Try our Website Mastery Course

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Introducing: WordPress Website Mastery

This detailed, 16 hour course equips you with the necessary skills to earn a better living as a WordPress developer. It is designed to help you double your earning potential with topics like finding and interviewing clients, creating a proposal, building custom WordPress themes, and more!

The complete course contains 16 hours of exclusive training content plus downloadable templates for creating your own proposals, contracts, and pre-launch checklists.

The course is broken into multiple lessons to make it more digestible. You will get immediate access to everything so you can move through the material at your own pace.

Normally this course is an exclusive bonus for Annual Members here on WPSessions for $299/year. Before that it was delivered hands-on to a small cohort of students at $3,000 each.

But today you could buy it for a single payment of $49!

Collection of still images from the course videos.

Double your earning potential...

The average reported income increase – the average – from people who have learned web development is double what they were earning before.

I can personally attest to this, as this same doubling effect happened to me, and I can teach you the skills that I have earned over my career. What’s more, I can teach you how to learn and adapt so that the training you receive now doesn’t leave you with a dated skill-set down the road.

Techniques + Practical Application

I’m not just feeding you basic how-tos and tips and tricks – I’m here to show you how to earn a living building WordPress sites as a career. We will leverage real-world examples and experience in order to best shape your understanding of the entire site-building process.

All of the lessons in this collection will help you understand both the how and the why of web development. You’ll learn the skills you need and how to put them into practice with clients while gaining insight into my professional process and workflow.

A unique opportunity

For years, before launching WPSessions, I provided private training for my close friends to become web developers.

Now I’ve bundled the lessons I taught them – that I used to build my own career and help their careers flourish – into this self-paced course for you.

Hiring me privately to provide the same amount of training included in WordPress Website Mastery could easily exceed $4,000 (16 hours at $250/hr). Instead, I’m giving you an opportunity to invest in yourself for a single payment of $49.

Portrait of Brian Richards using a laptop To your success,

— Brian Richards

You’re not just learning the newest technology stack or technique.

You're getting a comprehensive, tailored education that equips you with both the skills and experience needed to succeed and profit.

What You'll Learn

WordPress has a famous “5-minute install”, but what else is involved in the setup process? This introductory set of lessons walks you through common WordPress configurations, simple recipes you can follow to get a site off the ground quickly.

Getting to know the vocabulary
Hosting, Domains, and DNS
Installing WordPress
Important Settings
User Roles
Post Types
Taxonomies
Themes & Plugins

With a firm grasp on how a site should be structured, the next most obvious component is how a website looks. An entire industry has boomed from the very concept of “Premium WordPress Themes” and by the end of this course you’ll understand why. In this section I’ll walk you through the components of a theme, basic templating concepts, common template tags, and overall file structure.

Comparing Theme Shops
Exploring theme structure
Common Template Tags
Understanding Template Hierarchy
Parent & Child Themes

Now that we understand what makes a theme tick it’s time to dive a little further under the hood. Here’s where we take a client-provided design and turn it into a real, working WordPress Theme. I’ll teach you the very techniques I use whenever I’m creating a custom WordPress Theme, along with some time-saving tips to get you moving faster.

Unpacking the _s Starter Theme
Intro to CSS
Exploring Stylesheets
Create a custom Page Template
Bring your designs to life
Designing for Content and User Experience

There are literally thousands of plugins available for WordPress. I'm going to teach you the criteria that I use in order to evaluate which plugins are worth the investment.

I'll also share the categories of plugins you'll probably need from project to project and the specific set of plugins I personally use.

Plugin Buying Guide
Contact Forms
Backups
Security
SEO

Just because you can build WordPress sites does not mean you’ll see an immediate avalanche of clients – but it does mean you are now able to serve an enormous client base.

Let’s talk about where to find your clients, how to vet them (to weed out the bad eggs), and how to get the right paperwork signed so you can get paid.

Building a network
Finding clients
Interviewing & Educating clients
Writing a Proposal
Getting Paid

In this section we'll look at the proper way to evaluate web hosts and select the right one for your client's project (no two hosts are the same, but they're more similar than you may think).

We'll also step through all the essential actions you should perform before launching any site with a customizable template that you can make all your own.

Comparing Web Hosts
Pre-launch Checklist
Deploying the Site

Plus, enjoy these incredible bonuses at no extra cost!

In addition to 15 hours of training and instruction, you’ll also get immediate access to these 6 bonuses when you buy the course today.

Illustration of 2 hands holding 2 proposals

Two Sample Project Proposals

$99 Value

Both of the sample proposals are real documents I’ve used to land real projects. I last used one of these for a $10k project and the other for a $30k project and won both of them.

