsive WordPress themes using the Bootstrap framework. If you’ve ever dreamed of making money by selling WordPress themes on ThemeForest or any other theme market, this is the course for you. You’ll learn the basics of the Bootstrap framework, how to code essential theme parts (like the header and footer), how to style your pages and posts, and finally, how to convert your static Bootstrap pages into dynamic WordPress-ready content. However, it’s important to remember that this course requires a basic understanding of HTML, CSS, and PHP, so we suggest taking the previously mentioned Codecademy courses first.

The full price of the WordPress Theme Development for Bootstrap course is $174.99. However, Udemy often offers huge discounts on their courses and we’ve seen this particular course available for as low as $10.99.

5. Become a WordPress Developer: Unlocking Power with Code

Become a WordPress Developer: Unlocking Power with Code is another amazing Udemy course we highly recommend. This course takes you through all the essentials of WordPress development, covering topics like getting started with PHP, WordPress specific PHP, working with the WordPress Rest API, creating custom posts types, and a lot more. It even helps you speed up the development process by providing workflow and automation suggestions. This is perhaps the most comprehensive course in our list, so if you’re going to choose only one, we suggest this is the one you go with.

The full price of the Become a WordPress Developer: Unlocking Power With Code course is $199.99. But as we already mentioned, Udemy courses are often offered on sale, and if you’re lucky you can get access to this course for just $10.99.

Bonus Resource: The WordPress Codex

If you plan on becoming a WordPress developer, you’ll be referring to the WordPress Codex a lot. So it’s better you get acquainted with it as soon as possible. The Codex is essentially the official WordPress documentation. It covers everything there is to know about WordPress, including all its APIs, hooks, functions, global variables and more. It offers best coding practices, as well as guides on using WordPress and developing for the platform. It even has a set of lessons for beginners and intermediaries, as well as troubleshooting tips and design guides.

An in-depth knowledge of the WordPress Codex is really the closest you can get to official WordPress certification. I mean, if you can refer to Codex pages from memory alone, there’s no one alive who’ll have the guts to deny you’re a top level WordPress developer. But the Codex is so well organized that there’s no need to learn it by heart. You just need to get to know it well enough so you can find whatever information you need quickly.

There you have it: our list of top WordPress certifications for developers and freelancers. And while we’re aware that none of these are official certifications, they’re probably the closest you can get to becoming a genuine, accredited WordPress professional. So get going, choose a course and start working your way toward WordPress mastery today. Good luck!