8 Questions to Ask a WordPress Website Designer
Hiring a WordPress website designer takes time. Each designer’s skills, background and service offerings are different. So before you hire, you need to be sure that you’ll get the specific skills and expertise you need, at a price that is within your budget.
Here are some questions to ask when choosing a WordPress website designer:
1. Do you offer design and development?
Design is more focused on the look of a website, and development is how it functions. Some may specialize in one or the other and not necessarily both.
Website design is creating the overall look, feel and layout of the website. This effort includes selecting a theme, customizing the theme by making color choices, adding images, choosing text fonts and creating content.
The goals of a WordPress website designer are to make an aesthetically pleasing, rapidly loading and responsive website.
Website design includes creating an easy-to-use, intuitive, graphical user interface (GUI) that your website visitors will appreciate.
Website development includes all the work needed to build the site, beyond the basic design, and ensure it works properly. Examples of advanced development can include back-end features, such as e-commerce functions and cloud integrations.
Make sure you find a WordPress website designer who provides the exact services you need (or who does both design and development, as we do here at WP Tangerine).
2. Can you help with SEO?
Not every WordPress website designer can help with search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. SEO is a specialty area that makes websites better at ranking higher on a search engine results page.
The SEO techniques considered to be the best practices are constantly changing due to the adjustments being made in the search engines’ algorithms. The algorithm is the set of rules used by the search engines to rank web pages higher or lower.
An SEO expert needs to track your website’s pages and monitor the ranking for important keywords. If changes to the algorithms cause a sudden negative impact, your SEO expert should make the proper adjustments. Your average WordPress website designer typically does not offer this expertise.
If you are not sure about the current status of your website, start with a free expert website analysis.
3. What if I need help making my site faster?
A serious flaw for any website is a design that includes large graphic files and junky code, which take a long time to load. Images and web pages need to be optimized for fast loading speeds. A website that does not load quickly is penalized by the search engines and loses some of its ranking power. Moreover, a slow-loading website loses visitors, who rapidly click away if pages don’t load quickly enough.
4. Do you also provide support as a WordPress website designer?
A common problem when hiring a freelancer, even if they do a decent job initially, is having them available to help if a WordPress website has problems in the future.
If you spend the time, effort and money to get your WordPress website working smoothly and exactly how you want, you don’t want to wake up one day to find your website is not working without having someone immediately able to call for WordPress help. This is why it’s a good idea to get 360-degree design and WordPress support services from WP Tangerine, rather than hiring a single WordPress website designer who won’t be able to support you in the future.
5. Do I need to update my plugins and themes myself?
Yes, unless you’re using a WordPress service like WP Tangerine, most designers won’t manage your website. This is vitally important because of security and functionality issues. Not updating your website and plugins can make it vulnerable to hacking and other problems.
6. What if I need new graphics made for my blog posts and pages?
You want to keep your website looking fresh and appealing to repeat visitors. Some designers only build a website and then can’t help with ongoing needs, forcing you to use other providers.
7. Can I see a portfolio of your previous work as a WordPress website designer?
Make sure to see samples of the designer’s work to confirm the quality and functionality.
8. Do you offer a flat monthly fee?
Regular WordPress website maintenance, at a flat monthly fee, is cost-effective. This is a wise investment to keep your website running smoothly.
Get Unlimited Access to a WordPress Website Designer & Support Team
Choosing the right expert to build your website is critical for ensuring its success. And regular maintenance of your site will keep it in tip-top shape.
Unlike a traditional WordPress Website Designer, WP Tangerine can do all of these WordPress website improvements, at a fraction of the cost of hiring multiple freelancers and providers. We offer an affordable, flat monthly fee that includes unlimited help with your WordPress site, including design, development, graphic design, speed optimization and more.
Request a free expert website analysis to get started, or compare plans now to find the right fit for your needs.