Both versions include placeholder values that are easy to find/replace (e.g. “[CLIENT NAME]”), important copy that appears in all of my proposals, plus a few project-specific examples so you can see how these work in real-world use.

Illustration of a contract on a computer monitor

Project Contract Template

$39 Value

The sample contract is one that I have used quite a few times and, in a pinch, is still my go-to for short-order projects. The language is straight-forward and a bit light-hearted.

It includes no cryptic legal-ease but is just as legally binding as anything else with the added benefit of being written in plain, clear English for real human beings.

Illustration of an approved statement of work

Statement of Work (SOW) Template

$49 Value

The sample Statement of Work, alongside your signed contract, will become your best friend mid-project when you have to politely explain what is “in scope” and what you are “happy to add to the project with a signed change order”.

With this it will be very clear to you and your client exactly what they are (and are NOT) paying for, their obligations to maintain the timeline, and more.

Illustration of multiple devices in a checklist

The Website Launch Checklist

$29 Value

All of the items in this website launch checklist are not applicable to every website. Similarly, many websites will require more and more specific items than are covered in the list (but don't worry, we have space for those, too).

Think of this as a tool you can use to systematically build and then verify your projects before launch and then confidently tell your client the job is complete!

Customizable Rate Calculator
(and instructional video)

$49 Value

This rate calculator may be the most valuable part of the entire course in terms of absolute dollars generated!

The calculator, and accompanying instructional video, are designed to fundamentally change how you think about your time and improve your understanding around what it costs to deliver your projects.

Yes! I want this course (and the $265 of bonuses) for a single payment of $49.00

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At the risk of sounding cliche, learning to build websites with WordPress changed my life. Faster than I thought possible, I went from a part-time job I was unhappy with to freelancing full time. There’s no faster or better way to learn than from someone who has "been there, done that" and can light the path for you. Jarrod Pyper Freelance Developer

After receiving this invaluable mentoring and building sites for clients on a freelance basis to refine my new skill set, I was able to quit my day job and land a great career working at a well known web development agency. I HIGHLY recommend this to anyone interested in web development who wants to spend their days doing something they love. Kellen Mace Developer Relations, WP Engine

You really can do this!

It is not too technical for you.

This is an intermediate course, so I’ve made the assumption that you’re at least familiar with what WordPress is and how to use it (if you’re not, I recommend visiting WP101.com). Beyond that, I assume you’ve never opened a code editor and don’t know even the first thing about what goes into the actual development side of web development.

We will be covering development topics and we will cover them sufficiently enough that you’ll be able to create your very own custom WordPress theme from scratch, but we will approach everything (the development, the client vetting, the contract writing) from the perspective that you’re doing it all for the very first time ever. No one should feel out of place or behind when they enter into (and ultimately complete) this training.

You are definitely smart enough.

Dedication and perseverance win over inexperience every. single. time. If you’re worried that you don’t have the tech smarts well, guess what, neither did anyone else in this field before they started. If you commit to finishing your lessons and putting forth an effort you will complete this collection and jump-start your career with WordPress.

All of our training is intentionally designed to be easy-to-follow. Each step is thoughtfully explained and immediately useful.

You are not too old.

Do you know how old some of the smartest computer programmers in the world are? Well-beyond their 60s! Yes, there are many young people entering and driving the technology field, but this isn’t a playground built exclusively for them.

If you’re still breathing; if you have a passion for learning and a drive for success; if you can use a computer to navigate to this page, and you’re reading this right now: you can benefit from these lessons.

You do have time to learn new skills.

Yes, this collection provides multiple hours of video content, and it’s all broken into bite-size chunks so that you can spend as little as 30 minutes of your day picking up the next lesson. And if you did apply 30 minutes a day, per business day, you could complete the entire course and be ready to launch your first site after 6 weeks.

How much time did you spend reading this page to make it this far? You could have already advanced to the next lesson in that amount of time 🙂

You’re not going it alone.

WPSessions is here to encourage you, guide you, and help you succeed. Not only that, but WordPress is backed by a vibrant community of supporters and volunteers. Every quality WordPress-focused group and individual (from agencies, to service providers, to theme and plugin developers, and beyond) made it where they are with the help of this same amazing community. You’ll be surprised by how many people are ready to jump in and help!

You're accepting zero risk by starting today.

This course comes with a 100% money-back guarantee.

If you're unsatisfied with anything in the first 14 days, anything at all – the content, the pacing, even the color scheme of the website – you can request a prompt, full refund via the contact page.

You don't need to provide any justification, though I still hope you'll share critical feedback so things can improve.

And if you do request a refund, you'll join a tiny minority of customers who have requested a refund (under 1% across the entire lifetime of WPSessions).

Only want the free guide?

No problem! You can skip this offer and move right along to the guide.

Read the "Top 7 Tools" Guide →