Have you ever asked yourself how you can quickly become a WordPress professional? Well, we’ll start off by telling you that the process is not something you can do in one day. It requires a good time investment, determination, and effort. With these qualities, you can quickly become the next huge personality in blogging, WordPress developing, marketing, and designing.
Here, we’re not trying to give you an unrealistic picture or set unachievable targets. Instead, we will assist you in finding answers to most of those unsolved questions that you keep to yourself. So, follow these tips, and you’ll understand the skills that you need to become a successful WordPress user!
Have a Clear Niche!
Although looking for a suitable niche sometimes sounds like a difficult task, with WordPress, there is no pressure. Such is because the site is quite adaptable, meaning that you can switch to a different niche at any time or maybe later in life. Besides, the chance to adjust yourself to the constant changes of WordPress is something which you should use to propel you to the top.
Some fitting WordPress niches include:
- Back-end or Front-end development – Front-end relates to things like CSS, HTML or JavaScript while back-end mostly deals with PHP.
- Design – You can choose to design using CSS or HTML.
- Education – Shockingly, WordPress is an excellent tool for learning as it comes with a lot of useful themes and plugins.
- Content creating – Now here is what we like to call a ‘hot’ niche. Why? Well, with the increase in websites today, the demand for top-notch content writers also continues to grow!
- Marketing – eCommerce, conversion optimization, and SEO are some three crucial things which any future WordPress designer needs to understand!
However, if you feel that you can work in more than one niche, then expand your capabilities. We would suggest that you try what you think you can do before making any final decision. If you still believe that you can tackle both, then don’t deny yourself that opportunity.
Make Sure You’ve Understood the Basics
If you’re new to WordPress, it’s better to first familiarize yourself with the keywords and phrases used in WordPress. To assist you in that, here are the key points you’ll need to remember:
- The main WordPress engine is PHP coded
- All data is kept in MySQL
- All stylesheets are in CSS
- To use its templates, you’ll have to combine the use of HTML and PHP
Furthermore, all its front-end features are usually JavaScript supported. So, make sure that you have an active command of this language, and you’ll make your WordPress smoother!
Mark Wilkinson, a WordPress Freelancer, says that “the toughest challenge is working in isolation, in the office or at home, losing colleagues to talk to and collect a few ideas.” So, although you can improve your career all on your own, in truth, forming relationships with other users is quite compelling. At least, you can share ideas, enrich your creativity and learn more than what you knew. Besides, you might also gain loyal friends afterward!
If you feel that this is a good idea, then don’t hesitate in joining WordPress events or meetups like WordCamp. Apart from that, you can make use of social media websites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and several others.
Gaining some companions as you proceed to the top is quite advantageous. In any case, you should always appreciate that you have a large, supportive WordPress community right at your back!
Identify and Get the Right Skills
Another crucial step is doing a thorough scrutiny of your skills to get the one that can help you grow your career. For instance, if you’ve been offering compare and contrast essay help services and would now like to become a WordPress blogger, this is a fantastic idea as your writing experience here will prove useful.
After going through such skills, it’s time you learned new essential skills to use in the future. For example, if you decide to become a PHP developer, then ensure that you understand WordPress classes and hooks. Are you wondering where you can acquire these skills? Well, take a look at the sources below:
- WordPress Blogs like ThemeREX is a rich source full of extensive WordPress knowledge
- WordPress codex for technical skills
- Online courses from tutsplus are also quite informative
- Web conferences and WordCamp come with useful content and also widen your networking
Learn How to Overcome Your Weaknesses
We all have different types of weaknesses. However, what matters is first accepting and second, learning how to eliminate them. Sadly, challenges which face a good number of WordPress users include team working inabilities or just being a slow learner.
Such weaknesses not only hinder your chances of growing your WordPress career but also affect your life. The best way to get rid of them is being healthy and rising above the challenge. For instance, if you don’t like being in a team, try out managerial positions. All you need to do is make your voice heard, and you’ll become more comfortable, but most importantly, more effective!
What we mean is that to become a WordPress professional, you’ll need to bring out your best version. Remember that the best method to do this is first identifying and then overcoming your shortcomings.
Becoming a Master of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Nowadays, it’s crucial for any web developer or designer to master the use of Search Engine Optimization. Having a proper understanding of SEO allows you to attract a lot of traffic to your site. But then again, what is traffic? These are online visitors who bring opportunities and, of course, money! So, learn how to increase WordPress SEO and your site will surpass even its most significant competition.
Practice Makes Perfect!
“Prior preparation prevents poor performance,” this is a phrase that you’ll need to keep in mind as you proceed with your WordPress career. After choosing your niche, familiarizing yourself with the different basics, learning how to use SEO, and defeating your weaknesses, all that’s left is practice.
By practicing, you learn new things that will help you in becoming a WordPress Pro. Some of the regular blogs that will further assist you in here are:
Most importantly, you can sharpen your web-design or writing skills by coming up with tutorials, or tips and tricks to those in need. In doing so, you also understand the problems and gain enough experience to solve them!
Conclusion
Shockingly, WordPress supports 14.7% of the top 100 sites in the world today. So, becoming a WordPress pro is something which we greatly recommend. It exposes you to fantastic working opportunities and a vast community of users who end up becoming loyal friends. In the future, as WordPress continues to grow, people with top-notch WordPress skills will be in huge demand from both clients and employers. So, don’t hesitate, instead, take enough time for developing your skills, creating contacts, and keeping yourself updated on the changes in the community and in your field.
Knowing all this, are you now ready to become the next pro on WordPress? What’s the first step that you’re going to take?
