Do you know how to hire a WordPress developer? In this article, we are going to share the steps you should follow.
It’s time to face the facts: Whether you freelance or run a business of your own, you need a website. Consumers and clients cannot trust a service provider with no online presence. However, getting a website up and running can prove difficult, especially if you have no experience in the matter.
WordPress offers one of the best platforms for new businesses to develop their websites. However, to get the most out of it, you might need to hire a WordPress developer. Curious as to what you should look for, and how this type of developer can help you? Here’s what you need to know.
Should You Hire an External Dev or Go Internal?
When you decide to hire a WordPress developer, your first consideration should be whether you hire someone outside your company or learn to do it yourself. While hiring externally can prove an expensive prospect, it’s ultimately better than attempting to do it yourself.
Why? Well, if you decide to design your website yourself, you’re limited by the basic functions WordPress offers to you. WordPress web design is far easier than designing a site from scratch. However, if you want something high-quality, you need someone external to handle it.
Hiring a WordPress Developer: What You Get
If you decide to hire an external WordPress developer or WordPress design service, there are many benefits that you will receive. These benefits include, but are by no means limited to:
Here you will learn what you will get by hiring a WordPress developer, later you get to know how to hire a WordPress Developer.
Your Website Gets Tailor-Made to Your Needs
When you hire a web design agency, you get a website that’s tailor-made to your specific needs. You don’t need to play around with pre-existing functions or try to find a template that works best for what your business does. For instance, if you have a website that’s mostly for blog content, but you also need a fully functional shop, you might struggle with pre-existing formats.
However, by hiring someone to develop your WordPress website, you can ensure that your business’s every need is met. From gorgeous landing pages to secure shops, it can all be handled the right way.
A Website That’s SEO Optimized Out of the Box
Optimizing your WordPress website to appear at the top of Google search results can prove a difficult and time-consuming project if you do it after the fact. When you partner with an external developer, you can get a website that’s SEO optimized “out of the box”, as it were.
Plus, with the developer’s expertise on your side, you can better understand your analytics and how the optimization helps your site traffic.
Ease of Data Security
Securing customer data is of critical importance. With data leaks and breaches on the rise, you can’t afford to join the list of companies that let their clients’ data get stolen or exposed. Someone skilled in WordPress website development can ensure that your client’s data doesn’t get out.
Improved User Interface and Experience
Another benefit that hiring a WordPress developer nets you? A massive improvement to the user interface and user experience! When you try to develop the site on your own, you might have some less-than-inspired UI options to choose from or have to use some bizarre workarounds to make the site function as you want it to. Those workarounds, while effective, can lead to a negative user experience.
Hiring a WordPress Developer: What You Risk
Alas, as with any external hire, there are some risks posed by hiring an external developer or design service. These risks include, but are not limited to:
Here you will learn what risk you get by hiring a WordPress developer, later you get to know how to hire a WordPress Developer.
Losing Access If They Leave
No one wants to consider the possibility of a vindictive former employee. Such vindictiveness becomes especially difficult when dealing with your website developer. If they leave your company or service or feel disgruntled by their treatment, you could lose access to the site entirely. Worse, your former developer could break the website they helped to create.
Experimental Code Could Break the Site
Web developers occupy a strange place between creative and technician. This goes double if they tend to focus on website design as much as development. Developers have coding features they like to use, sometimes at the expense of other functions. If they decide to use more experimental or less-tested code, your site could pay the price and break.
You’re at the Mercy of the Devs
If you decide to hire an external WordPress developer, you’re ultimately at their mercy. Something as simple as a browser update or OS update from the user end could break the site, losing you the customers you’ve worked so hard to earn. However, your update schedule, if indeed updates get applied at all, leaves you at the mercy of the developers.
Hiring a WordPress Developer: What Qualities Your Hire Needs
Now that you have a more thorough understanding of the risks and benefits of hiring an external developer, let’s talk more about the hiring process itself. There are certain qualities that any WordPress website developer will need. These necessary qualities include:
Here you will learn how to hire a WordPress Developer.
Strong Attention to Detail
Coding is a very finicky business. As developers and programmers often joke, they may not know exactly which piece of code makes or breaks their site. Squash one bug, and three more could sprout up in its place. So, as you might imagine, developers need strong attention to detail.
Ability to Hit Consistent Deadlines
If you want your WordPress website to go live on any reasonable timeline, you need to hire someone with the ability to hit consistent deadlines. Granted, you should still attempt to be reasonable with your deadlines for your project’s scope. If you try to force out a large-scale website in too short an amount of time, you could wind up with a substandard project.
