I work as a wordpress freelancer and I am doing this since 3 years now. My customers are always very happy and they like what I do.
Nevertheless, I sometimes have the feeling that I am not professional enough. Maybe I should explain a little bit my business model: I use WordPress + DIVI to create websites for small businesses. Mainly for people who have no clue and just want someone to take care of their online presence.
As I am a freelancer, I do not have ANY comparisons to what other freelancers are doing and I often feel like I am doing stuff not professional enough. For example mobile Headers: I use the DIVI Supreme Pro PopUp Module to create full-screen headers on mobile and desktop. Even though this popup is very efficient (in comparison to other popups), it still feels hacky.
Other examples:
\- How do I create a blog where my clients can easily set their contents via Custom Post Types? This is kind of hard to achieve with DIVI.
I sometimes just want to have a quick look into the backend of other freelancers to see how they are doing things. It would be awesome to maybe have a group to discuss and help each other getting more professional.
Don’t get me wrong: I am not selling shitty websites, but I definitely want to professionalize myself more and more. Does anybody do professional wordpress development (in combination with DIVI) and wants to share or discuss some experience? Or does anybody know some good online courses?
Thank you so much in advance!!
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I’m a blogger and I build sites if someone asks me to. I’ve never reached out to people. I guess, I qualify as a “freelancer”.
Having said that, I’d personally dich Divi. Less plugins, less problems.
Have a “playground” website where you try all of the plugin others suggest.
CPT is great. If you don’t use any builders, it’d easier to teach your clients “how to…”.
Use plugins like **[Branda](https://wordpress.org/plugins/branda-white-labeling/)** and make some or “borrow” some YouTube videos on how to perform simple tasks and add them to main admin page.
Always give your client 2 username. One to add the content to their site and other “just in case”.
Invest into something like **[MainWP](https://mainwp.com/)**. I use an edited version but it’s a good start.
I do some contract work as a wordpress developer but i dont use page builders or any gui, almost all my projects have been themes from scratch and custom plugins. Most of the time its html/css/javascript and tailwind for the frontend, php and wp api system for backend, but i have build some custom solutions using react and even integrating angular as the UI. I only essential plugins to me like metabox/acf, wpml, some caching plugins, custom aws plugins i have build etc.
I use Divi and laugh at the pompous devs who think a client gives a shit what theme you use… especially a small business owner who wants you to take care of it. It’s stunning how many people shit on Divi, Elementor, etc and can never settle on a standardized way to create a website. Unless you’re raking in cash with the right clients, fully custom is unnecessary in most cases.
I’ve optimized mine so they’re comparably fast to other themes. It’s not that hard.
Not one of my clients have asked about my level of expertise (which I have a background in computer engineering so I know code well enough to create a custom plugin).
I don’t have any clients who edit themselves because that’s what they’re paying me for. I’d bet 80% of clients who want to edit themselves (assuming they aren’t consistently blogging) will login 3x a year and forget how to do everything, then email you instead of watching a tutorial you lovingly crafted.
Fairly certain you can use Divi’s theme builder to create a layout and assign it to custom posts. I run a membership site on Divi and have like 10 layouts running various pages like opt-in landing pages, private member pages, etc.
Use the WP block editor for page/post content (so you don’t have to use Divi for each thing you create), and use Divi’s theme builder to apply those layouts.
I do keep plugins to a minimum. Usually 3-5 on each site and never use obscure ones. Yoast SEO, SiteGround Optimizer, Security or Limit Login Attempts.
My recommendation is to continue what you’re doing, refine your process and master Divi. If you truly want to learn code, do it with a custom plugin. That’s exactly what I do for theme independent PHP hacks and custom CSS.
The WP world is huge and literally no one agrees on anything, as evidenced by posts on this sub every day.