Important Tips To Help You Start As A WordPress Developer - A Beginners Guide

WordPress is the popular CMS and has approx. 35% of the total websites based on it. It not only attracts those who are willing to have a website for their business but also allures young developers and beginners because of the easy web development opportunities it provides. Its intuitive and user-friendly interface makes it the first choice of developers and especially beginners. So before we start with a WordPress developer. let us try to know a few things about WordPress and what it offers to developers making it their favorite platform to start their career with.

What is WordPress?

Basically, WordPress works as a framework for creating amazing websites serving an n-number of purposes such as blogs, eCommerce, and other business websites. As WordPress is immensely user-friendly, it is the beginners' favorite platform for creating a website. This is because WordPress does not compulsorily require users to know complicated programming languages such as HTML, JavaScript, and others. Anyone can use it without even having any kind of coding skills.

Before the evolution of WordPress, developers used to create websites by using HTML. They used HTML codes for the back-end to design page layouts, creating texts and other elements of the website. So earlier, it was essential to learn to code (basically HTML coding) for developing websites. Because of the need for coding knowledge, people had to approach professional web developers for designing their website since they were not versed in the coding stuff. They had to tell them all their requirements and the developer used to design the website accordingly. Even though the website is ready, if you wanted to make any change in the layout, again you had to approach them and get the things done.

Thanks to WordPress, the scenario has changed completely and I must say that it has changed for good. Ever since WordPress has evolved, the entire website designing process had undergone a revolutionary change and had made designing websites a lot easier. You can design websites in a matter of minutes with the help of WordPress themes. Without even learning any coding language or without hiring a professional web development expert, you can get yourself a website in a short time. With so many themes available for every business type, you can design a website by yourself using these themes without seeking any help from professional developers.

What Is The Role Of A WordPress Developer?

A WordPress developer designs and implements a client's website using the WordPress CMS (or you may call it a WordPress web development tool). WordPress developers can work full time as a part of a certain agency or company or they may work as freelancers. A WordPress developer takes all the requirements from the client’s side regarding the website and works accordingly to come up with an exceptional web design and user-friendly website. WP developers manage back-end and front-end development.

The work done on the server-side is called back-end work. It involves working with the databases and servers, while the developers work on different features such as security, content management, structure, etc. They write codes in languages that are compatible with databases such as PHP and .NET. Front-end management involves designing the layout of a website, adding content to it by using HTML codes and CSS. The front-end is basically what the website user sees and interacts with.

If you are about to start your journey as a WordPress developer, the following tips will be beneficial to you.

Tips For WordPress Developer - A Beginner's Guide

Here is what WordPress has to offer:

1. Online presence

An online presence is desired by every business or startup and WordPress allows you to design and build your website the way you like. It eliminates the dependency on professional WordPress developer and saves you a lot of money.

2. Easy website management

With WordPress, managing multiple WordPress websites is very easy. You can manage your websites from a single WordPress dashboard. With WordPress, you are able to access multiple admin panels.  

3. Blogs

Earlier, WordPress was mainly used as a blogging tool. However, with WordPress themes, you can easily manage any blog on your website itself.

4. SEO friendly websites

WordPress has multiple search engine plugins which can help the user to build SEO friendly websites without any web development skills.

5. Response

Apart from acting as a web-building platform, WordPress also serves as a bridge between the clients and the owners of the website. Clients can easily communicate with the owner and send feedback to them.

As a WordPress developer, you should keep in mind the following Do’s and Don'ts while creating a WordPress website.

1. Modifying The Core Theme Files

Most of the time, beginners make the common mistake of modifying the core theme files. You should not do this because there is a high risk of losing all the changes that you do to your website. Also, when you update the plugins and the theme, all the changes that were previously made to the theme will be removed. In order to avoid this, it is important to take a copy or back up of your theme as well as plugins. Doing this will allow you to make the upgrades as per your convenience and the changes will be saved to the WP theme even after upgrading.

2. Speed Up Your Site

Good WordPress optimization hosting services support auto-catch. So while choosing a host, you should make sure that it supports WordPress catching. With this, your website will work speedily and fluently.

3. Ensure Site Security

As WordPress is the first choice of beginners as well as expert developers, it is also the main target of hackers. So, if a developer does not update the plugins or theme, the website may become vulnerable to online attacks and opens up a gateway for hackers to peek in. So it is important to keep the theme as well as plugins updated. Plus, you should install security plugins to further enhance the security of your website.

4. Smart WP Tools For Minimizing Efforts

WordPress has some really effective tools that ease the developers' work. There are inbuilt plugins that will smartly do the work thus minimizing the burden on the WordPress developer. WP-CLI named plugin uses the command line to upgrade the WordPress in a matter of seconds. Also, plugins can be updated with its help. There is a Query Monitor to monitor the queries and shows the error warnings and PHP warnings. For removing all the spam comments, there is an Advanced Database Cleaner.

5. Overuse Of Plugins

Plugins are useful when used in a limited number. As you use more plugins, this will leave your website vulnerable. All plugins are not updated or built with high standards, which can make the website vulnerable to hack. As per WP White Security, it is known that around 54% of the identified WP vulnerabilities are because of plugins. So you have to keep them updated from time to time in order to minimize the risk. Also, the use of plugins can have a negative impact on the website's speed because they often need the JS and CSS to be loaded on the page. Using too many plugins can add up to the extra load of CSS and JS thus causing your page to take a longer time to load. So try to stick to the necessary plugins only.

6. Remove WP version

In order to make the WordPress platform more secure, removing the version number of WordPress can be the best way which is effective in preventing your website from being hacked.

7. Refer Tutorials And Keep Learning

You will find an overwhelming amount of reading material and tutorials available on WordPress. But you need to filter the right material and read it for excelling in WordPress web development. To begin with, you can read the material available at WordPress codex which is a community-edited repository for WP. Here you can start learning the basics and then work towards mastering the WordPress interface. There are many books available on WordPress. You can simply search those books with your title of interest with respect to WordPress and get the knowledge about that particular thing. If not so, there are hundreds of blogs written on WordPress. You just need to find the best blog, subscribe to it, and read the feeds regularly. As a beginner, along with WP basics, try to read and learn new things and stay updated.

It is very easy to start as a WordPress developer. All you need to learn is the basics of WordPress and a few basic languages that will help in bringing professionalism to your creativity. Once you are done, you are ready to put your step into the WordPress web designing world.

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