All the same, you don’t want to sit there and wait for weeks for a response from the developer. So, if possible, try to research their previous projects so you can get an idea of how well they handle deadline pressure.
Strong Communication Skills
Another thing any developer you hire needs to have? Strong communication skills. As with any job where you hire someone to complete a project for you, you need someone who can be reached and leaves the lines of communication open. You don’t want to deal with a developer who won’t answer your requests for status updates.
Ability to Work Independently
Whether your WordPress developer works for a company or as a freelancer, they’ll need to be able to work on their own. Coding tends to be a solitary business, which requires the ability to do the work without someone looking over you at all times. In fact, many coders and programmers work better when they aren’t supervised or micromanaged.
However, that kind of hands-off approach can be anathema to certain managerial styles and requires a certain level of trust. Make sure that you can trust your developers to work by themselves and get the job done.
Any business owner can hire a freelance at Wedo. It is one of the fast-growing freelancer platforms that help businesses and freelancers meet in one place. Both can contact each other and discuss the work.
Experience and Education
The last thing that any WordPress website developer needs to have before you consider hiring them is experience and education. While you don’t necessarily need a formal degree in Computer Science to prove an effective coder, most types of code and website design have formal certifications.
Even web developers right out of school will have a portfolio built up from their time studying. So, if your website designer doesn’t have a visible portfolio, you should be suspicious of them right off the bat. If you can’t find references or any testimonials that speak to their experience level or quality, you should probably avoid hiring them for your job.
Hiring a WordPress Developer: What to Consider
Now that you understand the qualities necessary for a good WordPress developer, let’s talk more about what to consider on the back end. What should you keep in mind when you start searching for a WordPress developer? Here are some things to keep in mind:
The Scope of Your Project
Your first major consideration should be the scope of your project. A website for creative zines or a blog will have different requirements for the developer and designer compared to a full-featured shop.
Before you even begin the hiring process, consider the primary purpose of your website. Do you intend to build community, offer commerce, or advertise your services? Whatever your purpose, keep it concise and clear, and keep it at the forefront as you petition developers to design your site for you.
You should also keep in mind the expected level of traffic you intend for the site to host. If you don’t build the site big enough at the start, then it could bottleneck users when too many people visit it.
How Much You Can Afford to Pay
As with many things in the business world, your quality is often determined by how much you can afford to pay. The average web designer makes over fifty thousand dollars a year at a basic level. If you want more experience, training, and specialization, you can expect to pay more for those traits.
There are two different ways to pay for a WordPress website’s development. You can either pay the developer a lump sum for the general scale and completion of the project. Otherwise, you can pay them hourly. Usually, the lump sum commission payment ends up being cheaper than the hourly rate. However, that also depends on the speed at which the developer works.
Where to Find Your Candidates
Another consideration to keep in mind when searching for your WordPress developer is where you find your candidates. Hiring your uncle’s nephew cousin’s former roommate who works in IT might save you a great deal of money and time, but you can’t necessarily count on the quality of the work. So, where can you find candidates to design your website?
Some common sources for employers include, but are by no means limited to:
- WordPress Design Services: There are many of these services online, accessible with a simple Google search
- LinkedIn: The go-to social media site for professionals, which will allow you to find references and former workplaces
- Career Search Platforms: Platforms like Indeed or Monster can offer a large pool of applicants ready to code for you
- Local Institutions: If your business is near a local university with a tech focus, you can find qualified applicants with ease
By searching these resources thoroughly, you can select an exceptional pool of skilled applicants.
How Well Your Candidates Interview
You wouldn’t hire someone for a regular job without interviewing them first, would you? Of course not! Neither should you hire a WordPress developer sight unseen.
This interview doesn’t necessarily have to be in person. However, whether you vet your candidates through email, phone, or in-person interviews, you should be on the lookout for any red flags. These flags might indicate that an applicant was less than honest about their credentials, unreliable about deadlines, or cannot be trusted with highly sensitive information.
Plus, with certain video-calling platforms, you can share your screen or have them share theirs, which will give you a chance to test their skills on the spot. If they can’t even figure out how to share their screen with you, then they have no business interviewing for a website design position.
WordPress Website Development: Let’s Review the Basics
Let’s review what you need to know about hiring a WordPress developer. Before you even begin, you should weigh the pros and cons of hiring an external developer to get your WordPress website done. Then, create a clear and obvious budget, concept, and action plan. Once you’ve decided to hire someone, ensure that they have the right experience and qualifications.
If you keep all of these things in mind before you make your final hiring decision, then you can be sure that you have the right person for the job. Should you need more help finding the right web developer or designer for your needs, then check out our blog! We update each day with more helpful and informative articles like this one.
