Deciding to outsource WordPress development is a big step for any company.
On the one hand, it means access to the talent and technical resources you need to grow.
On the other hand, entrusting another firm to complete your client’s website projects can feel a little like putting your entire reputation on the line. One missed deadline or poorly-coded project, and you’re left with unhappy customers and a potential loss of revenue.
So, if you’re going down this route, it pays to get it right and pick a partner you’re confident you can rely on.
In this ultimate guide to WordPress outsourcing, the white label development specialists here at UnlimitedWP outline everything you need to know to not only find that reliable partner but also determine whether outsourcing really is the right move for you in the first place.
Why Outsource WordPress Development?
If you’re still on the fence about whether outsourcing is a smart decision, let’s begin by discussing the three main ways your agency can benefit from it.
1. An Easier Way to Expand Your Team
If you’ve ever been responsible for hiring new employees at your company, you’ll know how much time, money, and effort it can take.
First, there’s defining the scope, responsibility, and salary. Then, there’s creating the application process, advertising the position, and whittling down the list of applications.
That’s before you even get started with interviews, final decision-making, and onboarding.
All of this takes a significant amount of time away from the mission-critical tasks you need to perform to serve your clients and grow your business.
Add that to the cost of posting job ads on platforms where top WordPress talent are likely to see him, not to mention the indirect costs resulting from a loss, and you’re looking at a fairly substantial amount.
This can be a bigger drain on resources than many small businesses can handle, meaning their capacity to grow is seriously limited.
Choosing to outsource WordPress tasks instead eliminates so much of that costly and time-consuming process.
You still get a skilled WordPress developer as part of your team who can help your agency grow, but you don’t have any of the stresses and strains of hiring them in-house.
2. Save Costs
Even top WordPress outsources charge less for a monthly retainer plan than the typical monthly salary of an experienced employee.
Data from the respected recruitment website, Indeed.com, puts the average monthly base salary for a full-time developer at $3,831. At the same time, another source, ZipRecruiter, claims that the industry average is much higher, at $7,045 per month.
Now, consider the cost of a monthly WordPress development plan from UnlimitedWP. Even our highest-priced plan only costs $2,997 per month for 6 – 8 hours of work per day.
That’s a saving of between $834 and $4048 every month, or $10,000+ and $48,500+ per year, while still getting roughly the same amount of work you’d get from having a full-time developer on your payroll.
3. Stand Out in a Competitive Market
Achieving success in an ultra-competitive industry means your agency needs every advantage it can get.
Working with an outsourced WordPress company gives you a couple.
For one thing, you have a reliable expert on hand whose sole focus is completing your clients’ projects to the highest standards, which means increased customer satisfaction and retention.
Then there’s the cost savings to think about.
White-label outsourcing means paying for a service and then charging your clients a fee that covers your costs while still allowing you to make a profit.
The lower cost of outsourcing means you can essentially have your cake and eat it.
You can charge less, making you an attractive option for budget-savvy clients, and still add your markup and make a solid profit.
What to Look for in a WordPress Outsource Partner
You’ve seen how outsourcing your WordPress projects can benefit your agency, but before you dive into hiring, there are a few things you’ll need to consider first:
Keep the following key factors in mind when finding the perfect development partner for your agency.
1. WordPress Expertise
First and foremost, you need to be confident that your chosen developer has the knowledge and skill set to complete the kind of projects you’ll be sending their way.
Sure, many will claim they’re up to the task, but can they prove it?
Can they show you a portfolio or client work that demonstrates their abilities?
If your developer is a brand new player in the industry, can they at least show you demo projects they’ve worked on to show that they can complete the job?
If not, that’s a good sign that you should keep looking elsewhere.
2. A Proven Track Record
As we know all too well here at UnlimitedWP, being good at WordPress is only one element of being a good white label WordPress partner.
An agency could have the most skilled developers on the planet, but if those developers do a terrible job communicating with clients or constantly miss deadlines, it doesn’t matter how good they are.
They’re still going to cause problems that not only make things more stressful for you but could also sully your reputation with clients if things don’t run smoothly.
In other words, what you’re looking at here is not just whether they can do the job, but what it’s actually like to work with them on a daily basis.
The best way to find out is by looking for genuine client testimonials and independent reviews.
If the majority of that feedback reflects a positive experience, you’re one step closer to finding the ideal development agency to work with.
3. Availability and Reliability
Don’t be afraid to provide your preferred developer with clearly defined (yet also realistic) deadlines and get their word that they’ll be able to meet them before you agree to work together.
At UnlimitedWP, our strong team of 90+ experienced WordPress professionals has enough capacity to take on new projects, but if we didn’t, we’d be upfront about it from the start.
Other top outsourcing agencies will also do likewise.
After all, what’s the point in agreeing to a deadline we know we can’t meet? All that will harm how you perceive us when the agreed-to deadline goes whooshing by and makes you not want to work with us anymore.
As such, be sure you can rely on an agency to be there when you need them most.
4. Cost Effectiveness
Remember how we said that outsourcing a WordPress developer can save you money?
Don’t just take our word for it.
