7 WordPress Blogs You Should Be Reading

There will come a time when designing a website that you’ll have to walk away. After all the initial site maps, programming and graphic creation, you’ll be handing the keys over to the client to let them take it for a spin. If you’ve done your job right, you’ll still be part of the team, but it will be less about day-to-day development and more about ongoing maintenance.

Setting up a blog on your client’s website will be a marketable asset. In order to ensure that client is happy, you want to make the blog easy to maintain. That’s where WordPress comes in. What Facebook is to social media, WordPress is to blogging. To maintain its dominance, WordPress needs to continue innovating. It’s a lot to keep track of. Need to stay in the WordPress loop? Bookmark these seven WordPress centric blogs:

1. WPBeginner

As with all things in life, it is best to start at the beginning when learning about WordPress. Welcome to the aptly titled WPBeginner. This is a site chock full of WordPress tutorials that can turn a novice blogger into a pro in no time at all. It takes the non-techy approach with providing answers to the FAQS.

The founder of this site first came across WordPress back in 2006 when he was looking to set up his own blog. Syed Balkhi bought into WordPress and uses it exclusively for all of his clients. That gives him some terrific, real-world experience that he is happy to share with visitors.

2. ManageWP

One WordPress site is great. Two or more is super awesome. How can you control all of that WordPress action? The ManageWP blog can show you the way. It claims to be the world’s “first and finest WordPress management console.” This enables users to monitor, backup, manage and deploy their WordPress blogs across many platforms. ManageWP is selling peace of mind when it comes to optimizing your WordPress experience. You can’t put a price on that.

3. WPKube

WPKube is another smart and easy-to-navigate tutorial site, with such current topics as “How to Choose the Best WordPress Hosting for Your New Website” and “Getting Started With Google Analytics in Your WordPress Site.” It also promises not to “get pushy with product promotions or create spammy and useless information.” The WPKube hustlers are made up of WP enthusiasts from all over the globe. It’s always nice to get a fresh perspective.

4. WPExplorer

If you’re looking for a fresh sampling of themes, plugins and WP articles, then WPExplorer is just the ticket to learning more with WordPress blogs. It’s constantly adding new themes almost as quickly as they are generated by WordPress. These theme breakdowns help you decide if this is the best template for your blog by walking you through the entire setup. This robust blog also puts up posts about creating questionnaires and building out a nonprofit website.

5. WPMU Dev

Is there every too much of a good thing? Not when it comes to WordPress blogging. WPMU Dev Blog has an online library of more than 4,000 articles on every WordPress topic you can think of. That is a pretty tall order, but one it seems to be able to deliver on. Take note that that is a membership type of blog. Before you get too deep, you’ll have to give up an email address. Small price to pay for all the information you’ll get.

6. Elegant Themes

As you might have inferred from the title, the Elegant Themes is another WordPress blog all about elegant themes. Here’s how they explain things: “Elegant Themes isn’t just a company, it’s a community, and we cling to the community-centric values that have guided us over the past six years. We love WordPress, we love Open Source and most of all, we love building great things for our amazing customers.” Elegantly said.

7. Envato

The plus in Envato might refer to the wide range of marketing resources available to members who sign up at the site. It is positioned as a one-stop shop for WordPress tutorials, business marketing help, website hosting and design. It will even show you how to make a video from your iPhone. These are all things you can use with a WordPress blog as the foundation of a site.

Just because you’ve gone through school or earned a few certifications doesn’t mean the learning is over. The web is constantly changing, and as a web designer, you are expected to stay ahead of the curve. Your clients will expect you to be up to date on the latest developments in your industry. That will mean dedicating time to learning on your own with these WordPress blogs. The best way to stay ahead of the competition is to keep your skills sharp.

Check out the other lists of blogs for designers here on Designerly:

7 Design Blogs You Should Be Reading
7 Print Design Blogs You Should Be Reading