Ask any web developer, and you will see that WordPress is a common favorite among all of them. It empowers a website with some of the best features and enables one to publish content conveniently on a regular basis. You might have come across numerous WordPress characteristic on the web, and in this article we are going to cover some tips to make you an expert and businesses would love to hire WordPress developer like you. Although there is no order of importance in the given list, however, all the tips given here are vital and should be an integral part of the developer’s skills.
1. Build The Theme Options Panel: If you have noticed the trends of WordPress Premium Themes, you might have seen how the theme options panels are trending. All developers now desire them and honestly need them. They’re coming with paid themes, free themes, custom themes, and they are not just trendy features. They have great utility too.
A theme options panel could give you the advantage of being able to change several things on the WordPress theme without even the basic knowledge of coding. The theme options panel is mandatory for every developer as there are several requirements of a website such as advertisement blocks, carousel boxes, newsletter and RSS boxes.
2. Using The Short Codes Could Prove Effective: Short codes are one more item that could make the use of your website convenient for the targeted user. They are the best alternative to add some tricky codes on a post/page repeatedly. If you are providing an easy to navigate theme to the user, you could ensure that you are the person they’ll go for all their future work. It is very easy to create a short code. Open the functions.php file of your theme and add the following code to it.
function wdl() {
return ‘Web Design Ledger rules!’;
}
add_shortcode(‘wdlrules’, ‘wdl’);
Now you will be able to add the shortcode to any post/page that is powered by WordPress.
3. Create theme specific widgets for easier use: If you consider creating a theme specific WordPress widget, it will allow the theme user to customize the look and the ambience of the theme to best suit the end user. With the help of different options like ad block widgets, rss widgets, related posts widgets and various other widget blocks, the themes user could tailor and arrange the sidebars and all the other parts of the them with convenience.
4. Little extras could prove to be helpful in the long run: When you are building a theme, the little things that you put in will help you in making your website stand out from the negligent work out there on the web. It is essential for you to be exceptional as that is the only way you could beat the competition that is prevalent in any industry. Some of the elements below will help you make your work stand out from the rest.
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Highlight the author’s comments
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Show related posts with the plugin
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Build an author bio for each of the post
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Show sub categories on the main categories page
5. If possible, use php codes instead of plugins: This smart step will not only help you in saving the end user time, but it will also enhance your expertise for future tasks and make you a better WordPress developer.
You may be already having the “related posts” plugin, however what are you doing about the other items? What if you don’t want to use a plugin, however you want to show the tweet meme button. You could copy and past the below given code in the theme where you want the button displayed.
<script type=”text/javascript”>
tweetmeme_source = ‘webdesignledger’;
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js”> </script>
6. Simple WordPress hacks could be your #1 friend: WordPress is great for the blogging community. However, if you implement a good number of hacks and adjustments, you could also make it a great web community. Turning your WordPress website into a content management system (CMS) is possible with a few easy-to-use plugins.
Below given is a simple hack that could help in reducing the spam as it helps in disabling the ability to leave the comments on the blog.
Conclusion: Do you have any tips or tricks that will enhance the skill of a WordPress developer? If so, you could drop in your comments in the box given below and let us know some new tricks of the trade. Hope the given tips will help you in shaping up your skills and expertise as a WordPress developer.