WordPress Developer

We are all well versed with the popularity of WordPress in current times. WordPress is a user friendly & flexible content management system released in 2003. It was originally built as a blogging platform but later on evolved as a modern tool for website building. It is either free or inexpensive to install, and offers a huge variety of themes and features, also it offers a technique for small businesses to build an attention-grabbing website for marginal cost. WordPress is highly popular amongst users due to its wide range of user friendly features and customizability. 

Presently approximately 455,000,000 websites around the world are using WordPress, signifying that around 20% of all self-hosted websites use WordPress which is humongous. One WordPress feature that appeals many people is the opportunity to build the site themselves. It is possible for small businesses to create their own websites, with preset themes and various interesting features available through plugins.

What makes WordPress so popular? 

• WordPress allows a person with or without a thorough coding knowledge to build a robust website on their own.
• WordPress is an open source software and offers free hosting. 
• WordPress offers you to add custom domain. 
• WordPress is extremely flexible & user friendly. 
• WordPress is highly credible with huge documentation and support. 
• WordPress set up is quite simple and involves minimal maintenance costs. 
• WordPress offers varied custom functionality options to its users. 
• WordPress offers free round the clock support via email & community forums to all its users. 

If you are a tech savvy human with some spare time in your hands then for several WordPress projects, it is wiser and cost effective to use the already existing WordPress plugins and themes with a minor tweaks here and there.

But in cases where one is not a tech savvy person, has a bare minimum technical know-how and is occupied with a lot more work in hand already, using WordPress might be puzzling. 

All the WordPress themes and plugins call for reading the documentation in order to configure them appropriately. It is all a hit and trial method. Using WordPress is a lot of hit and miss phenomenon for a novice and calls for lots of time and practice to be put in. 

But if you are a businessman or Entrepreneur looking for your own WordPress Website, hiring a WordPress Developer is the most viable and profitable option for you. A WordPress Developer is a highly trained professional and knows the A to Z of WordPress very well. This will save you time and efforts and ensure a hindrance free project completion & delivery well in time. 

Who is a WordPress Developer?

A WordPress Developer is a thoroughly trained and skilled professional who can make custom plugins and modules for WordPress. A WordPress Developer possess deep understanding of the WP core, library and other popular practices to produce great WordPress based products. 

A skilled WordPress Developer is responsible for both back-end and front-end development. A talented WordPress developer is involved in developing cutting edge plugins and making them work aptly in all environments. Also, he is involved in overcoming basic conflicts with popular themes and plugins which calls for a good amount of PHP skills. Other programming skills mastered by a WordPress developer include HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and jQuery. 

A skilled WordPress developer has a strong sense of aesthetics impacting his understanding of element arrangements on the screen, the color and font choices etc. A pro WordPress developer understands the needs of his customers, analyses the market including the target audience, the targets as well as the competition and works on developing the highly customized plugins. 

WordPress Developer required skills and qualifications:

• Proficiency in front-end technologies including HTML, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery. 
• Strong knowledge of PHP and back-end development. 
• Rich experience in building user interfaces for websites as well as web applications. 
• Proper experience in designing and developing responsive design websites. 
• Adeptness in working with various debugging tools like Query Monitor, Firefox Developer Tools, New Relic etc.
• Ability to understand CSS changes and their ramifications thereby ensuring consistency in style across platforms and browsers. 
• Ability to convert comprehensive layout and wireframes into working HTML pages. 
• Strong knowledge of Search Engine Optimization. 
• Proficiency in interacting with RESTful APIs and formats 
• Proficient understanding of code versioning tools such as GIT and SVN. 

Major responsibilities of a WordPress Developer: 

• Proper understanding of Client needs & prevalent market trends.
• Designing and implementation of new features and functionalities.
• Managing all aspects of the Content Management System.
• Ensuring high performance and availability.
• Formulation of an effective & responsive design and turning it into a working theme and plugin.
• Use the most secure plugins possible to reduce vulnerability and ensure security.
• Make the website highly optimized in terms of SEO securing you a leg up over your rivals. 

A few examples of the popularity of WordPress across categories: 

1. Blogging Platform 

As we all know, WordPress was born as a blogging platform which over a period of time evolved into a modern website building tool and took everyone away by a pleasant surprise. Still WordPress is extensively popular as a blogging platform.

2. Personal Websites 

WordPress is immensely popular amongst the budding entrepreneurs, influencers, writers, singers, photographers and other artists due to its ease of availability and customizability. For example photographers find it very easy to create a photo gallery of their work on WordPress and showcase their work to a wider audience.

3. Business Websites 

WordPress is a go to tool for various businesses, especially the small upcoming businesses hustling to create and establish their identity online and boost their visibility and reach both.

