5 Ways To Make The Most Out Of Outsourcing WordPress Development

1. Hey guys, in this article, we are going to discuss the 5 ways to make the most out of outsourcing WordPress development. So keep reading.

So it’s the time when you’re feeling the need to outsource your WordPress development. Not having enough resources at hand to manage a huge business/agency and hire a whole team of coders is the reason why outsourcing web development is even a thing. Thousands of business owners/agencies/freelancers are in the same boat.

There are huge risks in outsourcing, of course: all stemming from a lack of faith and/or authenticity of the company. But once you manage to find the one developer/company that proves itself worthy and feels like the right match for you, here’s how you make the most of outsourcing:

Share WordPress Development + Business Goals

Let’s learn with a hypothetical example: Suppose you have a paper writing company website on WordPress that is managed by and targeted to users with all levels of visual impairments. You need to make the WordPress admin easier to navigate and more accessible for the users with the ‘teacher’ role.

Now, if you state your project description as this: “I need an interface for the visually-impaired through which publication in a collaborative environment can be made easier,” you only get an interface customized and made highly accessible for screen-readers and visually-impaired users.

But if you add this next to it: “We are a private university and this is a part of our Accessible-web drive.” You are clarifying that the admin interface will need to become accessible to people with any disability as per long-term goals in the future, so your development company knows not to accidentally close the interface to further customization in the future.

That was a very tiny example. Apply the same to eCommerce: You want a shopping cart for an online store based in Australia.

Your long-term business goal will let developers choose the best payment gateways and shipping methods based on target countries, as well as languages to translate your store into.

Sharing your immediate project goal and long-term business goal (from the WordPress website) makes for superb development: It gives your remote developers a circumference/ set of parameters that they can stick to even though you may not recognize those exact specifications/technicalities yet.

Keep Calm And Communicate

And remember that communication is a two-lane road. Your remote developer/team can only do so much without your input/approval on certain tasks (especially ones based on designs: like PSD to WordPress conversion or custom theme development).

Keep your communication channels open and respond to your developer/team’s queries, otherwise, you are delaying and bottlenecking your own project.

This works the other way around too, of course. Your developer/team will (and should) be at hand to answer your queries about the project.

Test Runs And Baby Steps

When in doubt, test your assumptions. First-time outsourcers are often apprehensive about a developer/team, and that’s okay. Some companies will let you assign a small test project for dirt-cheap costs so you can get a better idea about their workflow, expertise, timeliness, quality, and communication.

Once you find a developer/team that passes the test, start small. Assign them some small tasks and evaluate the timeframe and quality of the deliverable to make sure that they are consistent.

Make sure your developers/team passes both tests before outsourcing WordPress development services to them. Once you are certain, build up to larger projects.

WordPress Upkeep

Web development is a never-ending process. Despite the sheer genius of your developer/team, there will always be some error/bug which will come to light at some point when the system/product is online.

Knowing this, the question you should be asking is whether your remote developer/team is ready and equipped to run maintenance. NYC WordPress development companies often give you some period of off-development support once your project is finished and deployed.

Apart from that, there are WordPress developers who offer regular maintenance and upkeep as SaaS (subscription model). Those are worth looking into if you are running a complicated network or eCommerce store.

Know What You Need

I have come across clients looking for “WordPress designers” when they needed to customize a theme or plugin, and I have seen people posting ads for “WordPress developers” demanding mockups and PSDs. It would be hilarious if it weren’t losing people’s time and money.

WordPress designers will be responsible for drawing and mapping the visual appearance of your website. They draw the themes and templates, add interface elements and color schemes, define the best spaces for interactions and animations, et al.

WordPress developers will be responsible for turning all that work (and more) into a fully-functional reality. Use this analogy to remember the difference: “Developers bake the cake, and designers decorate it.”

The skill-set may overlap (many designers are moving towards learning front-end coding using languages like CSS and JavaScript), but this is the core difference. Both have their place in creating and customizing a website.

So that’s all from my side. I hope you liked this article on the 5 ways to make the most out of outsourcing WordPress development. Thanks for reading!