The journey of WordPress throughout the last ten years from just a blogging platform towards being today’s best content management system has been fascinating. Isn’t it? At present, some of the most influential brands on the planet such as MTV, Facebook News, Vogue, Tech Crunch, Microsoft use WordPress for powering their websites.

30% of the websites of big and small organizations now hire WordPress developers to build captivating and easy-to-use websites for their businesses. However, choosing the most suitable WordPress developer for your website is difficult enough when you don’t come from a content management background.

Therefore, I have jotted down the most essential pieces of information that will work as a user manual in hiring WordPress developers for non-techies. Give it a read!

What are the main languages used in WordPress development?

There are four primary languages involved in this service. Don’t forget to make sure that your WordPress developer possesses relevant skillsets and experience in those technologies. You can also add this question to their WordPress developer skills assessment test.

CSS

Cascading StyleSheets, in short, CSS is a declarative language that goes side by side with HTML. It controls the appearance of content including picture alignment, float properties, border colors, space between paragraphs, and color of the text.

HTML

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the fundamental language of the web. This declarative language is responsible for building and designing web content.

HTML defines the type of different bits of text such as what will be the heading, content, header, and footer. When you outsource WordPress development services, the developers use HTML to define the layout and structure of your website.

JavaScript

Although JavaScript is not mandatory to get started in WordPress, it is a powerful language for coding. Hiring WordPress developers for non-techies will open the door for you to get your website more engaging and dynamic with the implementation of that Javascript.

Developers use this language to add slides, create animations, build responsive navigation menus, and build social media links.

PHP

Now, let’s talk about the core language of WordPress, which is PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. This server-side scripting language is needed to create the web page and all the related components.

Several dynamic operations such as validating user permissions, loading files within accurate time, calling plugins, fetching post metadata, processing form fields, etc need PHP to be performed. So, you must look for skills and knowledge while screening applications to outsource WordPress development services.

Related:- Magento vs. WordPress – Which One is Better For Your Business?

An Ultimate Guide for Non-tech folks to Hire WordPress developers:

Getting a skilled WordPress developer can be a long, grueling, and daunting work as numerous companies are advertising themselves as the best WordPress development service provider. Now, how can you pick a qualified professional among the crowd who will provide you with an absolute fitment for your team?

Here you need to follow a hierarchy to hire dedicated WordPress developer to erase all of your doubts as a non-techie. The following tips will help you a lot to find out right professionals for your WordPress website.

Make sure what are your actual needs:

The WordPress developers can build everything from eCommerce stores to blogs, websites, and social communities. At first, identify your actual requirements for running the business before you outsource WordPress development services. Tell the applicants your exact needs to get the most robust solution.

Related:- What is WordPress and How Does it Work

Pay attention to their online presence

You must go through the online presence of the company to assess its competence. This is the simplest way to see their previous performance and reputation among former customers.

You should start with browsing their websites, portfolios, and online reports such as Dribble, GitHub, etc. Focus on the following viewpoints:

  • User reviews of their themes and plugins
  • Their contribution to the WP community
  • Do they have well-explained case studies?
  • How do they present their work?
  • Are the topics of their blogs relevant to your business? Or, do they write blogs about those topics on any other publication?

Before you outsource WordPress development services, check out their social profiles. It will help you to know how much they communicate with other groups and most importantly, how do they reply to the questions of their users? Do they act genuinely helpful or comment sarcastically?

Yes, I know it is not the main job of a WordPress developer to answer people’s questions. Still, the person who thinks it’s his responsibility to resolve the queries of his users is the best employee to work with, I tell you.

Give the referrals a sincere consideration:

Wait for the referrals from your techie colleagues and friends to find out the best WP developer. As they have sufficient knowledge and acquaintance in this field, you should ask your reliable techie friends for the best reference.

If none of them comes up with an interesting one, then you have to widen your research a bit. Check out if your nearby co-working space has any name to suggest or not.

Another way to get referrals for WordPress professionals while hiring WordPress developers for non-techies is going to local WordCamps and meetups to meet qualified professionals in person. You might find the qualified expert among them who you were looking for! Along with that, consider LinkedIn to ask your connections for a dedicated WordPress professional who can fit your requirements.

Still, the most powerful way to find the right professional developer for your WordPress website is word-of-mouth. Relying upon your golden peeps and networks will give you the best result when you outsource WordPress developers.

Related:- A Web Design Pricing Guide

Understand more about them as people

It will be great if you collect some more information about prospect expert professionals to figure out what kind of person he/she is. Get in touch with the ones who seem eligible candidates and talk to them before you opt for WordPress website designing & development services.

It will help you to figure out how they will be as co-workers. Look for those common aspects after you finish screening the resumes of WP professional applicants:

  • How is his/her character?
  • How is his/her attitude towards work?
  • Is their style of working a good fit with your work method?

