Ship real products with PHP, Laravel & WordPress
A hands-on path through the language that still runs most of the web's backend and CMS work — modern PHP 8 and MySQL fundamentals, then Laravel for building application backends and APIs, then WordPress theme and plugin development through WooCommerce. It ends with a two-week capstone that wires a Laravel API into a WordPress-integrated front end and ships it.
Prerequisites & tooling
What you should already know
- Basic programming in any language — variables, functions, loops
- Comfortable with the command line and Git
- No prior PHP, Laravel or WordPress experience required
- PHP 8.3, Composer, MySQL/MariaDB and a code editor like VS Code installed
Stack you'll work with
The same tools behind a huge share of production PHP, e-commerce and CMS sites.
Your 32-week learning path
Twenty-eight modules, from your first PHP script through Laravel, WordPress and WooCommerce, to a two-week capstone that connects them and ships.
PHP Fundamentals & Local Dev Environment
Get PHP 8.3 running locally and write your first dynamic pages.
- Variables, control flow, functions & PHP 8 syntax
- Local dev server, php.ini basics & Xdebug setup
- Embedding PHP in HTML & the request lifecycle
Arrays, Strings, Forms & Superglobals
Handle real user input safely with PHP's array and string toolkit.
- Indexed, associative & multidimensional arrays
- String functions, formatting & sanitization
$_GET,$_POST,$_SERVER& a real form handler
Object-Oriented PHP
Move from scripts to structured, reusable object-oriented code.
- Classes, properties, constructors & visibility
- Inheritance, interfaces & traits
- Namespaces & the PSR-4 autoloading convention
Composer, Autoloading & Error Handling
Adopt the dependency and error-handling tooling every modern PHP project uses.
- Composer,
composer.json& the vendor autoloader - Installing & using third-party packages from Packagist
- Exceptions,
try/catch/finally& custom exceptions
Sessions, Cookies & File I/O
Persist state across requests and work with the filesystem safely.
- Sessions, cookies & flash messages
- Reading, writing & uploading files securely
- Building a simple login-gated page with sessions
MySQL Fundamentals & Schema Design
Design a relational schema before you touch a line of PHP data code.
- Tables, keys, data types & normalization
SELECT/INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE& joins- Designing a schema for a real multi-table app
PDO, Prepared Statements & CRUD
Talk to MySQL from PHP the safe, modern way.
- PDO connections, prepared statements & bound parameters
- Building a CRUD data-access layer
- Transactions & handling database errors
Module Project: PHP + MySQL CRUD App & Security
Ship a secured, end-to-end CRUD application and lock in web security fundamentals.
- SQL injection, XSS & CSRF — causes and prevention
- Password hashing with
password_hash()/password_verify() - A complete PHP + MySQL project: auth, CRUD & validation
Laravel Setup, Routing & Blade
Meet the framework that runs a huge share of production PHP.
- Installing Laravel,
artisan& the project structure - Routes, route parameters & route model binding
- Blade templates, layouts & components
Controllers, Requests & Validation
Structure real request handling the Laravel way.
- Resource controllers & RESTful conventions
- The
Requestobject, input & file uploads - Validation rules, Form Requests & custom rules
Eloquent ORM: Models to Advanced Queries
Model your domain and query it fluently with Laravel's ORM.
- Models, migrations & Eloquent relationships
- The query builder, scopes & accessors/mutators
- Eager loading, N+1 queries & factories/seeders
Authentication & Authorization
Lock down a Laravel app with modern auth patterns.
- Laravel Breeze/Fortify & session-based auth
- Sanctum tokens for APIs & SPAs
- Gates, Policies & role-based authorization
Middleware, Form Requests & File Uploads
Control the request pipeline and handle real-world uploads.
- Writing & registering custom middleware
- Form Request classes for validation & authorization
- Storing & serving uploads with the
Storagefacade
Building REST APIs & Testing with Pest
Expose your app as an API and prove it works with a real test suite.
- API Resources, resource collections & versioning
- Sanctum token auth for a JSON API
- Feature & unit tests with Pest
Queues, Events & Laravel Capstone
Move slow work off the request cycle, then ship a full Laravel project.
- Queued jobs, workers & failed-job handling
- Events, listeners & notifications
- Module capstone: a deployed, multi-feature Laravel app
WordPress Fundamentals & wp-cli
Set up a proper local WordPress development workflow.
- Core concepts: posts, pages, themes & plugins
- Local WordPress with wp-cli & Local
- The WordPress database schema &
wp_tables
Theme Development I & II
Build a custom WordPress theme from the template hierarchy up.
- The template hierarchy & the Loop
- Custom Post Types & taxonomies
- Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) & template parts
Plugin Development I & II
Extend WordPress the right way — hooks, not core edits.
- Actions, filters & shortcodes
- Custom database tables &
$wpdb - Admin pages & the Settings API
WordPress REST API & Headless WordPress
Use WordPress as a content API for a decoupled frontend.
- The built-in REST API & custom endpoints
- Authentication for the REST API
- Headless WordPress with a JS frontend
WooCommerce Customization
Extend the platform behind a huge share of e-commerce sites.
- WooCommerce data model: products, orders & customers
- Hooking into the checkout & cart lifecycle
- Building a custom WooCommerce extension
WordPress Security & Performance
Harden and speed up a WordPress site the way agencies actually do.
- Hardening: nonces, capability checks & sanitization
- Caching layers & object caching with Redis
- Query optimization & asset performance
Cross-Stack PHP Security Deep Dive
Revisit security with the depth a production team expects.
- CSRF, XSS & SQL injection across raw PHP, Laravel & WordPress
- Secure session & cookie configuration
- Dependency vulnerabilities & security auditing tools
Caching & Performance
Keep a PHP application fast under real load.
- OPcache & PHP-FPM tuning
- Redis caching strategies & cache invalidation
- Database query optimization & indexing
Testing & CI
Build a safety net that runs before every deploy.
- PHPUnit fundamentals across plain PHP & Laravel
- GitHub Actions CI pipelines for PHP
- Static analysis with PHPStan/Larastan
Deployment: LAMP/LEMP & Docker
Package and ship PHP applications the way production teams do.
- LAMP/LEMP stack configuration & Nginx/PHP-FPM
- Dockerizing a Laravel application
- Deploying Laravel & WordPress to a VPS
Laravel + SPA Integration with Inertia.js
Bridge Laravel's backend with a modern JavaScript frontend.
- Inertia.js: server-driven SPAs without a separate API
- Laravel + Vue or React with Inertia
- Shared data, forms & validation across the bridge
Capstone: Laravel API + WordPress Integration
Apply the whole course in one project — a Laravel API powering a WordPress-integrated front end.
- Architect & build a Laravel API backend
- Integrate it with a WordPress site over REST
- Fully tested, secured & deployed
Portfolio & Career Prep
Package your work and prepare to talk about it in interviews.
- Building a portfolio site showcasing your capstone projects
- Common PHP/Laravel/WordPress interview questions
- Resume & LinkedIn positioning for PHP roles