WordPress sites comprise about 20% of websites, so WordPress developers are in high demand, but hiring a good developer is challenging. Before you go out and start trying to hire a WordPress developer that may or may not work out, read this guide for how to hire the best right WordPress developer for your project and decide on the best type of WordPress site for your business.

Not all WordPress developers, even good ones, have the right experience for every job. In fact, if you go to a hiring site like Upwork.com to find a WordPress developer, you’ll see that many jobs that are looking to hire a WordPress developer list developers that the offering company has hired in the past. You have to ask yourself “if that company hired developer X, why won’t they hire developer X again?”  You might also see where a company is searching for a developer because a previous developer messed up their site or couldn’t deliver the job they were hired for.

Due to demand, there are many WordPress developers looking for work so a bit of background is in order. Before the information age, in the days of manufacturing, companies hired employees to work on production equipment in a factory, where the lathes, cutting machines, & related equipment were located. If you were a worker, you couldn’t just set up to do manufacturing from your house and sell your goods.

Today, computers are the manufacturing machinery, and software is the product. A developer’s home can easily be his ‘factory’ and his computer his production equipment, enabling him to produce products (software) for customers to purchase. So, getting back to all those WordPress developers looking for work: most of them are freelancers/remote workers. Certainly, most of them were proficient but that doesn’t mean they are the right person to hire for your WordPress project. For simple projects or projects that have limited budgets, hiring a freelancer willing to accept work at any price might be the right way to go. If the website is not critical then choosing any freelancer who has shown some previous experience will satisfy the demands of the job.

A midsize or large company would probably not want to trust their business to a single individual freelancer. Websites for established businesses tend to be critical in nature because the business depends to some extent on the website for its sales. In such circumstances, it would be a more critical decision as to choosing a WordPress developer. In fact, often the best decision is to hire a development team where there are several people managing the planning, development, and maintenance of the website. Firstly, it stands to reason that a team has more overall experience than one person. In addition, one person cannot be relied upon to be available for fixes and updates, whereas a team is more likely there when needed.

With so many ways to find prospective customers looking for software/web development, and with so much of that being for WordPress websites, many people started freelancing. That’s all well and good, but for two pesky things that freelancers often encounter: they eventually take on a problem job or (shudder to mention) ones that challenge their abilities. Case in point: jobs that are advertised to “fix” because another developer screwed up and couldn’t deliver. Even WordPress developers who consider themselves “expert” find that sometimes, someone else is better suited to do a job.

Which brings up that second “pesky” thing: as much as WordPress developers want to sell WordPress sites, sometimes WordPress is not the right platform. Some projects are perfectly suitable for development in WordPress. Then again, sometimes they are not. Take E-commerce: while WordPress with a WooCommerce plugin may work,  for some projects Magento is a better choice. Or maybe NopCommerce (which is written in asp.net).

So starting as a freelancer specializing in WordPress, I built relationships with other developers who could fill the gap. This was not an overnight selection of a couple of guys/gals from overseas, but a long process of finding a synergy that works for me and my customers, where my company Estates On Line, can take on virtually any project and with the right technology platform.

Well, you’ve got options

First, it’s time to decide on which option is the best for you: a freelance WordPress developer, in-house WordPress developer, or contracted WordPress development team.

Here’s a detailed look at real costs for hiring an employee versus a contract developer. (NOTE – contracting is cheaper.)  Here are the main takeaways from comparing freelancers, hiring in-house, or hiring a contracted team:

Freelancers are a great option for those looking to keep costs down but adds risks since you are relying on a single point of failure for support and updates to your site. Freelancers must be managed directly and their success (or failure) is largely dependent on the person selecting and managing them. Skill level is difficult to determine unless you’ve worked extensively with the freelancer in the past or know someone who has and offers a great recommendation.

In-house developers are a great option for teams that have a large number of WordPress sites to manage, are making constant updates to the codebase, or otherwise have a large amount of support required that justifies the investment in full time personnel. If you don’t have the need for full time changes and updates to the site, the overhead of a full time WordPress developer may outweigh the benefits. It’s also hard to find full time developers who are adept at a wide range of technologies!

Contracted teams are a great option for firms that want a more managed process and need a team they can rely on for long term support and updates to the site. This is great for a business looking to support their Marketing or IT teams with a quality Content Management System, but don’t need or want to hire a full-time WordPress developer. A great contracted team will build your WordPress site to make it easy to manage and sustainable long term by enabling you to use it as a true Content Management System as opposed to a site that is difficult and cumbersome to edit.

Should You Hire a Digital Marketing Agency or Web Development Company?

When contracting out work, it’s important to understand the difference between digital marketing agencies and web development companies. The difference may seem subtle at first but a closer look reveals that the two entities are actually much different in structure and focus. Broadly speaking, a digital marketing agency is a marketing company that also hires web developers (or contracts out to them). The company is basically an advertising agency that hires web developers to create digital content.

A web development company on the other hand is an information technology company that has marketing capabilities. Website development and software are core components to its business. In terms of management, a digital marketing agency is run by advertising folks. A web development company is run by programmers who have solid knowledge in web development and software.

Both companies can offer the same thing to clients: website development and marketing, So if you are choosing a WordPress developer, which type of company you want to work with? Frankly speaking, a digital marketing agency will have layers of structure such as graphic artists, account managers, ad placement department. Each of these layers adds a cost component. If you are simply looking to have a WordPress website developed, you’ll be paying for that overhead needlessly. Not only that, but using an advertising agency, your project will usually take longer than necessary, as agencies often have to go out and find a programmer who can handle the job.

If your focus is to build a WordPress website, you’re better advised to work with a web development company. Starting out, when discussing your project with them you’ll be speaking directly with a web developer who intuitively understands what your job requires and can discuss exactly the solution for the job and explain the necessary steps to get your website up and running.  By the second phone call, they will most likely be able to give you an estimate of time to completion and cost for the job. By comparison, it will take numerous contacts between you and the digital marketing agency to get to that point,  And even then, the web developer they hire to do your work may not have a firm understanding of the project, as he’s/she’s gotten it second or thirdhand from the account manager.