The myth: Becoming a successful WordPress developer is easy.
The reality: Becoming a successful WordPress developer requires hard work, patience, and dedication.
Freelance developers or professionals doing development jobs in companies reap multiple benefits, and the search for experienced developers is on the rise. As the demand is growing, so is the complexity required by clients for certain development projects.
Mastering the art of managing highly complex content management systems is both challenging and rewarding. In this article, we'll have a look at WordPress development and explore a checklist for anyone who is on the journey to becoming a top WordPress developer.
First of all, what is a top WordPress developer?
Someone who does much more than watch a few tutorials on YouTube and learn to customize some themes on personal blogs. More exactly, the most skillful WordPress developers are the ones who can innovate. These professionals can turn the development process into art and push the boundaries of every WordPress development project they are involved in.
How to become a top WordPress developer
The journey to WordPress mastery is paved with multiple challenges.
Although every journey is particularly defined by a different set of obstacles, there are a few things that, if done right, can highly contribute to you becoming a top professional. Let's have a look at some of the must-does when starting a WordPress development career.
1. Begin with an intentional focus on acquiring industry knowledge.
In other words, get familiar with the languages that the WordPress platform is built on and learn about the technologies that lie behind content management systems.
The four must-know programming languages used on WordPress are:
- PHP, which forms the backbone of WordPress and is used a lot for the backend development process.
- CSS, which adds some salt and pepper to your website's content style, fonts, colors, etc.
- HTML, a markup language that helps with how your site will look in the browser.
- JavaScript, a dynamic language that you can use to craft interactive elements on your site.
You can confidently start your WordPress development journey by learning these beginner-friendly languages. In this way, you'll start with the basics, which will keep things relatively easy and won't scare you off, and at the same time, you'll actually learn useful things that any WordPress developer needs to know.
2. Make the most out of the wide variety of WordPress resources available online.
As WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems available today, the amount of reading material, how-to videos, or tutorials is overwhelming. To cut through the noise and ensure you get access only to the most reliable resources, have a look at these materials:
- The WordPress Codex is an official resource that contains everything you need to know about WordPress functions and plugin development. It also provides useful tutorials and advice on advanced topics from the most experimented developers.
- Free and premium WordPress courses that cover a wide range of topics, from general to highly specific.
- WordPress blogs that talk about tips, tricks, and trends in the WordPress world.
3. Put your knowledge into practice.
After studying the main programming languages and exploring key insights from the WordPress community, it's finally time to get to the real work. At this point, you want to keep in mind that you're still learning, and you probably will throughout your entire WordPress development career.
You can start by exploring with editing existent themes and plugins, test the results, and experiment with the existing code. Then, after altering different pre-built themes and learning the ropes of handling specific code programming, you will become more confident and want to begin creating a theme or plugin from scratch.
It can be pretty challenging to develop a new theme or plugin, but it's as rewarding. This is where creativity and innovation meet. Make use of the resources we discussed above and put your knowledge in practice by experimenting with different development approaches. The WordPress Codes contains plenty of creative plugins building tutorials and themes. The Plugin Handbooks is also helpful at this point and for highly specific insights you can also check the WordPress forums.
If you are interested in working to improve the platform itself, you can check out the Core Contributor Handbook, which offers essential information on how you can work with WordPress as a developer. Getting involved in the WordPress core can connect you with experienced developers and open the road for new, innovative projects.
Becoming a top WordPress developer is challenging, rewarding, and challenging. But if you commit to a career of continuous learning and adapting, you can set yourself up for success. Make sure to leverage the right resources, connect with experienced peers, and don't forget to take your creativity with you—you'll need it to build outstanding development projects.
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