The best courses to learn how to build websites

So you want to create a website. Congratulations! You have joined millions of people who have also chosen to start a business or just a casual online destination on the World Wide Web. Fortunately, there are many options available for building a website, from no-code website builders to more complex web hosting services that require you to edit code and files manually. The former offers the benefit of ease of use, while the latter gives you the flexibility to create a website however you want.

One of the easiest ways to learn how to create a website is to enroll in an online video course. Two of our most popular video repositories are LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) and Udemy, websites that offer thousands of lectures and lecturers that can help you get started with website building.

Of course, the in-depth lectures and resource materials of these courses come with a price tag. For example, LinkedIn Learning charges $29.99 per month (or $19.99 per month with an annual subscription) for all-you-can-eat access. Udemy, on the other hand, charges a fee per lesson (the price is set by the instructor). If you’re looking for a single, in-depth course that you can pick up or finish over weeks (or months!), Udemy’s one-time purchases might be a better choice. On the other hand, if you want to explore a lot of courses, LinkedIn Learning might be faster for you with its monthly fee for unlimited video viewing.

We’ve selected some of our favorite website building videos to get you started on your journey. You can find courses that offer both general instruction and hyper-focused content. What’s more, they all have at least some beginner’s guides to gently get you started creating your own websites. Whichever video you choose, you’ll also receive transcripts and practice files to keep you busy, and a certificate of completion when you’re done with the course.

Ready to start? Let’s go.

How to create your own website

Price: $199
Instructor: Bryan Guerra
Skill Level: Beginner
Lectures: 17
Total time: 3 hours

If you want to learn the basics of website building, this course is an excellent beginner’s tutorial. It has six top-level sections designed to get you started quickly with a website builder. Teacher Bryan Guerra uses Wix in his classes.

With instructions on how to create your own website(Opens in a new window)Learn the importance of putting important information above the fold, the benefits of buying your own domain and owning branded email addresses, and other website-related concepts.

My only criticism of Guerra’s otherwise competent teaching? He suggests searching Google for photos for your website. This could lead to legal problems. Luckily, he also mentions that you can access Wix’s built-in image library to compile website photos.

WordPress for beginners

Price: $194
Instructor: Andrew Williams
Skill Level: Beginner
Lectures: 90
Total time: 8.5 hours

WordPress: It is considered the world’s most popular content management system as the free, open-source software is estimated to power more than 30 percent of the World Wide Web. WordPress’ ease of use and wonderful theme and plugin ecosystem make its mass adoption quite understandable. In fact, CNN, TED, and CBSRadio are just three of the many well-known websites that use WordPress in the backend.

WordPress for beginners(Opens in a new window) is exactly what the SEO-friendly title suggests: basic but thorough WordPress lessons. Instructor Andrew Williams explains the differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org, posts and pages, and a static page versus a blog-style home page. The videos really underscore the robust functionality of the CMS.

Joomla for beginners

Price: $94.99
Instructor: Manuj Aggarwal
Skill Level: Beginner
Lectures: 33
Total time: 3 hours and 21 minutes

Joomla, an open-source content management system, may not be as popular as WordPress, but it’s a good alternative to this popular CMS. Like WordPress, Joomla has thousands of free themes and extensions to help you design your website.

Joomla for beginners(Opens in a new window) Instructor Manuj Aggarwal demonstrates how to install Joomla on a server using a web host’s file manager, explains the advantages of using Joomla instead of building a website from scratch, and provides quizzes between segments to explore techniques for building home to test sites. If you are a Joomla newbie, this is a great place to get acquainted with the CMS.

PHP for Beginners – Become a PHP Master – CMS Project

Price: $199
Instructor: Edwin Diaz
Skill Level: All
Lectures: 343
Total time: 37 hours and 45 minutes

Edwin Diaz’s in-depth 343-part PHP for beginners(Opens in a new window) teaches the ins and outs of the PHP web development language in an easy-to-learn way. You’ll learn how to use databases, object-oriented programming, and other PHP-related topics as you progress from basic understanding to more advanced ideas.

The guide, combined with the resources and practice files, shows you how to create a content management system, use AJAX to send data to the server without refreshing the page, debug code, and use an API to import data from a database to a transfer graphical interface and other tasks.

