6 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a WordPress Developer
With more than 34 percent of active websites on the Internet, WordPress stands out as the best and most popular CMS or platform for website development. However, with the vast number of websites running on WordPress, creating a robust, fully functional and well-designed WordPress website is not just everyone’s cup of tea. Not only do you need the right skills and in-depth knowledge about the CMS and its features, but it also requires knowledge and understanding of other related programming languages and technology stacks like HTML, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, and MySQL. In addition to this, the developer must also possess skills like creating responsive UI design, optimization skills, knowledge of Photoshop, etc.
And this makes sense to hire a WordPress developer have adequate knowledge of the platform and its characteristics and other related technologies. It is inevitable to set some specific criteria that can help you narrow down the options. And here are the questions you can ask to finally choose the right WordPress developer for your next project.
How much relevant WordPress experience do you have?
While it is true that creating a WordPress website is not that difficult for web developers as it is quite an easy platform to manage and use, it is important for developers to have deep knowledge about features, themes, extensions , plugins and all aspects of WordPress to ensure a high performing ROI driven website that makes the best use of the CMS. This makes it essential to look for a developer who has relevant experience and knowledge in WordPress development. Consider choosing someone with several years of experience working with WordPress. Additionally, you can check out the developer portfolio to get an idea of the types of websites they’ve built before and the quality of work they maintain and deliver.
Do you create custom web designs or use ready-made WordPress themes?
This is quite a technical but significant question to ask yourself. WordPress comes with a lot of beautiful built-in themes that developers can use to simplify the design process and create the UI layout faster. These out-of-the-box themes can even be customized to fit your project requirements, which is pretty simple too. But when choosing a WordPress developer, you can’t just trust someone who knows how to use and customize these pre-installed themes. The professional should be able to create a new theme from scratch as well as based on the requirements of the project. Although this may take more time, it is still essential as sometimes out-of-the-box themes may not precisely fit business requirements.
Also, creating a theme from scratch based on business requirements can add a more personalized touch to the overall look and feel of the website. Also, creating a responsive UI design is important and you should also ask about it when discussing website design. A responsive design ensures a smooth and consistent customer experience and provides the same look and feel no matter what device the customer or visitor is using.
Do you have experience customizing WordPress plugins?
The WordPress repository has countless useful plugins that can be downloaded and used for efficient, effective and fast website development. But choosing the right plugins is important depending on the requirements of the project. Here’s why you need a developer who has adequate knowledge of these plugins and can ensure that you customize and use the plugins correctly to your specifications.
What about website maintenance services? Do you offer post-development services?
A website needs frequent updates and regular maintenance to stay current with the latest features and functionality. A reliable and professional WordPress developer will surely provide website post-development and maintenance services, plus WordPress continues to improve and update itself with new and advanced features. So ask before choosing your developer.
Do you take care of the SEO and security of WordPress websites?
Making the website SEO friendly or optimized is important to increase the ranking of the website in the SERPs. Even though WordPress is an SEO friendly platform, a developer may still need to execute some basic SEO practices to optimize the website like cleaning up permalinks, using header tags correctly, image alt attributes , not have canonization problems, etc. And this again makes it essential to seek out a seasoned professional who has hands-on experience optimizing WordPress websites using SEO best practices and understanding marketing strategy.
Security is always a major concern for both customers/site visitors and business owners. And developers need to be extra careful when it comes to website security. WordPress is primarily used for creating eCommerce websites and one of the most crucial aspects of an eCommerce site is its security as it involves online payments, storage of sensitive customer details, banking information and other sensitive business data. Therefore, it is important to make the website 100 percent secure by using the proper WordPress security tools and protect the website against all external threats and hacking.
Ask all of these questions above before choosing your wordpress developer. It is important to get satisfactory answers from the developers to all the above questions. The developer must understand the requirements of your project, must have the necessary knowledge and experience, must be able to make the best use of the CMS for your website development, and must also provide website maintenance services.