Hiring a WordPress expert for your web agency is one of the best decisions you can make to scale your agency. WordPress is the leading content management system worldwide, trusted well by businesses and developers alike. It offers unparalleled flexibility, and a vast array of features. By hiring a WordPress expert, you will be able to grow your business, and even leverage the developer’s diverse experience that they have acquired throughout their career.
Now, the toughest task is to find a skilled WordPress expert who understands all the technicalities of the project, and even aligns with your vision. Unfortunately, plenty of people out there claim they can build a website, but creating a website requires specific skill sets.
To help you find the right WordPress expert, here we have shortlisted eight essential qualities that you should look for while hiring a WordPress expert. So, whether you are planning to launch a new website, revamp an existing one, or just include some additional functionalities, you are required to hire a WordPress expert for the same.
So, let’s get started.
1. High Technical Knowledge And Skills
You must hire a WordPress developer with high technical knowledge and skills. The quality of the work done by the developer will largely depend on his development skills in WordPress.
An ideal developer should have expertise in WordPress’s scripting language, PHP, and proficiency in HTML/XHTML/CSS and MySQL. With this skill, a WordPress expert can customize the site to a certain level, ensuring that it performs well, has the necessary features, and offers an excellent user experience.
A good developer should understand the platform’s architecture and be able to troubleshoot changes without causing any problems.
2. Worked on a Diverse Range of Projects
When hiring a WordPress expert, one factor you should consider is whether they have worked on projects belonging to different industries. This diversity in their portfolio showcases their growing skill set, and capabilities to adapt to upcoming challenges and requirements.
An experienced WordPress developer who has experience navigating multiple industries, dealing with various types of websites, and tackling design aesthetics will likely bring a wealth of knowledge and creativity to your project.
A developer who has problem solving skills, innovative thinking, and the capability to implement custom strategies can deliver a versatile and reliable solution according to the needs of your project.
3. Maintenance & Security
You should hire a WordPress developer with experience maintaining websites, and following the best security practices.
After developing a website, the work is not over. The website should function at the optimum level to offer a better user experience. Therefore, ensure the WordPress expert you hire looks after maintenance tasks. They should check your website regularly, correct any errors, and offer the proper assistance whenever needed.
Here, you should make sure that they follow a proactive approach for maintaining a website to stop issues before they arise; thus, your site runs smoothly, and is accessible to the potential audience.
Talking about security, day by day, we read news of various sites getting hacked. Therefore, it is essential to protect your site from such things. Ensure that the developer you hire has knowledge of security measures. Moreover, developers keep all the WordPress themes, plugins, etc, updated. They even leverage secure hosting, and implement solid user authentication.
4. Sound SEO Knowledge
Your marketing strategy relies heavily on search engine rankings, so it is crucial that you choose someone who has solid knowledge about search engine optimization (SEO).
A good developer will understand what makes your website unique, which is necessary for any online business to be successful. Additionally, their ability to include SEO strategies with WordPress functionalities like SEO-friendly URLs, tags, and categories, ultimately improves your site’s search engine rankings.
Thus, they will know how to use keywords correctly, and optimize them to rank higher in search results pages (SERPs), increasing traffic to your website, and boosting sales.
5. Experienced in Creating Custom Plugins and Theme
Hiring a developer who has not created custom plugins and themes will be a waste of time, money, and resources. Custom plugins are essential for introducing new functionalities in your website and offer robust experience to your audience that aligns well with your brand identity, and business requirements.
A good developer can develop custom plugins to enhance the website’s functionality and performance. With this solid experience in custom coding and design, these WordPress experts can deliver custom solutions that are reliable in today’s digital era.
Themes are also essential for building an attractive and user-friendly website. You should hire a developer who knows about developing custom themes compatible with your theme framework. If you want to judge their expertise in creating customized plugins and themes, you can examine their portfolio.
6. Excellent Communication Skills
The next most important quality you should consider while hiring a WordPress expert is excellent communication skills. A developer should be able to understand your requirements well and even communicate any issues or necessities arising during the website’s development.
The same goes for WordPress developers — they should have excellent skills when it comes to communication.
The developer should have the skills to communicate clearly and concisely with the clients, especially when you are just starting out. A good developer can understand the client’s requirements, and provide a detailed plan on how we will proceed with the process of WordPress website development.
Moreover, such a WordPress expert maintains transparent communication from start to finish of the project by informing the clients about overall progress, hurdles, and milestones.
7. Passion For The Work
A passionate WordPress expert will always strive to ensure their work with a high level of quality. A passion for the work is one of the essential qualities you should look for in a WordPress developer. If they love what they do, it will show in their work, and be evident to all who see it.
8. Desire for Learning
Ensure to choose a WordPress expert who keeps themselves updated with the latest things revolving around the WordPress world. Moreover, the developer should be ready to adopt the most recent and popular trends, updates, new releases, etc., and implement them whenever needed.
Choosing The Right WordPress Developer For Your Agency Is Crucial
Hiring a good WP developer is a necessity, and not an option because of the complex development system. A little bit of research will help you find the right person to build your website or answer all your queries. But to do this, you’ll first have to determine, “which traits are the most important for your agency?”.
We have already talked about the traits that you should keep in mind while hiring a WordPress developer, such as communication skills, technical expertise, ability to handle multiple projects, SEO-knowledge skills, etc.
By considering all the qualities we have shared, you will definitely find a WordPress developer who sets well with your project. They will understand your requirements well, and deliver you the most reliable and secure WordPress website.
