Insights, Web Development
How to Choose the Right WordPress Development Company for Your Business
Get a 15-point checklist to evaluate your future web development partner
You have an impending WordPress development project on your schedule and feel completely lost at who to assign it to. Sounds familiar? We get it. It can get quite overwhelming to filter out and identify the best WordPress development company for your specific project needs. Not to mention the insane amount of freelancers that promise you the same top-notch quality at half the price.
Well, a single promise is never enough. This is why today we’ve prepared a list of the 15 top important factors to check when choosing the right WordPress development company for your current and upcoming WordPress dev projects. Let’s begin!
What to look for: Quality of work
For sure, the quality of work is of utmost concern when it comes to establishing a robust online presence, and even running a successful e-store with WordPress. One of the top priorities on your list would be to check out the particular agency’s experience and proficiency to accomplish the task given.
Depending on your own needs, you may need broader expertise or niche-specific skills. Both ways, you will need a WordPress development company whose experience matches your particular project requirements to the highest extent. Such a company would provide you with a greater understanding from day one, greater attention to detail, smoother communication, and a flawless working process. Trustworthy WordPress dev companies usually provide detailed information about their expertise on their website.
How to get proof?
1. Look for work samples and case studies
For sure, nothing tells more about a company’s competence than its own portfolio. Even more, an agency’s portfolio can give you the best idea of what type of projects this company is confident in delivering. Is it similar to what you need to be done for your particular project in mind?
It’s even better if the agency provides case studies instead of just work samples. In case studies, you will find valuable information like insights and explanations on what and how it has been done. Additionally, you may deeper understand how the agency handles difficulties and challenges that occur in the development process. Even more, you will understand whether this company works by template or approaches each project with an individual set of solutions.
If by any chance, you can’t see any previous work listed on the agency’s website or can’t access it, you should really consider if it’s worth it to entrust this particular company with your future projects.
2. Examine their own site
Speaking of the agency’s website, examining it is actually a great starting point that will help you evaluate what they’re trying to sell you. Is the site user-friendly? Is it functional? Does it work great on mobile and desktop? Is it SEO and speed-optimized? Is it secured, and so on? The answers will help you understand what kinds of professionals stand behind this WordPress development company.
3. Ask technical questions
Most definitely, technical competence is a top trait you’re looking for. It’s certainly useful to examine the agency’s work and website. But asking questions that really concern you can give you additional insight and confirmation if you are on the right track with choosing this company as your future partner.
Generally, agencies occupied in WordPress development should have knowledge of HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, WordPress API, plugin development, and more. You can get really specific with your questions since the answers you receive can literally make you decide if this is the right agency for your needs.
If you are not so into the technical details, you can simply ask how they developed this or that project, what part of the development process were they accountable for, and so on. Asking questions will help you set correct expectations, too.
What to look for: Reliability
Another major factor to consider is to what extent you can trust your future partner. Needless to say, the answer must be quite definitive to the positive side. You need to be sure that the company you will be working with stays true to its word. How to get proof?
4. Read company reviews
Third-party opinions of companies and individual clients can provide invaluable information on whether you can trust this agency or not. You can start off by reading customer testimonials on their website. However, the agency may still choose to publish only positive feedback about their work and skip the negative ones.
An even more reliable method to learn the mass opinion about the WordPress development company you are investigating is to check an independent website like TrustPilot. Such websites provide more objective and unmanipulated reviews that will give you a clear picture of how reliable the company is.
To dig even deeper, you can try to get in touch with past or current clients to get an opinion from firsthand experience.
5. Read about the team – size and expertise
In whose hands will your project be? Trustworthy companies provide information about their team’s size and expertise. From it, you can learn critical information about who you will be communicating with, how much attention will your project get, how experienced are the members of the team, and a lot more.
For example, small agencies may not be able to handle many projects at once. So, you can’t really rely on them starting to code your design right away. However, they may include personal introductions of all team members on their site. So, you can really examine each person’s capabilities and expertise before entrusting them with your project.
On the other hand, larger companies may react ASAP but not provide the personalized attention you’d want. Middle-sized WordPress development companies seem to fall in the golden mean. However, most of these perceptions are still quite subjective.
Middle-sized and larger companies usually provide you with a project manager that works with a limited number of clients and their own team of developers. This way, you get the personalized attention you need while your project is being coded along with several others at the moment.
Another factor to consider is that middle-sized and larger companies often use and apply their own custom tools, as they usually spend time and resources to enhance their working processes.
What to look for: Flexibility
Flexibility is another factor that can tilt the scales of your decision. The general opinion is that larger companies offer less flexibility due to established working processes while small and middle-sized agencies are prone to adapt to your specific requirements. For example, you may want to use your own staging server. Or, you may want to communicate via a different communication channel. Or, anything you can think of. So, how to know if your future partner is adaptable?
6. Understand the company’s approach
Most reliable companies include accessible information about their approach on their website. Some agencies may prefer to have the concept and design done on your side and then only turn it into a functional website. Others may offer assistance from the very beginning of the process, helping you brainstorm ideas, create the design, and implement the final product into a working site.
For sure, skilled companies are able to provide a full service or take on the project from a particular point onwards equally well. In addition, skilled companies can use your preferred tools and working environment without making an issue. It’s easy to understand if the agency can adapt its approach to your unique needs by simply asking.