4. Creative Portfolios

WordPress is held in high regard by various creative individuals and agencies to create their online portfolio thereby increasing their visibility and reach. Also this helps them in visitor tracking and attracting higher leads.

5. E-Commerce Platforms

The popular E-commerce plugin Woocommerce by WordPress allows people to create their E-commerce websites in a matter of minutes allowing them to display and sell their products online with so much ease.

WordPress is indeed a user friendly and flexible Content Management System and an amazingly popular website building tool but creating a WordPress website can be a time-consuming task if you want to start from the scratch. Thus, if you are looking out to customize your website past a general template, you will need to look for and hire a qualified WordPress Developer in order to effectively complete the task, keep the site updated as understanding the continuously evolving trends and keeping up with them is a talent a skilled WordPress Developer proudly owns. 

Now the next question that arises is how to hire a WordPress Developer? 

Hiring a WordPress Developer can be a really exhausting and time consuming task. There are hundreds of sites and thousands of candidates fighting for a single job undercutting one another’s prices just to secure the given post first. But we promise you, in the end it will all be worthwhile. 

This requires a systematic approach wherein first comes the Job Description. A relevant description is mandatory in order to target the right candidates. The Job Description of a WordPress Developer calls for a complete summary of the role, a descriptive list of responsibilities involved, preferred qualification and skill set required for the given job. Also, you need to have a one on one conversation with them regarding the clear description of your Company Website’s major needs and requirements.

A few suggested keywords are:

• ‘WordPress Developer’
• ‘WordPress Administrator’
• ‘WordPress Designer’
• ‘Freelance WordPress’
• ‘Hire WordPress Developer’

Using appropriate keywords not only enhances your visibility and clarity of requirement but also helps you fetch more qualified & eligible candidates.

Another major concern is that most of these fighters pitching for the job are nowhere close to the actual eligibility criteria.

This automatically results in one ending up fetching a wrong candidate for the job and losing their faith in the entire development process due to the negative experience they transpire through. This can be quite frustrating and time consuming as well as heavy on one’s pocket as they might have to go through several WordPress Developers and their work before they find their right candidate.

But no need to lose heart as there are several dependable platforms who verify the eligibility of professionals before getting them officially onboard. They attract talented professionals and ensure taking every possible measure to make your journey of finding a professional and talented WordPress Developer a successful and satisfying one.

The most important aspects to be kept in mind while hiring a WordPress Developer are discussed below:

Scope of the Job:

The first and foremost important part is the consensus on the scope of the job in question. This means all parties involved – you, the WordPress Developer and any other third party (if involved) should know, understand and mutually agree upon the scope of the given job. In case this significant aspect is overlooked or taken for granted initially, it might result in several misunderstandings, wrong actions, poor results and disappointments in later stages. Also this severely impacts the quality of the project. This leads to wastage of resources - time, money and efforts. So we advise you to better be safe than sorry.

Mandate Timely & Effective Communication:

This is not too much to ask for in any relationship, be it personal or professional. Make sure to have a word regarding the importance of genuine in-time communication with your concerned WordPress Developer post getting hired. Make sure they agree to be happily available whenever you need their assistance in the given project. Also, make sure your ‘Whenever’ doesn’t mean round-the-clock availability as it is inhuman to expect so.

Insist on having a look at the previous work: 

Ask them to share with you some samples off their work to ensure credibility. Checking their work portfolio is of high significance. A good portfolio demonstrates that the WordPress Developer is actually skilled and has previous records of high-quality performance and timely deliveries.

Check the code they have online. Accessible code repositories show that they have a certain level of commitment to modern development practices and give you an opportunity to actually review their code.

You can make them attempt a complete coding test to be doubly sure of their skill set. Include coding problems in PHP as well as questions about the WordPress API and architecture. This way you can further filter the prospects who lack in their required skill level.

You can check ratings and reviews of various WordPress Developers, if there is an option to do so.

Paid Test Project:

Along with a free code test, perform a paid test project to verify almost everything you need to know about your WordPress Developer’s approach to the job. If things fail to work here, consider yourself saved from failing on a big project working with the same WordPress Developer. On the other hand, if he passes the paid test, expect a hitch free completion of the project in future.

Don’t fall victim to cheap prices:

Beware of ‘Cheap Pricing’ strategy used widely by not so skilled WordPress Developers in order to just out cut the prices quoted by other skilled developers to snatch their share of work and mislead the seekers. This might prove to be costlier in long run as you might end up having to scrape the entire project and restart it from the scratch sooner or later, sometime in future.

Lower rates doesn’t signify quality work. Make sure you know the average fee charged by a qualified and skilled WordPress Developer in market and seal the deal accordingly.

Keeping all these facets in mind, not only can you hire a skilled and proficient WordPress Developer, but also ensure a smooth completion of your project within the given time frame.