Tips to Become a WordPress Developer to Achieve Success

Does becoming a WordPress developer sound difficult? It does in some way, but it can be learned easily if you understand how WordPress works and its technicalities. What you need is patience to learn more than what you already know. To help you get started with becoming a WordPress developer, let us discuss what it is, its roles, why you should become one, and the tips to become a successful WordPress developer.

What Is the Role of a WordPress Developer?

A WordPress developer is someone who works with the infrastructure and basic coding of the platform. The person must be an expert on the many aspects of WordPress to become the platform’s developer.

He or she can do the following:

• Enhances WordPress accessibility.
• Ensures that websites are properly maintained.
• Works with customers to make sure websites are built and designed according to client needs.
• Troubleshoots WordPress and develops codes for the platform.
• Builds and customizes themes and plugins for the platform

Why Become a WordPress Developer?

Aside from the fact that WordPress developers are in demand, there are various other reasons why this profession is beneficial for you:

• The new skills you will learn as a WordPress developer will be readily applicable to a wide range of niches and industries.
• The platform has a huge community of users who are willing to assist you with concerns about WordPress, providing you with the support you need.
• You can become a freelance WordPress developer where you can set your own schedule, work anywhere, and become your own boss.
• A WordPress developer salary is quite high, and it can become even higher if you are an expert developer and you manage to get the right niche.
• You want to build your own themes or plugins and use it to your own site or contribute to WordPress itself.

If you want to take advantage of the benefits mentioned above, you must be willing to learn and understand the mechanics of WordPress, you must have an interest in coding, and you must know your niche.

How to Become a WordPress Developer

1. Learn the Programming Languages of WordPress

The first thing you must know before becoming a WordPress developer is to learn the most important programming languages of the platform: JavaScript, CSS, HTML, and PHP.

• JavaScript is a dynamic type of programming language because web developers use it to create the website pages’ interactive elements.
• Cascading style sheets (CSS) dictates the style of a client’s website, its design, colour, fonts, and others.
• Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML) is like a foundational programming language for WordPress because it comprises web pages’ building blocks. It is made up of codes that tell how various aspects of a web page should show, like paragraph texts, page titles, and headings.
• Personal home page (PHP) is what forms the WordPress backbone. Web developers use this to access databases, encrypt data, auto-generate files, and others.

Enrolling into online courses about these programming languages is a good start.

2. Research More About WordPress

“Knowledge is power.” This is what this tip is all about.

You must learn as much as possible about WordPress because there is a lot you can do if you know more. What is great about researching about the platform is you have many resources you can read, such as:

• Make WordPress is a central hub for many WordPress testers, translators, designers, developers, and other contributors.
• WordPress Developer is a site to find guides about the many plugins and themes of the platform.
• WordPress Codex is an online manual for the platform where you can learn how to use WordPress, work with themes, and create a plugin.

3. Choose Your Niche

A WordPress developer must select a niche to focus on as well because the platform is consistently evolving, versatile, and broad. You can concentrate on developing a theme, plugin, or the platform’s core.

If you choose to develop a theme, a complete understanding of CSS and HTML is key here because you will deal with mostly graphic design. For plugins, you must become equipped with the knowledge about HTML and PHP since you will be handling tools for modifying WordPress.

If you focus on the platform’s core, the default files that compose the back-end functionality of WordPress, you need to know several tasks like improving translations, addressing user inquiry tickets, and determining and resolving bugs.

4. Expect Challenges

Regardless of the niche you choose, there will always be situations where you will encounter problems. The good side of this though is to address the problems and provide solutions to them immediately.

System bugs, for example, are a common and major issue, and knowing some debugging practices is important to this. Security issues are another common problem, so you must be familiar with the WordPress developer security practices to resolve this.

Backing up your files for your development projects is a safe way to prevent losing work hours and placing client information at risk.

5. Set Up a Local Development Workplace

If you are developing a theme or a plugin, it is best to do the creation and testing locally. This makes sure troubleshooting and testing will not go live and affect a client website.

You might need a server stack, which is a software that forms the operational infrastructure for your projects on your computer, and a code editor to start developing a WordPress feature.

6. Join Communities in WordPress

Although working and learning on your own is beneficial to gain more knowledge, it is also helpful to learn from others. Joining WordPress communities allows you to engage with other users of the platform who might know the answer to your WordPress developing issues.

It is a way of gaining access to additional development support, anticipating the platform’s trends, and enhancing your skill set. You can visit WordPress forums and check which communities will help you become a good developer.

Conclusion

Getting WordPress developer jobs is an interesting opportunity to gain more knowledge about the platform and to secure a job that is continuously in demand. If you are still confused on where to start, go back to the first tip, and see which programming language interests you more.

From there, you will have an idea of which niche you might want to focus on. The bottom line here is to understand what this profession is all about, its challenges, and its benefits to evaluate if this field is for you. If it is, then follow the tips mentioned above and work your way up to your success!