Now that WordPress runs nearly 1/5 of the Internet, there are millions of website owners who need help on a regular basis. It doesn’t matter if you’re a rank amateur that knows nothing about posts, tags, and categories, or a dangerous coder trying to figure out how to widgitize a sidebar – at one time or another everybody needs some type of WP help. We’re going to walk through some of the most used WordPress resources and help communities online (get your bookmarks ready!).
Codex.WordPress.org
No WordPress resource list would be complete without mentioning the WordPress Codex itself. At one time, this was a scarier type of resource that only geeky coders dared venture into. Now that WordPress usage is so mainstream, you’ll find some great quick links right on the main page like Getting Started with WordPress, and WordPress Lessons. There are more individual pages than ever before, on topics such as creating and using posts, pages, upgrading, troubleshooting, installing, and more.
The traditional parts of the WP Codex are still there in full force, with detailed sectgions on theme development, writing a plugin, and more.
WordPress Official Support Forums
Sometimes the people confuse the Codex with the official WordPress.org support forums. Think of the Codex as more of an “owners manual” for WordPress, and the official suppport forums are more the community. This is where you can ask nearly anything about WordPress, from installation problems, to advanced things like plugins and hacks. You might even be able to find local WordPress meetups in your area. Then again, the Meetup.com WordPress page is great for that too.
Visit the WordPress Official Support Forums
WPBeginner.com
WPBeginner is a great place to start your WordPress journey. There are hundreds of tutorials, and (as the title says) many of them are for “beginners” and newbies. But don’t let the title fool you, there are code snippets and guides for answers to intermediate and advanced questions as well.
If you’re new, I recommend you check out the beginners guide to lear about categories, tags, gravatars, comments, trackbacks – there’s even a post for the 15 Most Frequently asked Questions by WordPress Beginners.
Stack Exchange
Stack exchange has only been around a couple years, but has quickly become a popular place to ask quick one off questions that often involve code and code snippets. StackExchange is a website with more than 80 Q&A sub-sections (mostly involving geeky coding things), but the WordPress section is definitely thriving. It’s popularity is probably due to the fact that it’s dead simple easy to use, and questions (usually) actually get answers.
Stack Overflow
Stack overflow looks quite a bit like Stack Exchange, but the difference is rather than having dozens of targeted subsites, all the questions are posted to the main page (and sorted by tag). Most questions get decent answers – and there’s a lot of code snippets.
WP snippets
If you’re a little dangerous with code (or even a hardcore coder), little code snippets can be just the solution or timesaver you need. Last year by accident I found his great little website called “wp-snippets” that does just that. It only does one thing, and it does it well. You go to the homepage and search for or click on a snippet, and you get the code and instructions on how to implement it. If you’re curious – you can spend hours here just looking at code snippets saying “oh boy, that’s how you do that…”
WP Hacks
As the title implies, the posts and articles at WP Hacks are for, well – hacking WordPress. You’ll find lots of code snippets, explanations, examples, and plugin and theme reviews here. We’ve contributed a few articles over the years to this website, and Kyle Eslick does a great job of providing a generous amount of completely free WordPress information.
WP Recipes
At WP Recipes you’ll find some of the best tutorials and articles around. Jean-Baptiste Jung has quite the knack for writing posts that quickly fulfill a need, like – well, a “recipe”. More often that not I read the posts here and come away with “wow, I didn’t know you could do that…”.
Pro Blog Design
Mike Martin has been running the Pro Blog Design blog for quite a few years, and he has really set the bar high for quality content. Most of the posts revolve around WordPress, many are about code. Expect to learn something every time you walk away from this website.
Honkiat
Hongkiat as has lots of quality WordPress posts and articles. Many revolve around lists of items, like best themes, best plugins, top error messages, best plugins for this or that, etc. Many are just great tips, like the one we found the other day on How to split large XML files for WordPress import. Sometimes you’ll find code snippets and solutions here as well.
Lorelle on WordPress
Lorelle on WordPress is the only WordPress website on this list hosted at WordPress.com (not self-hosted). Lorelle has been blogging about Wordpres since – well, since WordPress started nearly. There are all kinds of useful and insightful posts about blogging and WordPress here. She’s written the book “Blogging Tips”, and spoken at dozens (if not hundreds) of WordCamps and WordPress meetups over the years. Lorelle is, without a doubt, one of the most well respected and recognizable WordPress bloggers online.
WP Hub
WP Hub is one of the newer web sites on this list – but I can’t leave them out because of have such great tutorials. I’m a big fan of “posts with meat” – and I hate overview content with no real value. Like this great lengthy article on “Making a custom comments section for WordPress. It’s a no-nonsense, “here’s the code and this is how you do it – get your hands dirty” type of article. You’ll see most of the articles there are like that.
Speckyboy
Speckyboy has been a great web design resource for years, and they post a lot of WordPress related content. The link above is to their posts categorized under “WordPress”. Many posts are resource lists and “best of” top 10 type lists, but many are coding and tips that are really helpful. They do really go from basic knowledge to advanced as well (a little something for everyone). Things like How to create a WordPress header template, to more basic posts like How to create a MySQL database in cpanel.
Digging into WordPress
Chris Coyier and Jeff Star put out a book a few years back called “Digging into WordPress” that was (and still is) very popular. They started blogging WordPress tips to promote the book (in the beginning), and the rest is history. Today this is one of the most popular WordPress resource sites online. From newbies to advanced WP users – everyone can learn something here, they always have great refreshing content.
WP Engineer.com
Although the posts haven’t been as proliferant in 2012 as they once were, WP Engineer is still a great resource site – with most than 550 posts of WordPress tips and tricks. If you’re looking for something specific, it might be best to search the site, but browsing the archives can make you easily lose a few hours. Loads of great content here.
Conclusion
Still hungry for more? We tried to give you a list of the (still) greatest WP resources websites online. Each year, sites come and go – but if you’re on the hunt for even more content check out this list of 100 WordPress related blogs. Even that list has changed since it was published just a few short months ago – but at you can use it as a reference for new places to check out for sure!
What are your favorite WordPress resource and help websites?
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