Expect the following services:

Don’t skip this step of hiring WordPress developers for non-techies. Check out what you should expect from an experienced WP developer. Here are the services you should watch out for:

  1. WordPress and digital marketing
  2. Expert in WordPress personalization
  3. Thier WordPress proficiency
  4. eCommerce solution
  5. WordPress security
  6. WordPress for almost everything

Find out entrepreneur-minded WP professionals

I know you need a WordPress expert who can design themes and accomplish the tasks of a CRO expert. Still, when a developer has some experience in a small business, it becomes a boon for your business.

It means that the employees already know how to think like a business leader. So, you can trust that they will make the best and highest value of their working hours.

If you hire WP developers the developers who ran freelance businesses successfully can set objectives on the basis of what is best for your clients rather than yours.

Take feedback from previous clients

Well, this is the last step. Before you hire a WordPress developer, you must collect feedback from the clients who already have worked with them. You can send a brief email to their previous clients by requesting quick feedback about their experience of working with the developers you are interested in.

Fill the email with the following WordPress developer interview questions:

  • Did the expert deliver the work in time?
  • Was the developer able to keep the project on budget?
  • Were you happy with the final outcome?

What to ask in asynchronous video interviews?

I would highly prefer a one-way video interview rather than phone interviews to outsource WordPress development services. Telephonic interviews can be expensive and time-consuming.

On the other hand, a one-way video interview will get you a concrete idea shout the communication skills and character of the applicants through their body language and presentation.

It helps you to ensure if they are capable of going hand-in-hand with your team or not. There are many one-way video software that you can use to narrow the wide pool of talented applicants.

You can ask a WordPress developer following basic questions at their asynchronous video interview round:

  1. Why should we hire you?
  2. Why are you interested to work with our company?
  3. What technical skills make you stand out from the crowd?
  4. How will your education and qualification serve you well in this role?

What should be the interview questions to ask a WP professional?

The next step after narrowing down the applicants through a one-way video round is exploring their fitment in more depth. You must test their technical skills when you hire a WordPress developer.

You can ask them the following series of intelligent questions that work as an acid test to show if they really possess the skillsets that they claim they have or not!

What questions should I ask a WordPress developer?

  • What is a custom theme?
  • How do you typically optimize websites for SEO?
  • Share your experience of writing WordPress code.
  • Which WordPress plugins do you use most frequently?
  • What is your experience of creating new themes in WordPress?
  • What types of communication methods you preferred?

Top 5 WordPress Developer Skills Assessment Test to Evaluate the Skills of WP Professionals?

wordpress developer skills assessment test
wordpress developer skills assessment test

Hiring WordPress developers for non-techies is not a daunting or confusing process when you have a clear idea of the best tests that will show you the candidates’ potential. Check the following tests out!

WordPress Developement

Assesses the applicant’s coding skills and knowledge for the platform and infrastructure of WordPress. This test helps the interviewers to on board WordPress developers who build your WordPress site and develop plugins.es a brief bu

Entry-level PHP algorithms

This test measures the ability of an interviewee to program a small algorithm. It also assesses their basic programming skills. This test includes a brief but straightforward coding task that recognizes the professionals with the most essential PHP skills.

Intermediate PHP algorithms

This test assesses the developers’ coding efficiencies through a brief coding assessment. It asks the applicants to write code that meets some specific needs. Additionally, interviewees can run their codes to examine whether the result matches their expectations or not.

Object-oriented programing in PHP

This test helps you select WordPress developers by evaluating the interviewees’ capability to utilize certain functions like explode(), sort(), and array_map(). You can find out and employ a suitable mid-level PHP developer as the test helps you assess their object-oriented coding skills.

CSS

The CSS developer test measures the WP professional’s skills and knowledge in CSS techniques and concepts. It will help you to find a dedicated WordPress developer who is already experienced in creating websites and web applications by using CSS.

The bottom line

You already have realized that it doesn’t need a sound technical background to hire the most suitable WordPress professional for your business. As your ultimate goal is to grow your organization, you should look for an entrepreneur-minded expert.

In addition, you must get the person on board who is efficient enough in the WordPress platform, can think on his own, has sound knowledge and experience, and will be a good fit for your team and organizational culture.

Those tips will help you to find a better way to evaluate the right WordPress developer for you. Still, it might be pretty hectic and time-consuming to take this significant journey all by yourself.

Then, the best way to get the most suitable candidate for your business without putting all that effort is to outsource WordPress development services to a reputed outsourcing company that picks the most efficient dedicated professionals to get your work done. As a result, you can focus on more important organizational tasks that can be done by only yourself.

About Samriddhi

Samriddhi is a storyteller and content marketing professional at Invedus. She writes engaging and data-driven content on outsourcing trends and technology strategies. She has skills in content writing, social media marketing, graphic design, and business analysis. She loves to visit scenic tea shops in the green hill stations.