A company’s website is an important part of its digital image and, to attract new customers, it should be fast, good-looking, and provide a pleasant user experience. To have this, you should invest in professional website development and design.
But there are thousands of WordPress freelancers and WordPress development companies out there. How to find the best one for your business?
In this article, we list a few important factors yo
Define Your Digital Business Goals
First off, define your goals.
What would you like to accomplish with the new website or solution your WordPress development company builds for you?
Many clients approach us with a simple “I want a WordPress website”. However, the first call always ends up with discussing business goals and targets. That’s because you don’t need a WordPress website – you need a digital solution that would help your business.
This means that you should think ahead and consider your website as a tool in your online strategy. This will not only enable you to set its ultimate goal but will allow you to identify performance objectives and track KPIs in the future.
Some of the goals a website may help you pursue are::
- Scalability. A website that may increase traffic over time and can handle a lot of visitors.
- Conversions. A website that converts visitors to customers.
- Lead Generation. A WordPress platform that automates user management processes and gathers information about subscribers.
- Sales. A website that sells more products to customers.
- Brand Awareness. A solution that increases the percentage of buyers who find the business.
- Digital Reputation. An online brand that is professional and outlines the qualities of the business.
All of the above define your incentive in a way that allows the experts to understand your needs.
With this information, your WordPress development company can build your website structure and information architecture, design appealing landing pages, and optimize the process in a way that brings real revenue on the table.
Know The Technical Basics
You don’t need to be a technical expert in order to hire a company for your website, but it helps to know the basics. Consider learning a bit about WordPress management, marketing, SEO, user experience, and hosting.
This will not only help you manage your website in the future but will allow you to better identify your needs and present your requirements to the WordPress development company you hire.
Furthermore, understanding what the WordPress website development process involves, will enable you to keep track of the dev team’s work and suggest changes when necessary. Otherwise, you might become overly dependent on the developers to make the important choices and may also fail to explain to them what you want.
Learning the basics should not be that difficult or time-consuming, and will give you an advantage in your search, and the work afterward.
We provide a free email course for webmasters that covers all you need to know about the website management process. You’ll also find the answers to questions such as, “Why does a website cost X”, “How to improve the user experience for my visitors”, and some valuable tips for your content management strategy.
Define Your Budget
Different WordPress development companies apply different pricing strategies. However, costs may vary, and your budget range could help a lot with defining the right strategy for your solution.
For example, if your business generates $1200/month from direct or indirect sales of products and services, the goal of your website may be to increase your sales to $3000/month in a year. If you succeed, next year’s profit would be $21,600 higher than before. Furthermore, to achieve these results, you would also want to improve your brand awareness and optimize customer acquisition costs.
By setting a budget range, you will be able to discuss different opportunities that may deliver the required results. The WordPress development company can plan your SEO efforts, content marketing, and social media strategy, or suggest creating additional products that would accelerate your growth and lead to higher margins for your business.
Consider WordPress Development Retainers
When planning the budget and the timeline for your web project, you should consider opting for the WordPress development retainers model.
This is a sustainable, growth-oriented partnership with your dev agency where you plan all design, development and marketing work on a monthly basis. Your budget is distributed into monthly installments, you pay for a certain number of hours, depending on the complexity of your project and your needs, and get full access to the agency’s team of professionals.
You may start by building the MVP of your new web project together with your WordPresspartner agency. Or go into the problematic aspects of your current website and identify how to fix them. Or devise a plan on how to scale your platform. It all depends on your goals, ideas, and budget.
The leading principle with WordPress development retainers is that, instead of wasting precious time in drawing complex technical specifications for the whole project, you take one step at a time. That gives you the opportunity to prioritize the most important work, and partner with your agency to develop your online business in an agile way.
Research Your Competitors
Competitor analysis is another useful step you should consider when doing your research. Take a look at the websites of companies in your range. At the footer, you may find links to the WordPress development company that built the website. Or you may Google them and look for a portfolio or case study featuring their website).
This may provide an idea what features and functionalities to add to your website, and may even roughly show you how much your website may cost.
Keep in mind that your competitors may have non-disclosure or non-compete agreements with their WordPress development companies. This means that if a WordPress vendor works with another reputable business provider in your industry, they may not be able to work with you.
That said, you can still use that knowledge in your research. Look for listings and relevant companies on LinkedIn where your rivals are featured or search them through tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, and Serpstat that report a high success rate in outlining competitive companies.
The results may point you towards other similar companies and, thus, to other dev agencies you can reach out to.
WordPress Company Listings
Search for online articles listing compilations of WordPress development companies. You will likely stumble upon WP Mayor’s Best WordPress Companies, Agencies and Studios or the compilation of WordPress development companies on Clutch.co, amongst other viable lists.
Working with a larger pool of dev shops would let you research several of them and send your RFP to multiple companies at once.
A good way to approach your first contact is by asking a number of strategic questions:
- How long have you been providing WordPress development services?
- How many contributors work for your WordPress company?
- Can you showcase work samples of projects with a similar scope of mine?
- What are the most challenging WordPress development projects that you have tackled to date?
- How would you assess your expertise in handling WordPress stability, security, performance problems?
Vetting your service provider will also give you insight into their communication style and responsiveness. Professional WordPress companies stick to an established presales process which should be effective and well-defined. Being unable to provide direct answers is a good indication that the following development process may be flawed as well.
Work With Contributors
If your WordPress website is essential for your business strategy, then you should plan for improving and developing it in the long run.
Online businesses need to introduce new features, build high-quality content, and strengthen their branding consistently. Your best bet to achieve this is to work with community contributors.
Think of it as a partnership – the longer you work, the more the technical and business development teams learn about your process and goals. Leveraging this knowledge, they can better optimize your solution and improve your results. Furthermore, who would you rather partner up with – someone building websites as a hobby or a professional with years of experience helping businesses grow?
Bottom Line
No brand has ever become a Fortune 500 company in a day or a month. Success takes time, persistence, and reliable partners to give you a hand when you need it. Investing in your website and working with a reliable WordPress development company will help you grow your business, access new markets, and achieve your goals.
Choosing an agency to work with is an important business decision, so make sure you do your research and opt for a partner that’s flexible, agile, and has the skills and experience to give your company a boost.
Team DevriX
This article is crafted by DevriX's seasoned marketing team, boasting over four decades of collective expertise in crafting sophisticated marketing funnels, devising comprehensive content frameworks and pillars, implementing engaging email campaigns, and creating impactful social media content designed for scalability.
Our marketing experts specialize in the complete spectrum of inbound marketing strategies. As an accredited HubSpot Agency Partner and a Semrush Partner, we engage in meticulous research, blending our extensive experience with the unique insights of our highly skilled team.
We set benchmarks in content creation by incorporating cutting-edge marketing trends, leveraging in-depth industry research, and utilizing state-of-the-art AI tools for data segmentation and captivating content hooks. Our proficiency extends across a diverse range of sectors, including working with SMEs, Fortune 1000 companies, global B2B brands, major publishing entities, WooCommerce platforms, business directories, and affiliate networks.
