I started as a PHP and Front End Developer but at the moment I am primarily focusing on WordPress Development as WordPress Developer. Being the competitive niche as well as ever changing web development industry, staying ahead of the game had always helped me either to land a good full time job and decent freelancing projects.
WordPress Development is pretty competitive market. I personally only focus on custom WordPress Development that is design and develop from scratch or develop from scratch avoiding premium themes. Main reason being the return of investment of building website from scratch is always higher, and also marinating self-written code is easier.
My journey that started to working on any projects to selecting few projects that fits my requirements was never easy though. I always liked to learn new skills and luckily I had passion as well as mentors to guide me through. These are the few skills that I think really helped me grow as designer and developer.
1. Web Design
I was always fascinated by web design. Being a developer one of main motivation had been to close the gap between design and development was something that pushed me to design websites.
If you appreciate good design and willing to add and learn new skills, my advice would be go to for it. It’s doable. I personally had been doing both design and development projects lately.
2. OnPage SEO
Being a Google fan boy, it was no surprise that SEO interested me a lot. Luckily I had good mentor who helped me a lot to learn SEO and On Page SEO. Knowing SEO, I always thought that good On Page SEO is quiet essential and easy to learn.
I had ranked few sites entirely based on OnPage SEO skills, that’s why I prefer to call myself a developer with ON Page SEO skills rather than market myself as an SEO.
3. Photography
Ever tried stock images? They are expensive and everywhere isn’t it? This was my main reason I started to learn photography. Photography is fun and takes my creativity to next level. Though I am still an amateur photographer it does help me try to be more creative and push my skills to next level.
Custom photoshoot had been an integral part of web design lately so this is another motivation that had helped me to take photography more seriously.
4. Blogging
One of the main reason I blog is to make normal layman people know about design and development.
And another reason is that blogging had been a part of SEO strategy for my website and had helped me learn a lot about SEO and rank my website. I do blog now and then whenever time permits me.
Learning new skills always helps. No doubt about it. Picking up new skills set that will help to standout in your career can be rewarding.