The role and responsibility of a WordPress developer is not at all easy. If you want to become a proficient WordPress developer, you’ll need to keep evolving your development skills. You will need to work really hard to get yourself fit into the shoes of a professional WordPress developer.
No matter how much knowledge you have related to website or WordPress development, it will take a lot of time, efforts, energy and determination. If you are looking for any shortcut, then this field is not for you. You should be determined towards your goals, should have potential to learn new development tools and technologies, should be confident about what you are doing or what you will do.
Apart from learning HTML and CSS programming languages, you should have an in-depth understanding of PHP and JavaScript. You should also know how to deal with different clients and how to meet their specific requirements in terms of WordPress development and customization.
While these are some common WordPress developer's know-how/necessities, we will share some more useful and technical skills that will help you become a top WordPress developer effectively and efficiently.
1. Planning is Essential
If you want to become a professional WordPress developer, then ensure that you have a robust plan for it. Since developing a WordPress site is not a piece of cake for everyone, you should have a solid planning on:
- How will you develop your new project?
- Which web hosting solution your clients are using? (whether it is a shared host or a dedicated one)
- Do you have a deadline of that particular project?
- Is that deadline appropriate for you?
- Do you have essential tools and technologies?
- How will you execute your WordPress development processes?
The skill of planning a development task is essential for every WordPress developer. It doesn't matter how big or small your project is , you just need to ensure that you have a well-sketched plan for each of your projects. You can even break your complicated tasks into small tasks in the planning step in order to improve your productivity and keep your eyes focused on the goals.
2. Technical Know-How
Being a WordPress developer, you should know how to install a WordPress site how to use HTML, PHP, CSS and other technical languages to develop a full-fledged site, which languages you largely depends on, and a lot more. In short, you should have an in-depth technical proficiency if you want to become a top WordPress developer.
You should evolve your learning capabilities by reading material on WordPress. Look for the best quality of resources to take your development skills to the next level. In fact, you can enhance your technical competence by reading following resources:
WordPress CodexHere, you can learn all about the WordPress development techniques, WordPress semantics, theme and plugin development and a lot more.
Online Blogs related to WordPress
Search for the best blogs related to WordPress on the web to know more about this platform. Tuts+ and Smashing Magazine are the two most popular and reliable options for the beginners.
Video Tutorials on WordPress
You can also learn more about WordPress via online video tutorials. Such types of tutorials can help you develop your skills in a much efficient manner.
Also, take some time out from your busy schedule to learn more about the WordPress codebase on Trac and on Xref. Read the documentation to know how things actually work in the WordPress development.
These tips will help you become a professional developer for different types and sizes of WordPress projects.
3. Top-notch Marketing Skills
A skillful WordPress developer should know how to market their product to their targeted customers and clients. Whether you developed a theme or a plugin, make sure you grasp the best marketing tactics to make the most of your time and efforts.
Just like learning technical skills, you should be aware of marketing campaigns as well. You can start with knowing your targeted goals related to your development project. Thereafter, you can identify your targeted web audience (for whom you developed your product).
Once you are done with this, you can focus on promoting your products and services across the web to let people know about your development skills. Convey your message regarding your WordPress development project, along with the theme and plugin available in the WordPress repository to your targeted web audience.
You should also know how to present the features of your developed projects in the most engaging and effective manner. This will help you get more visibility across the WordPress development industry.
4. Know when to delegate
Since, you are more than a developer, a coder or a designer, you should know the art of managing all your work efficiently.
You are the only one who has to keep the record of all your expenses and billing- managing your accounts. You are also the marketing manager of your projects. This means you have fully control over your project. While some people enjoy controlling their projects, some find difficulties in achieving the desired results.
This is where delegation comes into play. At that time, you will need to shift some of those tasks to other people. You need to give responsibility to other skilled people to manage the different parts of your WordPress development projects, such as accounting. That means the more you brings projects, the larger your staffs becomes.
5. Testing capabilities
The job of a WordPress developer is challenging. If you want to become a top-notch developer, you must be aware of all the pre as well as post-development procedures. Of course, developing a site or a theme or a plugin is crucial, but you can't overall the testing capabilities.
If you want to write code, make sure you know whether they can work across different browsers and operating systems or not. You can't leave this testing step on others. It is a part of your work only. So make sure you test your codes, and other programming languages before delivering your project.
Conclusion
These are some of the most useful skills that will help you become a top WordPress developer. Since you are the one who knows your strengths and weaknesses, you can easily develop your skills and embrace your learning capabilities.
