Your online presence is an asset in running today’s businesses. Most people look for products and services online. And creating the most functional websites for them is essential to growing a business.
Drupal is one of the best platforms for creating one. It’s an open-source content management system using PHP. And it’s favourable for those who want to scale their websites for large and complex organisations.
Many transitioning companies, especially those that are gearing towards remote work, use their website networks solely for work. Some businesses in retail or service are also expanding their reach and capacity as more and more of their patrons buy online.
With this, Drupal developers are becoming more and more in-demand as an online job. They can either work on the front end for theming or the back end for module development.
Drupal developers earn roughly 20,000PHP to 85,000 PHP, depending on their skill level. With that, here are 7 crucial skills to become a sought-after Drupal developer.
Technical Skills
Drupal development is not an easy task. You need the technical skills to create websites from scratch using the appropriate language and plugins. You should be adept in PHP and PHP frameworks, HTML CSS JavaScript, MySQL and JQuery for database management.
For some websites, you might need to learn additional programs, depending on your client’s demands.
Basic Graphic Design
With so many websites out there, how can you stand out from the rest? One technique is to create visually appealing web pages. With this, you should know basic graphic design.
Design elements like colour schemes, font styles, and object placement should be considered in your work. By knowing this, you can create a website that attracts your client’s customers.
UI/UX Design
A website should have the end users in mind. Right now, the population has a lower attention span. And a hard-to-use website will be closed in just a few seconds.
When creating your websites, the User interface and user experience should be top-notch.
How can you make it easy to navigate? Can they understand the functions of your websites? Can you add elements that can make it visually appealing?
With UI/UX design in place, you are sure to create a functional website that the customers will surely love.
Basic SEO
With a functional website in place, it’s time to make it visible to the rest of the world. With billions of searches every day, your website is bound the get traffic, right? Not exactly.
Google and other search engines rank content based on its quality. It shows the best answer to the keyword inputted. That’s where Search engine optimisation or SEO comes in.
In a nutshell, these are practices to optimise content and the website to gain more traffic. As a sought-after Drupal developer, you should know basic SEO to lay the foundation for your clients’ searchability online.
Quality Assurance
There’s no such thing as a perfect website. There will be problems in some areas, like bugs or functionality. Drupal developers should also have the quality assurance skills to check what works and what doesn’t.
You should be equipped with troubleshooting skills if a page or the website malfunctions. And later, create safeguards and solutions to prevent that from happening again.
Collaboration
It’s seldom that you’ll be alone in a project. With the scalability of Drupal, you will be working with fellow developers, graphic designers, writers, marketing, and many more.
There will be ideas, perspectives, and different opinions about the project. You should have the collaborative skills to work well together. With this, you can create an output that would be many times better than working alone.
Up-to-Date
There are evolving needs for every company. More updates and innovations are launched to that growing need. That’s why you should be up-to-date with the latest advancement in Drupal.
Better join specialised groups in Drupal. The developer community is quite active. And you’ll learn a lot or two by interacting with your fellow developers. Try to follow thought leaders for their insights on different channels. You can also enrol in seminars to keep your knowledge up to speed.
Your effort to be up-to-date is a must to be relevant in the future years to come.
Conclusion
Ready to build your career as a Drupal developer? Hone the skills above and show the world that you’re indeed sought-after. If you’re looking for opportunities in this field, check this link for more information. Cheers!
