WordPress Tips

In our last post, we reviewed some key questions to ask any prospective WordPress web developer, or even your current developer. In this article, we have more suggestions as you interview WordPress developers prior to signing the contract.

1. Will it be easy for me to manage content on my WordPress website?

WordPress is the most user-friendly content management systems, but you still shouldn’t assume that your site make content management a breeze. Why? A poorly built WordPress website can become difficult if custom coding becomes outdated. If you plan to add, change, or test varying types of content across your website, then you need to ensure the developer build it accordingly.

If you don’t want to learn WordPress development or FTP, then you will want your developer to ensure the site is built for you to easily edit defined blocks of content. Specifically, you want to ensure that:

• Content blocks on the homepage are controlled by pages or widgets
• Page layout options are set as page templates
• Navigation menus are built using the WordPress native menus feature
• Primary on-page SEO elements are not hard coded
• Footers and sidebars are controlled by the sidebar feature

Prior to approving any web page designs, make sure your web developer knows which sections of content you expect to be changing or editing frequently.

2. Which plugins will you include with the initial build?

A huge, cost effective advantage to WordPress is the community of developers that have produced an immense library of plugins. If there is a specific feature you want for your website, you will most likely find a plugin for it.

However, while plugins are fun, they can overwhelm a site and slow it down. Make sure your WordPress developer uses only well-reviewed, well-built plugins and only for the necessary features you desire.

3. Will my WordPress website be optimized for mobile?

This is an absolute must in today’s mobile world. Your website must be optimized for mobile, and if your WordPress web developer suggests otherwise, you may wish to find another. The appropriate time to create your mobile strategy is prior to building the website. Your future customers want a seamless experience. If you don’t provide this at launch, you may lose potential business.

• You have a few options here:
• Build a mobile website specifically for mobile devices
• Make your website mobile responsive
• Create a mobile application

If this is a new website, ensure that the developer makes it a responsive site. If your existing site is mobile-friendly but not responsive, then your new site can be mobile. Discuss this with your WordPress developer.

4. How will you preserve the SEO value and history of my existing website?

This is an underappreciated question, but if you have an existing site that has been online for a considerable time, then your developer must make a proper migration to preserve the SEO value and history that has accumulated. If the developer forgets this critical step, it may result in:

• An increase in 404 errors on your website
• Broken links from other sites that have linked to you
• A drop in organic rankings

Whether your existing website ranks or not, a proper migration is still necessary. Do not launch your new site without mapping all old URLs to the new ones and transferred prior SEO content and work.

5. Which SEO features will you include with my website?

WordPress is the most SEO-friendly platform on which to build a site; however, your developer still needs to implement SEO best practices for optimized results. What does this mean? Your developer should be familiar with the best methods to setup and optimize beyond the core code base. Be sure your developer addresses:

• Unnecessary archive pages being indexed
• Unique title and met descriptions for each page
• Clean, consistent permalinks throughout the website

NOYO Web Development recommends WordPress as a platform for all types of websites. We have built sites for SMEs and global enterprises. Contact us today for a free consultation and quote. Don’t settle for anything less than the best WordPress developer.