Before you make any commitment, get quotes from the developers you want to work with. Ensure those quotes cover everything you need to do so that there are no hidden costs or nasty surprises when you receive your final invoice.
Next, consider those costs along with your need to make a profit.
Is this really going to be cost-effective for you and affordable for your clients? If so, you’re on your way to a winning partnership. If not, you may find that looking elsewhere (or even hiring an employee, after all) provides a better Return on Investment (ROI).
5. Ongoing Support and Maintenance
This final factor may not be an issue if your clients are planning to take 100% ownership and responsibility of their website after it goes live.
However, if your contract requires you to look after it on your behalf, it pays to ensure that your development partner also offers you the opportunity to outsource WordPress support and maintenance as well.
Tasks like manual updates, monitoring site security, and managing daily backups all contribute to a secure and smooth-running website. Yet, they can also be time-consuming.
Offloading those tasks to your partner agency frees up your time to work on growing your agency while ensuring that all of the sites you’re responsible for continue to perform at their best.
What Tasks Can I Outsource to a WordPress Agency?
A good WordPress agency should be willing and able to take on any task you throw their way.
Here are just some of the main types of projects you can outsource:
1. New Site Development
Imagine a client comes to you looking for a new WordPress website.
You could probably handle it in-house if they needed a basic installation, a pre-made WordPress theme, and a handful of popular plugins, but that’s not what they’re asking for.
They need a completely original look, unique functionality, and custom integrations with their bespoke CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software.
All that requires a level of backend coding that you just don’t have the time or expertise to complete.
This is one of the biggest reasons why agencies turn to a WordPress outsourcing partner, tasking them with building their client’s dream website from initial concept to creation.
Even if it is a simple website, your agency partner can still take care of it, leaving you free to handle more big-picture projects.
2. Redesign Existing Website
Web standards evolve so quickly and frequently that websites that were once at the height of style and functionality can eventually start to look outdated or become completely unusable.
A development agency can revamp those old, worn-out websites to ensure they appeal to modern audiences in terms of aesthetic appeal and features.
It may simply be that a site needs a fresh new look in keeping with today’s design trends.
It could be that your clients are using a theme, which is no longer supported by its developer, meaning it needs replacing A.S.A.P. to eliminate potential security vulnerabilities.
A WordPress services provider can take care of both of those tasks, and more besides.
For example, if a website doesn’t offer a good user experience on mobile devices, you can outsource the task of fixing it until it does.
Alternatively, you could ask your developer to integrate top WordPress AI tools, such as chatbots, to better serve visitors.
3. Plugin Development
The last time we checked, there were over 50,000 plugins in the WordPress plugins depository, with countless more offered by independent third-party developers.
Even still, there’s no guarantee that a perfect plugin exists that can meet every single business’s exact requirements.
For example, if your clients use a custom-built sales and inventory tool, there won’t be a plugin that enables them to integrate it with WordPress.
Alternatively, it may be the case that even when a plugin does exist to meet a particular need, it’s slow, buggy, or doesn’t contain all the features your clients need.
As you may have guessed, this is another area where a developer can come to the rescue, developing unique plugins that help your clients use WordPress to its full potential.
4. Performance Optimization
Strong Core Web Vitals (CWV) are essential for online success.
Slow-loading pages riddled with performance problems can be a major turn-off for users.
In fact, Google itself notes that a page that takes 3 seconds to load typically has a 32% higher bounce rate than a page that only takes one second.
So, if you’re in charge of ensuring your client’s website is a success, you simply can’t afford for those sites to underperform.
Again, that’s where an outsourcing team can step into the fray, offering a full range of WordPress speed optimization services.
At UnlimitedWP, for example, we’ve helped clients reduce site lide load time to under three seconds by taking a full-scale approach to optimization.
This includes:
- Minifying CSS, HTML, and Javascript files
- Image optimization
- Website and database clean-up
- Content Delivery Network (CDN) and page caching configuration.
The results of our efforts are presented in monthly performance reports, which our white label clients receive fully branded with their business information and logo.
5. Search Engine Optimization
As you’ll read in our 2024 ultimate guide to SEO, Search Engine Optimization is still very much alive and kicking, even if the changing nature of the web requires a new approach.
A specialist WordPress agency can help you and your clients stay ahead of the game by taking on some of the less glamorous but still utterly essential aspects, leaving your agency to do what you do best:
Focus on the creative side.
Outsourced WordPress SEO plans typically start with a site-wide technical SEO audit to identify errors such as:
- Missing or incorrectly configured Sitemap and Robots.txt files
- Incorrect canonical links
- Broken links
- Missing schema markup
- Google Search Console errors
Those errors can be quickly and effectively fixed before moving on to on-page optimizations including:
- Page titles
- Metadata
- ALT tags
They can even help you get a head start on your content marketing by doing your competitor analysis and keyword research for you, all provided in an easy-to-follow report.
6. Support and Maintenance
As discussed earlier, you can also outsource WordPress support to guarantee that your client’s websites are secure, up-to-date, and primed for success.
UnlimitedWP’s WordPress care plan even provides you with a white-labeled Project Management (PM) platform that you can invite your clients to. This platform allows them to submit support requests, which we pick up directly on your behalf, meaning you don’t have to take time out of your day to serve as a go-between.
