# GD Skills — Online Course Platform on WordPress

> GD Skills is GraphyD's online academy, selling paid courses such as graphic design, content writing and script writing to students across Pakistan. I built the whole site on WordPress with a BuddyBoss child theme, Elementor pages and WooCommerce checkout, covering course listings, student accounts, payments and reviews.

- Author: Sami Ullah (https://samiullah.tech/about)
- Type: Built while at GraphyD
- Role: Full build
- Stack: WordPress, BuddyBoss, Elementor, WooCommerce, PHP
- Year: n/a
- Updated: 2026-11-15
- Canonical: https://samiullah.tech/work/gd-skills-lms
- Live: https://gdskills.pk/

## Overview

GD Skills is the learning arm of GraphyD. It sells short online courses, mostly taught in Urdu, in skills people can earn from: graphic design, art and painting, content writing, script writing, mobile content creation and others. Each course has a fixed duration and price, and students register and pay on the site.

## My role

I built the site end to end on [WordPress](/skills/wordpress): theme setup, the course catalogue, registration and checkout, student accounts and all the marketing pages.

## The problem

GraphyD needed a site where a student can find a course, pay for it in Pakistani rupees and start learning, without the team handling every enrolment by hand over WhatsApp. It also had to build trust with new students, who are often paying for an online course for the first time.

## Approach & architecture

The site runs on the BuddyBoss theme through a child theme, so custom templates and styles survive theme updates. BuddyBoss gives the student-facing parts: profiles, course access and a community area.

WooCommerce handles course sales. Each course is a product, and a completed order gives the student access to it. Pages such as the home page and course landing pages are built with Elementor, so the GraphyD team can change text, prices and banners without a developer.

## Key challenges

**Trust for first-time buyers.** The home page carries proof that matters to this audience: a welcome video, recommendation videos from Pakistani influencers, a press mention, real student reviews, government registrations and the payment partners the site accepts.

**Bilingual course cards.** Course artwork mixes English titles with Urdu text, and the cards had to stay readable and consistent across a grid of courses on desktop and mobile.

**Keeping the team independent.** Using Elementor for page content and a child theme for code means the team edits content daily while custom code stays safe in one place.

## Tech stack

- **WordPress** — content management the GraphyD team already knew.
- **BuddyBoss (child theme)** — student profiles, course access and community features, customised without editing the parent theme.
- **WooCommerce** — course products, checkout and orders.
- **Elementor** — editable landing pages for the marketing team.
- **PHP** — child-theme templates and hooks.

## Results

GD Skills is live at [gdskills.pk](https://gdskills.pk/) and sells courses directly to students, with registration and payment on the site.

## Screenshots

<Figure src="/work/gd-skills-lms/cover.webp" alt="GD Skills home page hero with a laptop showing the GraphyD Skills logo" width="1600" height="900" caption="The GD Skills home page." />

<Figure src="/work/gd-skills-lms/full-page.webp" alt="Full GD Skills home page with course grid, influencer recommendations, press mention, student reviews and payment partners" width="1000" height="5002" caption="The full home page: courses, recommendations, reviews and registrations." />