7. Check availability
Availability is an important factor to consider for several reasons. Whether you need timely updates or urgent projects on your schedule with strict deadlines, the availability of the agency will ensure your confidence and peace that all is under control. Being flexible in terms of availability means being able to react in a timely manner.
Additional questions to ask are: Does the company offer 24/7 support? Do they have an ASAP team to handle urgent projects? Will you have a trusted person to call any time you need? Can they start working on your project right away? If not, how long would you wait until they do? Well, the answers to these questions may contribute to your decision of which WordPress development company to go for.
8. Ask about turnarounds and timelines
Speaking of deadlines, time is an undeniably important metric. Project turnarounds are as important as the quality of work and costs. It’s not only essential to know when they can start working on your project but what the estimated delivery date is. Especially, if you are on a strict deadline here. If one agency is busier than another, this may turn the scales in favor of the latter.
9. What communication channels do they use?
While web development agencies have their preferred ways of communicating, it’s important to know if they are prone to alternatives. In addition, each communication channel has its own pros and cons. Email communication, for example, keeps everything documented. On the other hand, phone calls and video calls can help you save time writing and speed up the process of clearing up details.
Usually, companies put information on their websites about how to contact them and how they prefer to communicate. The most common way to start communication with an agency is to fill out a contact form with your project details, attach relevant files, and leave out your name and contact information.
If you have your own reasons for wanting to use another particular communication method, you should know if the agency is willing to adapt.
What to look for: Transparency
Most certainly, transparency is key if both parties are looking for a long-term partnership. Hidden costs, fees, and unclear conditions have never done any good to keep a client on your side for long. So, reliable and established companies make sure to lay the cards on the table right from the beginning. Here is how to recognize if transparency and honesty are native to your potential partner.
10. Are the responsibilities of both parties clear?
Agencies that put transparency in the first place are not afraid to talk about responsibilities. Before you start working together, trustworthy agencies can clearly state the responsibilities on their behalf and set their expectations of what they need on your behalf.
For example, some WordPress development companies don’t make design but only development. Therefore, they will expect you to provide all the necessary assets in order to keep the work going. You may need to provide visual and editorial content, as well. Learn who will be responsible for the SEO, as well.
11. Learn about the pricing model
Chances are, you are on a budget. So, it wouldn’t be nice if you are unpleasantly surprised by additional fees that haven’t been mentioned from the very beginning. It’s in your best favor to plan your expenses in advance and consider only agencies with transparent pricing plans. All services that are included in this pricing should be explicitly described. A price list should always be available if you need any additional services at any point in the project’s progress.
12. What’s the correlation between cost and value?
While cost is extremely important, value is an even more important factor. One company can offer you more value for the same price than another, and vice versa. Consider everything in terms of quality, support, turnarounds, maintenance, updates, and so on. Even if an agency charges a little bit more but provides more value, it’s worth considering it as the better option.
Look around for additional features, too. Some may be provided for free by given agencies while they may cost extra at other companies.
What to look for: Guarantees
Undeniably, giving guarantees makes clients more confident and willing to give a particular agency a chance. Reliable WordPress development companies know that guarantees and policies only work in their favor of building long-term relationships with clients. Here is what to look for when considering guarantees from your future partner.
13. Free trials, money-back policies, non-disclosure agreements
Usually, trustworthy companies have their ways to prove that you can count on them. Some policies to look for are non-disclosure agreements that guarantee confidentiality and money-back policies that guarantee refunds if the product received doesn’t correspond to what you agreed upon. Some web development companies like htmlBurger offer even free trials – an obligation-free and cost-free period of time during which the agency develops a small portion of the project and sends it to the client for approval. If the client approves, they keep working together. If not, they part ways without any obligations or costs involved.
14. Security measures
For sure, when it comes to protecting your data, it’s a top priority to take all necessary security measures according to the latest standards. Reliable agencies work according to the most adequate security protocols to ensure that they deliver a secure website. Even if you have an existing site, you can still count on web development companies to update it in order to be protected from hacker attacks, data breaches, and so on.
15. Future maintenance and support policy
It’s not of small importance to ask and learn how your site will be supported and maintained in the future. Do you completely part ways after the sale? Does the company provide free support and maintenance? For what kind of changes can they make in the future? For what period of time?
Once your site is up and running smoothly, this doesn’t mean you won’t be needing any assistance maintaining it in the future. Standards in web development are evolving, and so should your site.
There are agencies that offer free support for a limited period of time after the website launch. On the other hand, there are agencies that provide lifetime support. Certainly, the second option sounds quite more attractive.
Even more, some agencies will fix small errors that appear on the site in the future for free. Others will charge you for any additional work, no matter big or small.
A few words to sum up
Finding the right WordPress development company for your future projects might become a challenge you never thought was so intimidating. With the huge diversity of large and small agencies, one can easily get lost in the process of finding the best company that will actually get the work done within a specific timeframe, at a reasonable price, and at the highest value. For sure, it’s not an easy task.
Well, this checklist of 15 points is certainly a good place to start. A WordPress development company that is worth putting your trust in, will pass all of these checkpoints, and may even surpass your expectations. Whatever your decision is, make sure to consider your own priorities in terms of quality, timeframes, pricing, support, etc., and decide if you are willing to compromise on any. With a little bit of luck and a little more research, you will be chatting with your dream partner in no time.
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