How to Hire a Website Person or Designer

Hiring a WordPress Developer, for most, is much like selecting a mechanic. At least if you’re like me, without a clue when it comes to the inner workings of the mysterious engine. Is this a good designer? Will I hire him/her and never hear from them again? Will it be worth the investment?

Today we will be looking for a designer/developer who will:

• create the design for the theme
• develop the design in a child theme (Kadence)
• install the design, including plugins and configuring everything to work as expected

Step One: List Your Needs

‘Business sites’ and ‘bloggers’ have different needs. We’ll stick to what most bloggers will be looking for:

1. Easy to add posts
2. Will last 2+ years
3. Handles images well (sizing, optimizing and speed)
4. Passes Core Web Vitals
5. Secure
6. SEO optimized
7. Accessibility standards met
8. Call to Actions included

Step 2: Find a Recommended Website Person

Most of you will not go to upwork or fiverr to find a website person – and for good reason. (The ones who do, come to me months later to fix their purchases.)

Some of you will ask fellow bloggers and friends for recommendations. And others will ask in mastermind groups or Facebook Groups. Personal recommendations are always best. I recommend… us! 😉

I’ve listed 9 questions to ask when interviewing a designer/ developer.

Step 3: Portfolio & Testimonials

It isn’t worth interviewing anyone, if you don’t like their aesthetic, their use of white space, their font choices and color palettes. So check out the portfolio items until you’re satisfied and review the testimonials. I especially look for slightly imperfect testimonials where you can see the honest truth.

For example, the experience wasn’t just ‘perfect’, but it had ‘great communication’, ‘took longer than expected but loved the result’, etc… those tell the truth!

Step 4: Interview & Hire a Website Person

Here are the questions and considerations that I strongly recommend.

Easy to Add Posts

The dashboard should be unchanged from the standard WP interface. This is especially true for lifetime bloggers. You will not appreciate a completely new, potentially confusing interface each time you change your theme. You can ask to see screenshots of dashboards on a finished client design.

ASK: Do you edit the admin panels or use page builders? (Answer should be “no”.)

Longevity 

Investing in a Website needs to balance beauty with best standards. Because it is a big chunk of cash, we want it to last!

That means no custom code! It also means you want minimal plugins used for design and UI tasks.

ASK: Do you use plugins for designing stuff? (Answer should be “no”.)

If you want ownership and control of your data; and if you want freedom to choose your own service providers, you need to use WordPress. 

ASK: Do you use WordPress? (Answer should be “yes”.)

Handles Images Well

This is one of the rare times we will suggest a plugin. This allows the images to stay at their optimum size when you switch themes down the road.

ASK: Do you optimize the design images? (Answer should be “yes”)

Passes Core Web Vitals

A main component of slow loading sites is images, lack of caching and poorly coded plugins. This is why I focus so much on staying away from plugin use. Make sure your potential candidate steers clear of plugins as much as possible.

A definite cause of code ‘bloat’ is using a page builder and adding tons of plugins to do simple things that the theme is capable of doing, like menus, popups, email, forms, image sizes, sliders, etc.

Caching is a task for a maintenance / support person and/or your host. This is not usually tackled during the theme stage.

ASK: Are you going to add plugins as part of the design process? (Answer: no, or at least very minimal)

Secure

Be sure that all assets are loaded with https.

ASK: Do you use relative-protocol URLS? (Answer should be “no”.)

SEO Optimized

This is one more where I do advise you use a plugin. Using SEO by Yoast allows the experts to roll out updates to your site without any hassle or re-coding.

Other tips are to use numeral paging, SEO friendly permalinks and breadcrumbs.

ASK: Can you create number-paging or breadcrumbs without plugins? (Answer should be “yes”.)

Accessibility Standards met

Google loves accessible websites. This includes adding roles to buttons and menus, measuring contrasts and using the right size of fonts.

ASK: What do you include for accessibility? (They should mention any of the above, or also aria labels and keyboard navigation).

Call to Actions Included

At the end of each post and page should be a call to action. The content you put out there can grow your audience if you keep in touch. So I recommend either sharing or email sign-ups. Whichever you choose, it should be easy to change out or come with the theme. A gorgeous call to action does not need a plugin! 

ASK: Do you use plugins to create call-to-actions? (Answer: “no”.)

Conclusion

I hope this helps you evaluate your next service provider. And don’t forget to see our portfolio, and see our all-included small business websites!