The Complete JavaScript Course 2019: Create Real Projects!

Price: $199
Lecturer: Jonas Schmedtmann
Skill Level: Beginner
Lectures: 165
Total time: 27 hours and 53 minutes

Jonas Schmedtmann teaches how JavaScript works in a mix of theory and practical exercises. The 165 lectures cover a wide range of JavaScript topics, including variables, data types, and arrays.

With complete JavaScript course 2019(Opens in a new window)learn how to use Brackets.io – an open source text editor – to write code. Additionally, the included resource files contain start and end code for you to tinker with as you learn. As part of the tutorial, you’ll code a simple game that uses JavaScript to interact with HTML in a web browser environment.

Build responsive websites for the real world with HTML5 and CSS3

Price: $199
Lecturer: Jonas Schmedtmann
Skill Level: All
Lectures: 78
Total time: 12 hours and 25 minutes

Instructor Jonas Schmedtann strikes again! Build responsive websites for the real world with HTML5 and CSS3(Opens in a new window)learn the HTML5 and CSS3 programming languages (as well as a little bit of jQuery) to create websites that are both attractive and functional.

However, the course covers more than just programming; You’ll also learn the basics of web design and how to implement cool visual effects. Schmedtmann encloses his e-book, Best resources for web design and development using HTML5 and CSS3which provides valuable additional material.

Email Marketing 2018: Create a Custom Business Email Address

Price: $19.99
Lecturer: Stephen McKinney
Skill Level: All
Lectures: 5th
Total time: 31 minutes

Although Slack, Workplace by Facebook and other communication tools are making inroads into the work environment, email is still an important part of business. After all, it’s one of the easiest ways to ask a question, send a file, or leave a friendly hello.

Email Marketing 2018: Create a Custom Business Email Address(Opens in a new window) highlights this importance and guides you step-by-step through the process of creating business emails. Instructor Stephen McKinney shows how to use Namecheap to create a custom business email address, sign up for a website hosting plan, and then connect the two using the required CNAME and MX records.

This course also highlights the differences between .com, .net and other extensions, and discusses ICANN and Whois/WhoisGuard.

How to create a website for an online ecommerce store

Price: $119
Instructor: Clinton Gorman
Skill Level: All
Lectures: 66
Total time: 3 hours and 50 minutes

If you’re looking to set up an online store, here’s how to create a website for an online ecommerce store(Opens in a new window) is for you. This oddly named course focuses on Woocommerce, but many of the ideas presented here can be used with other ecommerce platforms as well.

Instructor Clinton Gorman teaches you how to find images for commercial use, create an eye-catching logo, master SEO, explore affiliate marketing, and set up payment gateways.

Learn SSL/TLS

Price: Included in the LinkedIn Learning plan for $29.99 per month (or $19.99 per month with an annual subscription).
Instructor: Daniel Lachance
Skill Level: Beginner
Lectures: 4th
Total time: 2 hours and 24 minutes

Learn SSL/TLS(Opens in a new window) is a course that gives you the skills you need to plan, implement, and manage Secure Socket Layer and Transport Layer Security certificates. If you are not familiar with these security protocols, here are the smallest ones: they are used to protect the data that is transmitted over websites, email, VPN and other network communications.

Instructor Daniel Lachance shows how SSL and TLS certificates are issued and managed, how digital signatures enable authentication, and other related topics.

Although this is an introduction to SSL and TLS, this course requires you to be familiar with TCP/IP, Microsoft Windows Server, Linux, web browser configuration, and web server configuration.

An ASP.Net

Price: Included in the LinkedIn Learning plan for $29.99 per month (or $19.99 per month with an annual subscription).
Instructor: Mike Benkovich
Skill Level: Beginner
Lectures: 8th
Total time: 2 hours and 25 minutes

An ASP.NET(Opens in a new window) makes building websites a pleasure using Model View Controller technology. Instructor Mike Benkovich conveys the essentials and explains how Model View Controllers work and how data is exchanged between them.

Although this is a beginner’s course, you will create an ASP.NET MVC-based project, implement JavaScript, and deploy Amazon Web Services over Azure.