The inconceivable prominence of WordPress has resulted in innumerable opportunities for becoming a WordPress developer. Regardless of whether you need to make valuable modules, weave dazzling themes, or improve the basic mechanisms of WordPress, you can break into the field of WordPress development with ease.
Just Googling “how to become a WordPress developer” will introduce a confounding cluster of ways to look over. To progress in your journey of becoming a WordPress developer, you’ll need to plan your learning systematically. This includes narrowing down your focus, recognizing your abilities, discovering a specialty, and continuously learning about new updates and dynamics.
Luckily, there are various communities out there willing and prepared to help you on your mission. In this article, we’ll share with you almost everything that will help you to become a WordPress developer.
Responsibilities of WordPress Developers
A WordPress developer is an expert who specializes in the WordPress platform’s infrastructure and ecosystem. They could work on upgrading the WordPress programs or developing new products, such as plugins and themes. They may also assist organizations in the creation, customization, and management of WordPress sites.
- Developing and/or maintaining plugins and themes
- Managing codes and troubleshooting issues in WordPress
- Designing, building, and maintaining the front-end and back-end of the websites for clients.
- Creating the structure of the websites
- Testing and Monitoring the performance of the websites
Reasons to Choose WordPress Development
Apart from the fact that WordPress developers are high in demand, there are a lot of other reasons that make WordPress development a lucrative career with some of them as follows:
- Being a WordPress developer will help you grab a high monthly salary and therefore, you will have a stable and good earning source
- You can be your boss by working as a freelance WordPress developer. Also, you’ll have the flexibility over your work timings, schedule, holidays, etc.
- You can join various online communities to get your queries related to WordPress development resolved within hours and work without any hurdles
- Your overall learning of working on WordPress will help you have an extra edge even if you opt to work in different technical niches or any other CMS
If you have an innovative mind, good coding skills, and an ability to sink yourself into the mechanics of the world’s most mainstream Content Management System (CMS), becoming the WordPress designer will merit your time and energy. It’s likewise worth considering in case you’re searching for a career that is ‘future-proof’.
How to Become a WordPress Developer: Step-by-step Guide
1. Get familiar with the basics
A WordPress developer is capable of developing themes, plugins, and complete websites from scratch. So, it is essential for them to have a strong knowledge of web technologies like HTML, CSS, JS, PHP, MYSQL, etc. Seems like you are confused and writing it for a WordPress user; WordPress development is a professional career. Improve your research skills and also first make sure that what you write stays in line with the topic.
2. HTML
The use of substantial Hyper-Text Markup Language (HTML) is needed for developing a WordPress website. It guarantees that your web pages will run perfectly on all the browsers. If your HTML isn’t legitimate, browsers will misconstrue your code and will show your pages ineffectively.
HTML5 is right now the most recent version of this markup language. It enjoys an upper hand over the previous versions due to its added features such as video and sound support, compatibility with JavaScript, wide range of components for the footer, header, track, etc. To write an ideal HTML code, you need to use the correct syntaxes, formulas for overall structuring, the order or HTML components, nesting elements, along formatting attributes.
3. CSS
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are utilized to style a web page and all its HTML elements. It decides how the HTML components appear on a screen. This template language empowers you to make critical style changes to your whole site. CSS has a component called Media Queries, which permits you to characterize how each piece of a page carries on the particular screen size. This element is quite possibly the main piece of making a responsive site.
CSS has a proper syntax that is composed of two components, selector and declaration block. Selector block is utilized to choose the piece of HTML you wish to style, while the declaration block characterizes the style you want to apply for a certain part.
4. PHP
PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is a server-side scripting language for developing websites. It works by performing assignments on the servers and then sending back requests as HTML. In simple words, PHP deals with the back-end, and HTML is utilized to introduce the after-effect of script execution. The WordPress core is based on PHP alongside MySQL.
5. MySQL
MySQL is a database service used for storing all the website data. The data inside the database is recovered with the help of SQL (Structured Query Language) and is injected dynamically in websites using PHP. The data of each page of a WordPress site is stored here.
WordPress gives a bunch of PHP features to securely connect with the WordPress database and run it effectively. A few capacities utilize standard SQL articulations, while others use varieties of data.
6. JavaScript
JavaScript is a web scripting language for dynamic website development. Within WordPress, JavaScript is utilized for adding dynamic features to the website. It enables users to change and control the conduct of the substance on a page. For instance, when you need to show some text or button hovering after a certain action, you can utilize JavaScript to achieve that.
