Do you want to add some functionality and advanced features to your WordPress website? Or you need something with custom-tailored design and entirely unique interface? If so, you have just reached the stage when all progressive and experienced users of WordPress decide to hire a WordPress developer.
While the majority of users use free WordPress plugins for any additional functionality and ready-made themes for the design, some website owners decide to move further. It will be a great solution to hire an advanced WordPress expert if you have no appropriate skills. If you do not want to become a professional programmer, why on earth would you spend your time trying to learn WordPress development or coding? An experienced WP developer has already done this instead of you. So leave the implementation to actual developers, come up with the ideas and focus on things that are important for you.
To be a WordPress developer means to be an architect of WordPress. This is a man who helped build or has built many WordPress sites. A developer comes up with ideas, suggestions, set up solutions, modifies and integrates things and helps to implement the goals.
For example, you own small cafe and your site should have a booking option. All you need to do is hire a WordPress developer. He/she will give some advice on how to achieve a good result and choose the best way to implement a booking functionality. Specifically for your requirements, they might recommend to install a premium booking plugin and customize it for you, or create a custom booking system.
If it is necessary to change some design, they can offer you a custom design, help you to find a good designer or, alternately, use a ready-made template and help you with the customization.
A good developer always knows what to do. Developers sometimes let others do the actual design and coding, or do their own design and coding work. Developers usually know how to cut your costs. They might offer you a solution that needs no custom coding at all. For instance, using a combination code and ready-made premium plugins. Consider WordPress developers being visionaries and architects, they imagine the goal as a picture and know the needed steps to achieve it.
A WordPress programmer is nothing but a skilled professional who has experience with the code used inside the WordPress ecosystem, and its specific requirements. If the developer is an architect, the programmer is more of a builder. In most cases, if you are advanced in WordPress, you can simply instruct the developer and he/she will suggest the code a programmer needs to write.
Consider it being a helping hand in the hard work. It is wiser to hire a developer for most people, and let the developer do the rest of the job. Just let them decide if any coding needs to be done in the first place. It is actually cheaper and better to use existing WordPress themes and plugins in a lot of WordPress projects.
Usually it is a general designer who knows how to turn a design idea into an actual WordPress product that you can install. A WordPress designer will suffice, if you want to refresh the “feel & look” of your website without changing of its basis.
There are a many strategies to vet the developers by availability, quality and price and there are many ways to find a developer. Surely this variety of choices makes the process really confusing, complex and difficult. It is hard to be sure how and where to take the first step.
To find the right developer, theory offers thousands of ways, while practice recommends four main paths:
- Asking for references
- Freelancer websites
- Special Staffing Websites
- Development agencies
For the first time, finding a web developer can be complicated since you just do not know where to start looking. You may ask people to recommend someone if you have a friend who is familiar with WordPress and is able to give you good advice. People are risking their reputation when making a recommendation, so they will probably make sure they recommend you an experienced developer.
If you do not have any person who can give an advice, the second thing is to try searching around the Internet. Firstly, create a list of websites you like, either based on their design aesthetics or functionality.
Then, feel free to go through the list and pay attention to the footers to know who are the developers of those websites. You can even ask the owners who have created a website for them if the website in question is not a competitor.
The web is rich with a thousands freelance websites which are proudly called “WordPress developers”. However, the number of freelancers offering “WordPress development” and the massive quantity of both freelance websites is not a good thing at all since the service offered is often a hassle.
The main problem you will face is how to protect yourself from a badly done job? How to be sure who is the right candidate for you? Anyone can call themselves a “WordPress developer” and register on these websites, and it will be up to you go through their reviews and portfolios or interview them to find out if they would be capable of doing the job.
We recommend avoiding the generalized markets like GuruIf, Elance and Freelancer. However, if you insist on using a freelancer marketplace, we suggest to browse the specialized WordPress freelancer markets.
Smashing Jobs is read by a lot of expert web developers, especially those who are working with WordPress, and it is one of the best known web development magazines. Ad and posting there will definitely do a good job for you, but it is not exactly cheap.
Every WordPress development expert knows the official WordPress job board. Try to visit it and probably, you will easily find a person who is able to prepare your project well.
You will love WP Hired, if you are interested in a good platform which specializes in WordPress developers. This website offers every kind of job related to WordPress design and development. You can hire a WordPress developer without having to pay a fee, and that is definitely the best part of this website.
If you happen to have advanced buddypress or multi-site needs, WPMUdev is definitely worth mentioning. You are more likely to find BB and MS developers on their jobs market since this marketplace is the leading vendor for buddypress and multisite plugins.
Hire the developers who are respected in your local community. You may consider asking around your local community of web-nerds, if you prefer to have personal contact with your developer. It better you to find out who is the best developer in your community. You are likely to get a person who has less WordPress experience, but you may get a lower price than if you deal with well-known WordPress superstar developers.
All traditional strategies to hire a WordPress developer are not completely perfect. Agencies have long waiting lists and are too expensive. And using freelancer websites might just prove more trouble than it’s worth or lead to overwhelming. Using recommendations may produce few leads. What if there was a place to get the best of personalized recommendations, freelancers and agencies all in one?
Special staffing sites make it possible. Those are special places that connect organizations and contractors with a help of process of strict referral. On such special staffing sites a random freelancer has to be personally proven or vouched for the organization. He/she cannot simply register by him or herself.
To look for the web design agencies that specialize in WordPress is another good option. its It is the most straightforward option. It is more expensive, however, you will get quality WordPress work done. Consider hiring one of these highly acclaimed WordPress development agencies:
- BestWebSoft company
- Candid Software
- Kraupp Inc.
- Perfect Search Design
- Dotlogics
- Red Evolution
- Askgraphics
- Studio 7 Designs Inc.
- NorthStudio
- Hexa Designers
