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Spending day and night staring at the screen of a computer can either be an extremely satisfying experience when achieving a certain goal or the most dreadful one when debugging for hours. If you recognize both of these conditions, this article is for you.
Being a WordPress developer suggests a wide palette of emotions from extreme frustration to an irrational euphoria. Whichever is predominant in you, at one point you probably wondered whether it’s not the right time to start a developing business. To achieve an ambitious task like this, you’ll need to arm yourself with a few qualities essential in the process.
We’ve collected the top 3 developer secrets on how to become a WordPress developer.
1. Spare time for studying the CMS
Before you can start earning out of it, you’ll need to invest time and efforts into the mission. Spending time researching and practicing will help you become a natural in the platform and improve your problem-solving capabilities.
Read as You Practice
From the moment you decide you want to become a WordPress developer till the end of time, consider the following websites you bedtime stories. These are the resources you can use as you learn and practice on existing websites:
- WordPress Tutorials – As a directory that we’ve created specifically for the needs of WordPress beginners, the tutorials are an essential companion in everyone’s first steps in the CMS exploration.
- WordPress Codex – As an online manual and a living repository for WordPress information, this can come in handy at any time. Having been acquainted with the codex can help you solve issues much more efficiently.
- WPBeginner – This is arguably the largest WordPress resource website answering both frequently asked questions and extraordinarily specific inquiries. In any case, you’ll most probably land here when faced with an unknown situation in the CMS.
Practice as You Read
While research is essential for your growth in discovering how to become a WordPress developer, the most efficient way is to learn as you go. This means that once you dive into the world of WordPress development, you get the chance to face the bugs and issues you’ll read about first-hand.
Besides tributing to your problem-solving skills, this prepares you for a lifelong journey of success and mistakes in the world of development. There are several ways to get there including:
- trying some WordPress challenges – The 7-day challenge by WPMU DEV helps you organize your learning process and not miss out anything important.
- offering help – If you have already gone through the getting-to-know stage, you might want to offer help with the website development of your friends for free. Try getting acquainted with as many variations of websites as possible so you can practice your lessons realtime.
2. Choose a Trusted WordPress Provider
Something that doesn’t usually make the lists with steps on becoming a WordPress developer is finding a trusted WordPress hosting provider.
As a developer, you might often face the issue of hosting websites yourself or recommending providers to your customers. In both cases, a reliable web hosting provider is a necessity when starting your business.
To start working with a certain company, it’s always useful to test their services yourself. Examine closely their uptime, speed, and performance and narrow down your lists to the most cost-effective providers.
Once you’ve chosen the right one, make sure to contact their support team to learn about your options and the pattern of cooperations. A working method is using an affiliate program or reseller hosting on your professional website. By that, you’ll even be able to earn out of your web hosting recommendations.
Another way is WordPress hosting your customers’ websites on your own account. With this option, however, you’ll need to make sure you don’t run out of disk space and traffic in your monthly usage.
3. Create a Portfolio Website
For a profession in the web development world, something is essential and that’s the demonstration of your talent and achievements. One of the most efficient way to illustrate those is through a portfolio website.
Of course, the objectives for such a website may vary. You could use your portfolio as:
- a business card – to find new customers for freelance projects
- a CV – by including your experience so far, you can apply for jobs as a WordPress developer
- an exhibition of your work – to compile a comprehensive collection of your works so far as an inspiration for yourself and for prospective clients
No matter how many functions your website has, it has to serve the same purpose: to acquire more experience and develop your work. That’s why your self-presentation can turn into an essential link when it comes to becoming a WordPress developer.
Make sure to always include the following pages: contact page, portfolio page, and an about me page. Everything else is optional but taking advantage of your personal web space will be one of your best investment of time and efforts as a developer. Furthermore, practicing on your own website could prepare you for the challenges of all the work that’s to come.
Act Upon Your Goals
Now that we’ve demonstrated how easy the achievement of your goal could be, it’s time to take action and make decisions that will count in the long run.
Development isn’t an area suitable for everyone, especially when it comes to coding. WordPress, however, allows its creators to be as imaginative and courageous as they want even without having a tech bone in their body.
Once the freedom and the opportunity given by the CMS are realized by you as a WordPress developer, the ball is in your court to make the change you’ve been dreaming of for so long.