How Does the WordPress Outsourcing Process Work?
With so many different services provided, the exact process for outsourcing a WordPress job differs slightly from one project to the next.
However, there is a general tried-and-tested approach that applies to most development tasks.
1. Discovery and Consultation
As with any good partnership, we need to be sure that we’re all on the same page before we start working together.
That’s why the first part of the process involves booking a free initial to discuss whether you and your chosen agency are a good fit.
This gives you the opportunity to teach the agency about your company, its clients, and their needs, after which you’ll learn about how they can help you meet those needs.
A good partner won’t demand a commitment from you right away. Instead, they’ll give you time to review things and talk to your stakeholders to confirm everyone’s on board.
Only once you’re truly ready, you should give your WordPress partner the go-ahead.
2. Service Level Agreement
When you’re ready to proceed, you’ll receive a full Service Level Agreement (SLA) outlining the WordPress developer’s responsibilities and any commitments placed on you, such as providing us with content assets for a new website.
This concrete agreement clearly defines the expectations of both parties, ensuring your working relationship gets off on the right foot.
Once again, this document doesn’t require an immediate commitment. Although work won’t commence until it’s been signed, you’ll have the opportunity to look it over to confirm that it’s both accurate and comprehensive.
3. Planning and Design
As soon as the SLA comes into effect, your outsourced WordPress project commences with a thorough planning and design process.
For new websites or redesigns, this typically involves:
- Creating a full schedule detailing each stage of the development, the tasks involved, and an agreed deadline
- A list of recommended plugins
- Frameworks and design concepts will give you an idea of how the finished product will look.
Before we go any further, you’ll have the opportunity to give your input into these plans and initial designs. If there’s anything your clients are not happy with, a partner like UnlimitedWP will have no problem going back to the drawing board with you until everyone is satisfied.
4. Project Development
The next stage is where the real work begins as your development team transforms those plans and concepts into a finished project.
This will include:
- Installing WordPress
- Creating a site structure
- Adding pages and building navigation menus
- Installing and customizing a WordPress theme to the agreed specifications
- Installing and configuring plugins
- Adding content elements
Throughout this stage, you’ll have a dedicated single point of contact you can reach out to with any questions or requests for a progress update. You’ll also be able to monitor our progress through our easy-to-use project management platform.
5. Optimizations
UnlimitedWP’s team of seasoned WordPress experts takes a performance-first approach to developing new projects.
This means that sites are developed with clean, minimalist code, that images are pre-optimized before we put them on the page, and that there’s no unnecessary bloat.
This goes a long way to ensuring the website will perform well on any device and at any screen size. However, it’s not the only thing we do to ensure fast speeds and high CWV scores.
When the basic development is done, we’ll configure aspects such as page caching and Content Delivery Networks for that added performance boost.
6. Testing
Even the best WordPress developers in the industry don’t take it for granted that everything worked perfectly the first time around. In fact, that’s what makes them the best.
Once the website is essentially finished, it will undergo vigorous testing to guarantee everything is up to scratch.
Before revealing the completed project, we test:
- Mobile responsiveness – Does the site provide a great user experience on different devices and web browsers?
- Performance – Is the website as fast as possible, or is something dragging it down that we need to address?
- Security – Is the code tight? Are malware scans coming up clean?
Only once we’re certain your site is up to our impeccable high standards, we pull back the curtain for you and your clients to take it over.
7. Fine-Tuning and Approval
It’s common for clients to suggest minor tweaks, changes, and additions to an otherwise finished website.
Each of those suggestions will be incorporated. Or, if it’s not possible to incorporate them, we’ll explain why and offer an alternative solution that achieves the desired results.
The site—with changes included—will then be sent back to you for approval, at which point it’s time to move to the next stage.
8. Migration to Live Server
Professional WordPress developers rarely ever work directly on the live server. Instead, they build the project on a secure development server that allows them to build it without affecting the design and functionality of any existing websites.
Once we get the OK from you, we’ll set to work on WordPress migration, moving the site from the development server to the live environment with minimal disruptions.
9. Ongoing Maintenance
If you’ve chosen to outsource WordPress maintenance on top of the initial development stage, your development company will stay on board, providing a monthly support service.
Along with the updates and security tasks mentioned elsewhere in this guide, this service also includes configuring daily backups so that your clients always have a good working version of their site ready to be restored should something go wrong.
Speaking of things going wrong, most WordPress development agencies will also offer a set amount of ad-hoc support that clients can access via a white-label dashboard.
At UnlimitedWP, we provide an additional 30-minutes per month. However, if you’re a growing agency responsible for managing many websites, you may want to top this up with an additional bucket of hours that can be used for any purpose at any time.
This ensures that no matter what your clients throw your way, you’ve always got the support you need to handle it.
Outsource WordPress Development to UnlimitedWP Today
Whether it’s a new site build or an old site revamp, some much-needed performance optimizations, or you need help boosting your search visibility with SEO, UnlimitedWP’s outsourced WordPress development specialists are here to help.
To find out if we’re the right WordPress partner for you, book your free demo and discovery call today.
