With a rapid growth in the use of internet for business, IT industry has boomed in a relative ratio. Almost everyone involved in one kind of business or the other, the desire to own a website and to make one's presence in social platforms has become a necessity to compete with the best and get business deals.
The use of wordpress framework is highly increased in the market of web application development and that has increased the number of so called wordpress developers too. Some of them are the real ones while most of those developers don't even understand the meaning of development. In this article, I'm going to list out technical skills you must have to be a professional wordpress developer. But, before that, let's see what wordpress actually is.
What is Wordpress?
Wordpress is a free open source content management system created using Object Oriented PHP language with MySQL Database management system. It allows you to integrate frontend designs that you like along with functional plugins which may be free or paid ones. It follows the template system where a number of templates are built in which follows the hierarchical rule on which template file to be used based on the url request.
Wordpress is infact built for the convenience of small scale business owners who can't invest heavily on website development so that they could create their own websites using the interface wordpress dashboard provides with functionalities from the external plugins and following the documentation any chosen wordpress theme provides without any need to have even the basic understanding of frontend as well as backend development languages nor even SEO.
If you fall into that category, then, read this article on wordpress basics or watch this video on wordpress basics to get things going and create a website under an hour.
Why would anybody need a wordpress developer?
A wordpress developer won't be required in case you find a perfect frontend design theme in wordpress and you can workout the basics. But, if you need some customizations on the design or add some functionalities that no plugins can offer, then, you'll need help of professional wordpress developers who can help you out on those matters.
Technical skills required to be a professional wordpress developer
So, let's see what skills are required to be a professional wordpress developers.
1. Frontend Development Skills
If you want to be a wordpress developer, then frontend development skills are a must. You must know the HTML, CSS, Javascript and Jquery very well before you open a wordpress file. These skills are required to make the basic changes on the frontend design like changing the layout, color schemes, adding up different templates, etc. Some of the wordpress themes are not even device responsive, so, in order to make them adaptive to any screen devices, you'll need to possess the frontend development skills.
Some of the wordpress developers seem to use page builder tools to get the layout desired by the client. But, that's not the right path for a wordpress developer to follow. As a developer, you are not only responsible to create a page but to make it easier for the clients to make changes in the future on their own. That's the basic part of development.
If a developer is giving you a site built with page builders, don't pay them. Read this article to customize wordpress theme layout using page builders to get it done by yourself or watch this video tutorial to get things done on your own.
2. Backend Development Skills
Along with the frontend development skills, a wordpress developer must possess an in-depth understanding of Object Oriented Programming in PHP with sound knowledge of MYSQL Database Management System because that's what wordpress in built on. It'll be highly useful in case you need some modifications on the programming codes as per the clients' requests.
You must be able to open the core files, read them and understand them as well as make necessary changes whenever required. If you can do that, then, you can create your own custom wordpress themes and plugins too which you can sale online or distribute them for free through wordpress repository. If you can't, you are not a wordpress developer but just a wordpress dashboard manager which anybody can do with considerable amount of time dedicated into it.
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Skills
The major advantage of using wordpress as the development tool by developers is it's compatbility with SEO. Wordpress is SEO friendly and the only reason for developers to love it despite the rigidness it possess when you try to make wholesale changes on the core programming codes.
So, a wordpress developer must have a better knowledge of SEO and should cover the technical aspects of SEO while developing a theme. Otherwise, there's no point of using wordpress unless a client wants his site built on wordpress.
Conclusion
This article is aimed at making people aware about the real development world scenario and bringing real wordpress developers into light and pushing those dashboard managers backwards to prevent clients from being cheated. I felt the need to write this article as recently I've found out ridiculous number of self claimed wordpress developers who are bidding a site for 20USD to 50USD while the professionals won't even think of bidding anything below 1000USD.
Simply, using the page builders or just adding contents to a site won't take much longer than a few hours so no offence to them if they are working on low rates where the clients are unaware of the fact that they can do it on their own. But, if you are a genuine wordpress developer who is really fighting hard to get works and going that low on your rates, don't destroy the market but just make your portfolio strong and compete with the best. Feel free to mail me if you still struggle to get works, I can help but only to the best ones.
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