Why And How To Become A WordPress Developer

Written by Ishan on July 13, 2011 in Web Development, WordPress - 1 Comment

Let’s say you want to go for a vacation.

You ask your family to get ready, take required luggage and then go to your garage.

There, a shiny Ferrari is standing. But alas, it has space for only 2 people while you have 4 people in your family (didn’t you know that? Shame on you, go and get to know your family better! )

So what do you do?

You press a button on the remote and after 2 minutes, it changes into a big limousine!

How does that sound?

Awesome?

Would you like such a car?

I know you answered yes but sadly I do not have such a car. It has not been made for now. But something equivalent has been made in the world of Content Management Systems. And it is WordPress. You can use it in whatever way you want. You want it to be a forum, it can be. A blog, no problems sir. A static website, any day. Job board, not very hard!

It’s as simple as 1, 2, 3!

Owning such a car is awesome. But did you think about price?

And what if you start manufacturing this car?

You would soon be a millionaire.

By becoming a WordPress Developer, you can do that.

WP is one of the most used CMSes and it is growing in popularity quite fast because it’s free.

Everyone and their mother wants a blog these days.

While WP has made starting a blog or site easily, the real money is in development. Anyone can setup a blog with it but not everyone can take care of plugins and themes.

If you plan to become a developer or want to earn money, there’s lot of scope in WordPress development.

What Can You Do

OK, you want to become a WordPress Developer but what will you do?

Here are the things you can do:

Installation And Setup: This is the most basic thing you can do. You can setup blogs for your clients. Just install WP, the theme and plugins and boom, you have a blog ready.
Theme Development And Customization: More on the creative side? Think about developing theme or customizing them for clients.
Plugins: Plugins are a major reason that WP is so popular. You can develop premium plugins and earn a good income.
Troubleshooting: Although WordPress is quite good and stable, problems may occur. And everyone can’t solve every problem themselves. Help them and charge for it!

Skills You Need

Here are the skills you are going to need to become a WordPress Developer:

HTML: HTML or Hyper Text Markup Language is the backbone of internet. Without it, no page would have existed.
CSS: CSS is used to style HTML documents.
PHP: “PHP: Hypertext PreProcessor” is used to program dynamic server side pages. WP is written in PHP.
SQL: SQL is used to store the information in database.
Javascript: Javascript is a client side language used to make web pages dynamic.

Where To Learn

Here are some resources to help you with learning the above skills and about WordPress in general:

W3Schools: W3Schools has excellent tutorials on all the above mentioned languages.
WordPress Codex: Codex has documented almost everything about WordPress.
Your Own Blog: You know how I learned most of the things about WordPress? By playing with it on my own blog. If you have a WP blog, what are you waiting for? Go and play with themes, plugins and break everything. Then fix those things back and soon, you will have quite some experience.
This Blog: Ditio, the WordPress Development Blog is all about, well, WordPress! So, come here to learn more. And make sure to subscribe so that you do not miss any future updates.

WP is very popular platform and being a WordPress Developer will ensure that you have a bright future. So, what are you waiting for? Start learning today!

Good Luck, future Developer!

If you liked this post, do not forget to subscribe or comment!