Hiring or contracting with someone to fill a technical role within your organization can be stressful, particularly when you’re not familiar with the specific technology you’re looking for an expert in. How do you know a candidate is as qualified as they say they are if you don’t understand the industry-specific jargon?
Today, we’re going to discuss hiring a WordPress expert. If you already knew everything there is to know about WordPress, you wouldn’t need to hire someone, so don’t panic if you’re unfamiliar with it. Below is a list of seven things to check when hiring a WordPress expert to help you ensure you find the best possible candidate without needing to become an expert yourself.
Prior Work and Experience
Finding the right candidate or WordPress development agency for your needs begins with the job advertisement you post. In addition to listing requirements and responsibilities, request that applicants submit a portfolio or a link to a site containing examples of their work.
You don’t need to know ten different programming languages to recognize when a website is aesthetically pleasing and functional, so requesting a portfolio can help you narrow down the applicant pool right away.
Ideas for Backing Up Data
You should always have a backup of your data. Depending on what industry you’re in and the scale you operate, this can mean anything from a flash drive in a desk drawer to a secure server somewhere offsite.
Having a backup of your data can help you recover from cyber attacks, accidents, and system failures. Without a backup, your organization’s impact can be devastating in terms of financial cost and lost productivity.
Candidates will have different ideas about how to backup your data, and they may not be able to provide a truly comprehensive answer without knowing more about your organization’s operations. However, asking them how they’ve done backups in the past or would in the future, if given the opportunity, can help you determine who the most competent hire would be.
Keeping Your Site Secure
WordPress is behind an estimated 40 percent of all websites on the Internet. That’s a good thing and a bad thing.
Because WordPress is widely used, you’re likely to find someone to fill the position you have open. You can also feel confident that you’re choosing a good one by using WordPress since so many other organizations rely on it as far as content management systems go.
Unfortunately, hackers and other cybercriminals are usually familiar with WordPress. Its basic functionality is free, so it’s easy to learn about and experiment with. Without the right security measures, WordPress sites are vulnerable.
Always ask potential hires what they would do to keep your site secure.
Mobile-Friendly Design Experience
About half of all web traffic comes from mobile devices, although that figure excludes the browsing that occurs on tablets. Your website needs to be mobile-friendly. If it’s not, you risk alienating a huge percentage of potential visitors.
Mobile-friendly or responsive web design is a relatively recent development. Despite its importance, many educational programs don’t focus on it. Luckily, there are plenty of mobile-friendly WordPress themes in existence.
You can ask candidates about the importance of responsive web design, as well as whether they would feel comfortable creating their mobile-friendly theme if you’re looking for something custom-made.
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization, usually written as SEO, is critical to your organization’s success. When you optimize your website for search engines, your site will appear higher on the search engine results page.
Very few people bother with the second page of Google search results or whatever other search engine they might be using. If you’re not toward the top of the first page, you’re missing out on business.
You can ask candidates which WordPress SEO plugin they prefer—Yoast and AIO SEO are the two primary options—as well as what else they consider essential for optimizing a WordPress site.
Choosing and Developing Plugins
On its own, WordPress is pretty basic. It’s useful for hosting and creating a site, but it’s nothing fancy. Most of the more complicated functions you see on WordPress sites come from plugins.
There are currently more than 58,000 WordPress plugins available. Ask candidates which ones they consider essential to test their familiarity with the concept and how they prioritize site functions.
Despite the numerous options available, you may be looking for someone to develop a custom function. If that’s the case, ask about their familiarity with the development process and PHP, which is the primary coding language WordPress relies on.
Dedication to Accessibility
If you have a limitation that influences how you interact with technology, you’re already aware of how difficult navigating the Internet can be. If you don’t, the thought may never have crossed your mind. Making your WordPress site accessible is essential, whether you’ve considered it in the past or not.
Ask potential candidates about providing transcripts for audio or video content, using colors that won’t negatively affect a person’s ability with colorblindness to navigate your website, and making sure your content is compatible with screen reading software.
Hiring a WordPress expert doesn’t have to be a gamble when you ask the right interview questions.