How Do I Become a WordPress Developer?

Want to forge a career as a WordPress developer. This is the blog for you.

WordPress is the most popular free and open-source content management system online. There are millions of webpages which primarily use WordPress as a blogging platform, although WordPress also includes web content like forums, media galleries, mailing lists, online and e-commerce centric stores and much more.

One of the most unique things about WordPress is that because it’s an open source content management system, so people with basic internet skills can easily create and build websites. WordPress allows them to configure a WordPress site, upload a theme and add some plugins for their own website.

Since WordPress is such a massive content management system, there are tons of people who are using it every day. WordPress is an incredibly user-friendly system, although customizations require software development and computer programming skills. This is where WordPress developers come into the picture.

What Is A WordPress Developer?

WordPress developers actually know programming languages and can work with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL, GIT, etc. WordPress developers can create custom plugins and modules for WordPress. Being a WordPress developer requires a deep understanding of the WordPress core, good PHP skills, and vast knowledge of WordPress products to make sure plugins and themes work together cohesively.

Types of WordPress Developers

The term WordPress developer is actually very broad. There are different types of WordPress developers since WordPress is a content management system will a lot of different moving parts and pieces working together

• Core Developer – A core developer is someone who actually works on the WordPress core software itself. These developers go into the code and make or recommend sets of changes to the WordPress core, which affects WordPress as a whole.
• Theme Developer – Theme developers create WordPress themes for WordPress websites. This allows users to customize their WordPress sites with a specific look and feel, and choose the colors, layout, and style of all of their WordPress posts and pages.
• Plugin Developer – Plugin developers create WordPress plugins for your website. Plugins are applications that can enhance and add functionality to your WordPress website.

WordPress developers are essential to WordPress success, as there would be no plugins or themes without WordPress developers. In addition to WordPress developers being important to the WordPress process, you need to love WordPress. Work only feels like work if you don’t love what you do, and if you love WordPress, you should make a living creating for it.

There are many technical aspects of WordPress, and developers take the time and overcome the challenges to create aesthetically pleasing and functional WordPress websites. As WordPress currently occupies tens of millions of webpages, there is plenty of money to be made and exchanged through WordPress.

From e-commerce stores to service based websites, there is a need for WordPress websites, and salaries for WordPress developers are also competitive as well.

A large number of WordPress developers tend to be freelancers. You can teach yourself how to develop for WordPress, and then work for yourself, set your own schedule, be your own boss, and work from anywhere. There is a lot of freedom in becoming a WordPress developer.

Do I Need To Become a WordPress Developer?

Also, WordPress continues to grow rapidly, with more and more websites popping up every day. There is a need for WordPress developers, as it is quickly becoming a sought after profession as more and more of everyone’s daily lives gravitate towards the Internet and mobile devices.

How Do I Become a WordPress Developer?

So you want to be a WordPress developer. Where do you start? WordPress occupies nearly eighty million websites and that number is growing all the time .Also, website owners are always looking for WordPress developers to customize their webpages.

There are six simple steps to becoming a WordPress developer. It all starts with learning the fundamentals of WordPress and applying these skills. Also, choosing a developer specialty to focus on, understand you will run into problems, and join a WordPress community.

1) Understand the Required Skills

You need to master the fundamentals of WordPress, and then your potential on the content management platform will be unlimited. WordPress developers can accomplish this by learning HTML, CSS, PHP, MYSQL and more. Knowing at least one of these languages will be very beneficial.

2) Learn Everything You Can About WordPress

There are nearly an endless amount of WordPress courses you can take online, which include things like how to upload and customize plugins and themes, as well as the different types of plugins and how all the parts of a WordPress website work together.

3) Choose the Development Area You Want to Focus On

There are different types of WordPress developers, so it’s important to pick the one you want to focus on and become a specialist in that. People tend to want the best, and if you are the best at building plugins or themes, then you will always have work to do.

WordPress is a versatile platform, which requires lots of technical knowledge. The key to success is to become a specialist in one part of WordPress, instead of being okay at all of the parts of WordPress. WordPress developers work hard and have lots of challenges to overcome, so picking one area and conquering it will lead to WordPress success.

4) Prepare For Challenges

Working with software is always tricky. You will run into problems that will cause issues with the display and functionality of webpages. This can lead to website downtime, bugs in the code and even major system crashes. There are skills to learn to try to prevent bugs or more easily resolve issues, but security issues are also a concern.

Security and having webpages hacked or information compromised is a major part of owning a website in the digital age. There are measures you can take to prevent this and make your website as safe as possible. Also, backing up all your data is important, so you don’t lose hours and hours of work.

5) Create A Plugin Development Environment

Practice by doing. Once you’ve learned plugin or theme development, you should use that you’ve learned by testing and troubleshooting to find the most success. Working on live websites can have bad results, so it’s best to test in a more controlled environment to avoid creating new problems.

When you want to get some experience developing on a live site, do expect to pay for web-hosting. It’s not too expensive and there are many hosting reviews and advisor sites where you can grab customer approved, discounted hosting for $5-$8 per month.

6) Connect With A WordPress Community

Making connections with other WordPress users is super important to success. WordPress has millions of websites, so millions of people are behind those websites. A community of WordPress users can provide development and support on projects, as well as create a forum for WordPress trends and networking opportunities.

These skills and steps of things to learn for WordPress are essential for becoming a WordPress developer. There is also no definitive time limit of when someone becomes a WordPress developer. It is always a learning experience.

Once you have gained experience with WordPress development, You would also need to get a live site and pay for wordpress hosting

Conclusion

While WordPress is a very user-friendly content management system, WordPress developers are essential to WordPress success. At some time, you will add a plugin to your WordPress website, which was created by a plugin developer. You will add a theme to your WordPress website which was created by a theme developer.

Becoming a WordPress developer requires software development and computer programming skills, and learning programming languages is an acquired skill that people can learn. Some people get college degrees in computer science to become a developer and some people learn all their skills from the Internet.

There are many paths to becoming a WordPress developer, and depending on the type of developer you want to become, there are different types of skills to learn.