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WordPress

christopher walsh
christopher walsh
10,763 Points
Posted by christopher walsh
christopher walsh
10,763 Points

what makes a professional Wordpress

I want to learn Wordpress because there are many gigs and small jobs for Wordpress on job boards for my city.

my question is, what will a professional do with Wordpress that a non-web person can't do themselves. If I am charging people, I want to make sure I'm doing actual work. I don't want to rip anybody off. But Wordpress seems so learnable, what are people looking for that they can't do themselves.

So what makes a Wordpress website a professional product? also, how do I hand off the website to the client? do I just say "heres the password, don't mix up the formatting! bye!!!!" I want to make sure I build good references but I don't want clients calling me six months later.

and I am talking about very simple websites for a photographer, a small salon, very basic e-commerce and paypal plugins.

2 Answers

Darren Joy
Darren Joy
19,573 Points
Darren Joy
Darren Joy
19,573 Points

I would recommend watching the Treehouse Design material specifically:

http://teamtreehouse.com/library/design-foundations

specifically 'Becoming a Problem Solver'

Many people in the 'art' scene that I know of want a quick website they can tweak without putting a lot of money or time into it. In other words, they want you to solve their web problems...

Michael Thomas
Michael Thomas
10,910 Points
Michael Thomas
Michael Thomas
10,910 Points

Hi Christopher

For starters, a professional WordPress developer wont be relying on using a gazillion 3rd party plugins which slow down the site and lead to unnecessary security holes. Which brings me to the next point, a pro will secure the database and protect the login page from brute force attacks - two major WordPress vulnerabilities.

There's a tun of things a pro can do with a little CSS and PHP knowledge, but in general people use WordPress because its so easy, but after they begin building their site they realize that customizing it to their specific wants and needs isn't so simple and they just don't have the time to do it.

When you hand off the site to the client you can offer them a monthly retainer, for example 4 hours per month at say $90 per hour, or however much you charge. So they pay you $360 p/m which guarantees them access to your time and expertise. If they don't use the hours for any given month then they roll over to the next month, but the hours will expire after 90 days if left unused.

A website nowadays isn't a one time deal so it's inevitable that they're going to need some kind of maintenance at some point. Once you have too many previous clients who need your help it's time to hire a virtual assistant hah :)

Best wishes, Mike