So you want to be a WordPress developer (or at least add WordPress into your services wheelhouse).
Great! You made the right choice. (Joomla and Drupal Suck)
Below are some resources that will get you well on your way to making beaucoup bucks with WordPress.
Disclaimer: if you don’t know anything about HTML or CSS. STOP HERE and go here. You need to have a basic understanding of how a web-page is created and rendered in a browser to be a WordPress Developer.
How Hard is it?
Not very. I started my journey with WordPress with absolutely ZERO computer science/coding knowledge. I’ve never had any formal training and everything I have learned along the way was from this glorious place we call the Internet.
I also have had help from developers out there in the WordPress Community. If you are brand spanking new to the WordPress community, it’s freakin huge. There are a lot of developers and designers out there who are well versed in the dark arts of WordPress and are more than happy to share their knowledge and insights.
Does this mean the WordPress ecosystem is too crowded and competitive?
No way Jose. Everyone and their mother wants to move their shitty site over to WordPress, wants a new website design, or wants help tweaking things on their existing site.
The possibilities are endless and you can make a ton of money building WordPress sites.
I’d like to shoutout to some of the developers who helped me along the way:
- Jon Bishop
- Michael Bourque
- Adrian Mott
- Ben Smith
- Pippin Williamson
- Hudson Atwell
- Rob Biddiscombe
- and others who I may have forgot!
Below are some sites and resources that will get you well on your way to pwning (owning) WordPress web development.
Google - DUH
Literally everything you would ever want to know about WordPress has probably been written about by someone at some point in time.
Google what you are trying to do. Learning the actual names for things will help.
For instance searching for “How to make the image grow big thing work in wordpress” probably won’t give you any answers, but if you were to search for “How to make images appear in a lightbox in wordpress” you will get a ton of answers.
If you don’t speak web languages, ask people that do or read up on the WordPress codex http://codex.wordpress.org/
Digging into WordPress - Book
This is a badass WordPress book that will walk you through almost everything you would want to know about WordPress. http://digwp.com/
WP Tuts+
WP Tuts has some badass tutorials and they give you the source code of most of the posts to tinker around with.
Download and mess around with the code, see what it does, tweak it, and make magic happen.
Pippins Plugins and Tutorials
Pippin Williamson is like a WordPress Guru sent back in time to teach newbies how to rock WordPress.
I can’t recommend his site and plugins enough. http://pippinsplugins.com/category/tutorials/
WP Beginner
Just like it sounds, This site is for the newbies.
There are a number of useful functions and references to get things done within WordPress.
WordPress Stack Overflow
http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/ is awesome. Many of the questions you will have about how to get something working inside of WordPress will already be answered.
Stackoverflow is the mecca of Q & A for all things WordPress.
Post intelligent questions and problematic code snippets, provide as much background information/research as possible and be amazed at the help you will get.
If you are a lazy asshole and just post questions you could have answered by a simple Google search, get ready for a lambasting.
Forrst
Forrst is very similar to stackoverflow, but it requires an invite from another member to get in.
Making it more exclusive and where all the cool kids hang out.
WordPress Smashing Magazine
Smashing magazine is a great resource as well, not only do they cover code tutorials, they also cover stuff like how to run your newly found WordPress business and other web best practices.
The posts on smashing magazine usually are pretty long though, So ADHD people be warned.
Learn CSS with CSS Tricks
Learn CSS and do it now. http://css-tricks.com/ will give you everything you would ever need to know about CSS best practices.
If you can’t do anything in CSS, your sites are going to be god awfully ugly and make baby Jesus cry.
You are not a solid WordPress developer without some CSS chops.
You can’t possibly learn everything CSS has to offer in a week or even a month, It will be an ongoing process.
Every time you see a badass looking web button or form or whatever on a page. Right-click on that and inspect the CSS that is making it look so sexy.
Learn, learn and learn some more.
Learn jQuery with 30 Days to jQuery
Jeffrey Way is a tutorial magician the likes of which the world has never seen before. In this 30 days to Learn jQuery course https://tutsplus.com/course/30-days-to-learn-jquery/ , he lays the smackdown on everything you need to know about getting a grip on jQuery.
If you learn and master the ninja samurai wizard skill of jQuery, you can make webpages do incredible things. Things you couldn’t possibly imagine.
Being a solid WordPress developer, you would need at least a basic understanding of jquery and all it’s glory.
Otherwise, you will be at the mercy of other plugins to do the work for you. Which is fine, until you start losing business when you can’t implement a simple jQuery script for a custom job for a client.
Learn it and make your sites come alive.
That’s All Folks
The above websites, books, and other goodies should get you well on your way to becoming an amazingly rich, successful, good looking WordPress developer.
One last point: This takes time.
Don’t expect to conquer the world of WordPress overnight. It probably took me a good solid 6 months to really get a grasp of many of the tricks/concepts I use every day. I’m sure you can expedite this process though.
The number one way to learn how to do something is by doing it. (HOLY REVELATIONS!)
Download a copy of WordPress, setup it up, install a theme and then try and customize it. You will learn a ton. Then you can charge people money for it.
Go Capitalism!