Two New Blogging U. Courses Available On Demand
Learn to make the most of free WordPress.com customizing options, or plan and build your business website.
Ready to dig deeper into the nuts and bolts of your WordPress.com site? We’ve got two new Blogging U. courses on demand to help you do just that.
Build a Business Site
Build a Business Site is a brand-new, ten-day course that helps you plan, build, and promote your business website. We’ll help you define your site’s raison d’être and plan content, choose the theme that fits your brand, and examine whether blogging can help boost your business. Along the way, we’ll cover specifics like pages and menus, domain mapping, widgets, using social networks to promote your site, and SEO.
Intermediate Customization
This ten-day course takes you in-depth into the free customization options available to all WordPress.com members. Find and understand your theme’s details. Delve into how headers and titles are displayed, and create a totally unique custom header. Coordinate your background, get comfortable with widgets — including custom widgets and widget visibility — and learn basic HTML for even finer control over how your content displays.
Not what you need right now? There are five other courses available as well:
- Blogging: Learning the Fundamentals — a solid grounding in publishing, customizing your blog, and engaging with the blogging community.
- Blogging: Commenting Basics — a short course to get comfortable with commenting and commenting etiquette.
- Blogging: Branding and Growth — audit your brand, analyze your stats, explore social networks, and more in this intermediate-level course.
- Writing: Intro to Poetry — find your inner Dickinson with daily poetry prompts, and learn basic poetic forms and devices.
- Writing: Finding Everyday Inspiration — a longer course to spark a daily writing practice and the new post ideas all around you.
Ready to start? Head to the course that interests you, and click the “Start course” button!
FAQs
What is Blogging U?
Blogging U. is a collection of self-guided courses to help you get the most out of your WordPress.com site. Courses give you a daily assignment or writing prompt, along with the technical help you need to complete the task and insider advice from both our editors and the wider blogging community; each course has a handy resource page collecting everything in one place for you to refer back to whenever you’d like. Publish new posts using the course’s tag — don’t worry, we’ll tell you how! — and you’ll be able to connect with others working through the same course for support, feedback, and friendship.
How do I start a course?
Visit the page for the course you’re interested in and click the “Start” button — that’s it! If you’re logged in to WordPress.com, you’ll receive an introductory email right away, and your first assignment a few minutes later. If you’re not logged in, we’ll prompt you to do so, and then you’re off and running.
What if I want to stop?
No problem — every email you’ll receive includes an unsubscribe link at the bottom. Click it, and the course stops.
This won’t affect any of your other WordPress.com emails, like notifications. And if you want to give the course another try, you can restart it.
How many courses can I take? Can I take them more than once?
As many as you’d like, as many times as you’d like. We recommend taking one course at a time, but you’re free to take multiple courses simultaneously.
What if I need assistance during the course?
Every assignment includes expert advice from our staff as well as links to resources and to our support folks. We also encourage you to use the tag for your course when publishing posts, and to browse that tag in the Reader to find and connect with other bloggers.
What if I don’t blog on WordPress.com?
All general assignments (publishing posts, customizing your blog, leaving comments, etc.) are applicable to any blog, anywhere. However, you’ll need to have a WordPress.com account to register for a Blogging U. course, and any specific how-to guidance we offer will be specific to WordPress.com.
How much does each course cost?
Nothing. Blogging U. courses have always been free, and still are.
Ready to register? Head to the Blogging U. home page to get started!
- June 20, 2016
- Better Blogging, Customization, WordPress.com
WordPress.com News 
I am a new blogger and very much appreciate all the support provided by WordPress!
LikeLiked by 11 people
Great idea. What is cost?
LikeLiked by 4 people
Blogging U. courses are all free 🙂
LikeLiked by 10 people
I am still very new to blogging, at least, when it comes to doing so for a business. This could prove to be a great asset in business endeavors! I am looking forward to these courses.
LikeLiked by 8 people
This is perfect timing. I’m setting up a business-style website for a work project and would really welcome the help!
LikeLiked by 6 people
Good luck!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks!
LikeLiked by 4 people
Actually Michelle, can I ask a question? I’ve created a test site which doesn’t have the “real” domain name (we’ve purchased one). We also haven’t paid for the premium plan yet, and we will do that. Is it best to delete the site and start fresh or is it easy to port it all over to a new domain name?
