What makes a web designer call himself a WordPress specialist?
This question is relevant to anyone who is considering having a WordPress website built , but doesn’t want to settle for amateur work.
Unfortunately, this question cannot be answered objectively. There are no laws that say when you can call yourself a WordPress specialist.
I myself have over 15 years of experience building WordPress sites. Over the years I have seen creations of varying quality.
Based on my experiences, I will give you my opinion. I present you my 7 requirements that a WordPress web designer must meet before he can call himself a specialist.
In my opinion, to be able to bear the title of ‘WordPress specialist’, a web designer must have knowledge of all WordPress disciplines: themes, graphic design, plugins, security, speed, connections and SEO.
I will cover these disciplines one by one and explain why they are so important for a well-functioning WordPress website.
Discipline 1: WordPress Themes
Many website owners opt for a WordPress website based on a ready-made theme. Such a theme (also often called a template or in English theme ) is a ready-made design in which all the technology is already in place. All text blocks and photo boxes are already in place. They are filled with placeholder lorem ipsum and random images.
To prepare such a theme, the web designer must strip it of any But you get the accurate phone number list contact lists for your offers then our data is valid guaranteed. Support : 24/7 support for all plans Our phone number list database will help you to reach your business on the next level. Whatever the advertiser collected from america cell phone number list permissioned sites (this being a good database quality or quantity and with this you can earn leads), out here we bring your databases in order to promote their business has more sales. features that the website owner does not need. Furthermore, the theme must be filled with your own texts and images.
Creating a WordPress website with a theme is a fairly easy discipline. But since themes are a popular method of creating a website, it should definitely be within the expertise of the WordPress specialist.
Want to know if you should opt for a theme or customization? Read our article A custom WordPress website or one based on a template? .
Ventures by Sabrina, a theme-based website by Motionmill
Discipline 2: Graphic design
There are limitations to WordPress themes. Themes only contain the technical functionalities that the creator has put into them. Functionalities can be added, but that often requires a relatively large amount of work (disproportionately much compared to a custom site). Also, websites based on a theme are often slow, because they contain all kinds of things that you don’t actually need.
Many website owners therefore prefer a custom website. This means that the website builder sets up the website entirely based on your needs. Only what you need is includ in the website.
For this kind of customization, a web designer must be good at graphic design . Because where the graphic work was already done with a theme, this still has to be done from scratch with a custom site.
Graphic design comes in a thousand gradations, from abominably bad to wonderfully beautiful
A real WordPress specialist designs beautiful websites .
Fakeimages.be , a custom website built by Motionmill
Discipline 3: Plug-ins
The cool thing about WordPress is that you can easily expand your website functions. You do that with plug-ins. Do you want to add forms to your website ? Then you put the plug-in Gravity Forms on your website, for example. Do you want to turn your website into a webshop ? Then you need WooCommerce .
A WordPress specialist knows better than anyone how to install and configure plugins.
But he also has an advisory role. He can tell you which plug-ins suit your needs. To be able to do this, the specialist must have extensive knowledge of all the plug-ins on the market.
Wonderweekend.be uses advanced forms for booking tickets
Discipline 4: Safety
A true WordPress specialist knows how to secure a website against malicious hackers and bots. The website must be safe for you as the owner and for the visitors.
There are numerous actions that contribute to the security of a WordPress website, including:
Installing an SSL certificate. This ensures that visitors can safely share personal data with your website. More about this on this page .
Login via a non-standard URL. By default, the slug of the login page of a WordPress website is /wp-admin, for example motionmill.com/wp-admin. Hackers then imm iately know where to go to start their hacking attempt. A true WordPress specialist changes that standard slug to something unique that only he and you know.
Changing the admin name and ID. By default, the main administrator of a WordPress site is call ‘admin’ and has ID_1. A clever website builder will of course change this name.
Maintain and update vulnerable plugins. If your website builder provides post-delivery support, you can ask them to update your plugins regularly. Some hosting companies, such as WPorters , will also do this for you. I personally use the security plugin iThemes Security for all the sites I build , which gives me a report of vulnerable plugins every two weeks. If I see that my clients are using these, I make sure they are patched.
Penalize wrong login attempts. This is not standard, but a WordPress expert can set it up. For example, on every website I build, you can only enter an incorrect username or password three times. After that, you cannot log in for 15 minutes. If you repeat this a few times, you can never log in again with the IP address you us . This keeps hackers out very efficiently!
Evenaar.tv is a website with strict security
Discipline 5: Speed
A slow website is very frustrating for you as a website administrator. Every time you want to change something on your site, you have to wait a long time before a page is open and sav .
Even more annoying is for your site visitors, who have come to your site to quickly look up information or buy something. You should not be surprised when people quickly close your slow website.
A WordPresser who knows his trade knows what things to do to keep a website fast:
Do not install unnecessary plug-ins. Every plug-in you install makes the website a little slower. A good website builder always weighs up whether a plug-in is really necessary.
Preferably do not use page builders. So-called page builders are disastrous for your website speed.
Resize images. Images that are many megabytes in size result in a web page loading slowly. The better web designers among us reduce images first. There are also plug-ins that do this for you.
These are just some of the steps a good site builder takes to create a fast website.
Your website speed also affects your ranking in Google. The faster your website, the higher you will rank in Google . We will take a closer look at this topic in the next paragraph.
Scutum-security.be scores high on speed tests
Discipline 6: SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) are actions that aim buy business owner database to make your website rank higher in search engine results. Think mainly of Google, because other search engines don’t really matter.
Your ranking in Google is determin first of all by your b2c lead content , by your on-page SEO . This part is not usually the responsibility of your website builder. This part is taken care of by a copywriter .
Where your website builder does have a lot of influence is the technology of your website. Your website technology is of significant importance for your SEO:
As we saw in the previous item, your website needs to be fast to rank well in the search engines.
Your site structure should be such that Google can quickly find all pages.
Your website should have a plugin that helps with your on-page SEO. For WordPress, I always like to use Yoast .
Your pages should not be mark as ‘no index’ in the back end .