This programming language can transform the static HTML document into an intuitive webpage. JavaScript depends on the internet browser to play out the capacities. It can’t run outside the browser environment until and unless Node.js is used.
7. jQuery
jQuery is a popular Javascript library that makes it easier to control or modify a web page using JavaScript. It makes the code “cleaner” and easier to read by allowing users to modify multiple code snippets at once.
When you need to perform heavy JavaScript coding, learning jQuery will save you a lot of time and work. The package provides many highlights to help with the development cycle, such as hiding a specific portion of HTML code, creating sections, managing CSS, and creating sliding effects on HTML.
8. Keep yourself updated every day
After acquiring the knowledge of WordPress fundamentals, you need to explore WordPress more and keep yourself updated with all the latest advancements regarding WordPress. Following are some resources that will help you to become a WordPress developer:
- WordPress Codex: It is an official manual directly managed by WordPress developers. It contains almost everything that you need to become a proficient WordPress developer right from developing websites from scratch to the advanced technical aspects of WordPress such as the implementation of AJAX functionalities.
- Envato Tuts+: This is an online publisher that offers how-to tutorials, ebooks, and many other resources for learning WordPress development effectively. It is quite similar to WordPress Codex but has more visual explainers to ensure better understanding.
- WordPress Developer Resources: It is an official list created by WordPress itself for developers to get references and handbooks for APIs, plugins, and theme development, the block editor, and more at one centralized place.
9. Select a domain
You essentially have three key elements to develop while turning into a WordPress developer, i.e. themes, plugins, and widgets. You may accomplish some work in the development of each of them, however, you’ll need to be a specialist in at least one of them.
1. Themes
More or less, themes characterize the format and styling of a WordPress site. A theme is responsible for the general look and feel of the website. A WordPress theme is a blend of numerous components, including HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, and jQuery.
With more than 31,000 accessible themes, there’s still space left to show your creativity and design unique themes. In addition, making a free theme for the WordPress store can be an extraordinary method to lift your name as a developer.
2. Plugins
At present, there are more than 50K+ plugins on WordPress. Plugins empower users to enhance or manipulate the features and functionality of their WordPress website without touching the core code. Website owners can add huge loads of additional capacities to their site with practically zero coding knowledge by using plugins.
3. Widgets
For including extra capacity or features to the WordPress websites, a lot of individuals use widgets. Similar to plugins, developing widgets require you to have a solid grasp of PHP concepts. You can begin by accessing the functions.php file on any WordPress theme and develop widgets by utilizing the capacities given on the WP Widget class.
4. WordPress websites
Building and designing an entire WordPress website implies that you will need to use themes, modules, widgets, and custom codes (CSS, JavaScript, and PHP) collectively.
Notwithstanding, building a whole site requires something other than specialized abilities, like composing several lines of code. You have to be imaginative, knowledgeable about the fundamentals of UI/UX, and capable of working with WordPress hosting.
5. Set up a testing environment
Setting up a local environment for testing out your WordPress websites, plugins, themes is essential. It speeds up the development process and allows you to work efficiently.
You can set up a local environment where you can run all your WordPress plugins and themes alongside the WordPress websites. This will empower you to test and view changes right away. While it will look equivalent to when you’re visiting a website on the web, all the data records will be stored and fetched locally from your PC and not from a hosting server.
A local environment will help you to investigate any issues before delivering the project to a client or making it live on the web.
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Participate actively in communities
If you compare WordPress with various other CMS in the market, it has a huge number of online communities and forums. Joining these communities can have a lot of benefits such as it allows you to meet new people of the same interest, help others, and get help with issues that you face while developing WordPress websites, themes, and plugins. Participating actively in these communities will allow you to troubleshoot issues easily and stay updated with a lot of things happening in the WordPress world.
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Create a technical resume
A technical resume is significant for applying for the role of a WordPress developer. The resume consists of a couple of key segments, including your key skills, total experience, schooling, and undertakings. On the off chance that you have scanty or no data to put under the professional experience section, it is completely okay. Simply make a point to reinforce different areas with clear delineations of your abilities and individual undertakings.
Wrapping Up
Building a professional career in WordPress development can be worthwhile. At first, it may feel overwhelming to become a WordPress developer, however, things will become more clear and understandable once you move along the way. WordPress offers an easy way for you to get into the field of web development, all thanks to its ease of use and a huge community of experts.
To start your career in WordPress development, you should first learn all the basic and crucial web development languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Try learning from various resources and online materials by doing plenty of research. Also, select a specific area within WordPress development and shape your learning process accordingly. After acquiring all the basic knowledge, try getting some hands-on experience by working on real-life WordPress development projects.
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