LikeLiked by 4 people
You can either add the domain to the test site when you’re ready for that, or export the content from the test site and import it to the new site. Adding the domain to the test site seems the simplest.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Ok thank you so much!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love that you are doing a business website course. I have been thinking of moving my business site to WordPress after using this platform for my personal blog for the past 5 years.
LikeLiked by 5 people
The courses I have taken have been very helpful- thank you for offering these new ones!
LikeLiked by 4 people
I am a writer, who has never really blogged. Thank you for offering these free courses.
LikeLiked by 4 people
I am ready to learn something new. I really like the idea of blogging.
LikeLiked by 5 people
Thank you so much for offering these courses. I am an inconsistent blogger and lack confidence in getting out there, but with your guidelines and helpful courses, I can see I have nothing to worry about. I will endeavour to participate in some of these courses. Your generosity is appreciated and I send your newsletters on to many people in case they are interested. Cheers. Chris
LikeLiked by 6 people
WoW! What an awesome resource! I have a Wix blog I have started, in addition to my wordpress blog. Sounds like I could use the knowledge at my non wordpress blog as well. Correct?
LikeLiked by 6 people
The step-by-step instructions will be aimed at people using WordPress.com, but the general assignments are applicable to blogs and sites anywhere.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Great idea! I just started my own blog, took me a few hours to set it up. This is a brilliant plan for the people who are and will start a website!
LikeLiked by 3 people
When will my course start?
LikeLiked by 5 people
You’ll get a welcome email as soon as you click “Start course,” and the first assignment 10 minutes after that.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Oh! But I didn’t receive any email
LikeLiked by 2 people
Can you check your spam folder, as well as the Social and Promotion folders in Gmail? Gmail sometimes likes to send them to the alternate folders.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I got it thanks a lot for your help!😊
LikeLiked by 2 people
I miss the community, giving and receiving feedback. Is there a way to bring that back?
LikeLiked by 3 people
We encourage you to use the course tags to find other participants so you can comment directly on one another’s sites, as well as to use spaces like the Community Pool (https://wordpress.com/dailypost/category/community-pool/) to give/get feedback.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks. Do you know what the business course tag is?
LikeLiked by 3 people
You can use #businessbasics, but since that course doesn’t really involve publishing posts, don’t be surprised if you don’t see much activity on the tag — make use of the Community Pool if it helps; it’s not just for bloggers!
LikeLiked by 1 person
One problem with community pool. My comments never show up 😦
LikeLiked by 1 person
When you’re posting for feedback, be aware that posts with lots of links get held for moderation, as that’s often a sign of spam; we manually approve these, so they don’t appear instantly. Otherwise, I see lots of responses from you in both the Pool and on First Friday, yay!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Awesome. Thanks for the nice courses.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Hi Michelle,
Started working on my first assignment. Do we send these back to you or keep them to ourselves.
LikeLiked by 4 people
No need to send anything back to us; these are self-guided, so you work through things on your own.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for continuing to support with these learning tool lets see how eye do this time. xoxox
LikeLiked by 4 people
Thanks for the courses. Awesome.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Excited to be partaking in another Blogging U course & meeting new people at the pool!
LikeLiked by 5 people
Hi Michelle,
Here is my question. I already have a blog and would like to design a static website showcasing selected works. Eventually I would like a domain name for the latter. However, can I start building it without a domain name and work on it offline until I’m ready to launch it?
LikeLiked by 4 people
Sure — you can create a new site and set it to be completely private while you work on it. When you’re ready to launch, you’ll change the privacy settings to make it public. You can add a domain to it while it’s still private, or when you’re ready to launch; either way’s fine. Here’s the detail on privacy settings:
https://wordpress.com/support/settings/privacy-settings/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great! Exactly what I needed!
LikeLiked by 4 people
Thanks. So to create my private website can I just do by going to switch site on my blog and clicking on add new wordpress? Or would your recommend starting from scratch elsewhere?
LikeLiked by 3 people
Yes — click add new WordPress to create the new site here, and then it to be private.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks!! Done! That was easy. This would be the site I would eventually get a domain name for, but I would want to keep my original blog with wordpress.com. Changes on this site would not affect my blog right? Sorry about all the questions, I just want to make sure I don’t lose all the work on “The Drawing Page”. Thanks for all your patience.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It’s a totally separate site — the same WordPress.com account, but two separate sites that don’t impact one another. Change away 🙂
LikeLiked by 3 people
Great ! Tell Me how to build my new Business Site.
LikeLiked by 5 people
You can start the course at any time; just visit the course page to get going!
LikeLiked by 3 people