How to Become a WordPress Contractor
After seven years of customer and technical support, Jessica Devine started her WordPress contracting career. With just one year of building WordPress websites behind her, she was able to leave behind her 9-5 and finally own her time and finances. Here’s her story.
Ten years ago, I was introduced to tech after going straight into a web development degree. After two years of college, I found myself in some financial difficulties which led me to drop out. Leaving feeling defeated, I wasn’t confident to use my new skills but knew I would return at some point to finish my education. I worked in customer service for some time for an online retail company, eventually landing a tech support role for a WordPress hosting company. This reintroduction to tech is what gave me the fire to return to my studies.
I picked up a one-year online boot camp in Full-Stack Software development. This diploma covered everything from HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to MySQL, Python, and Django Frameworks. After receiving my qualification, I decided that even though I could code websites from scratch, I would use WordPress as my preferred platform to develop on.
After quickly picking up local clients and receiving excellent feedback, I realized I had the skills to become completely self-employed. The freedom of time, finance, and location as a freelance WordPress developer are some of the main reasons it suits my lifestyle.
What is WordPress
WordPress is a free and open-source platform to build websites. Technically speaking, it’s a Content Management System (CMS) built with PHP and MySQL and most often hosted within a LAMP stack. That being Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP.
WordPress runs roughly 38%+ of all websites in existence. What started as a simple blogging platform in 2003 grew into being one of the most widely used Content Management Systems today.
Beyond WordPress as a CMS, there is a massive following and community behind it. There are hundreds of thousands of WordPress developers all around the world who help contribute to the community. Whether it be helping out novice developers in WordPress forums or actually contributing code to WordPress core, everyone is involved.
Why WordPress
One of the reasons WordPress is so popular is that it can be completely free to use. New developers can typically start by downloading a local version of WordPress from wordpress.org and start developing instantly.
WordPress is also versatile. Any website can be built with WordPress. From basic brochure-style websites to complicated e-commerce sites, the possibilities with WordPress are endless.
Even without any coding skills, anyone can start building WordPress websites. The beauty of WordPress is that it allows users to install prebuilt plugins and themes to give their website its style and functionality. Some are free to use, others cost a premium.
While the ease of entry allows new developers to try out the platform before ever making any commitment, successful developers should upskill in code to make tweaks to styling and functionality. Then, they should focus on eventually developing custom plugins and themes.
From my own experience as a full-stack developer, I can produce high-quality, stunning websites much faster with WordPress than coding from scratch. My background in development and web hosting showed WordPress’ power. For this reason, I prefer to focus on the design and UX, using prebuilt solutions through WordPress. If a client needs a custom solution, I can always tweak something as needed.
What’s an average day for a WordPress Contractor?
No single day is ever the same when working as a contractor. However, there are usually some common tasks and events which occur daily, especially when working with multiple clients and projects.
First thing in the morning, I check my emails. I look for anything that requires immediate assistance, like any broken or hacked websites. In either case, I research the specific problem and check it against my other clients’ sites in case they are susceptible to the same kind of hack.
Following that, I check for any plugins or theme updates across all of the websites I manage. For security, it’s best to keep everything up to date as often as you can. It’s not always possible though, some plugin/theme updates may clash with other code on the site causing the website to break after an update. Those cases require extra time to work out those issues in a sandbox environment.
Once maintenance and updates are complete, I work on client projects. Any day I could be designing web pages and updating custom CSS. Or implementing functionality like eCommerce and booking systems, or testing vigorously before the website’s launch date. The daily work depends on each project and its respective milestones.
Then before or after lunch, time is allocated for client meetings. As a freelancer, it’s important to sell your services with discovery calls. As well as update existing clients on progress, to pre-launch training with the client showing them how to use their shiny new website. Using soft skills and building customer rapport is nearly half the job of a freelance developer. It goes beyond just having technical skills.
Finally, I like to leave some time in the day for continuous development, whether it be improving my skills or learning new ones. In tech, you never stop learning. It’s vital to stay up to date on trends and new technologies.
Contract WordPress development requires a combination of skill sets to take full advantage of its opportunities. WordPress developers need to be technical, with a creative eye to build out beautiful websites. They also need to be social in a way they can easily converse with new and existing clients. They need to be learners as if every day is a school day. With these factors, you have yourself an expert WordPress developer.
