It’s a good thing to understand what is involved in delivering a quality WordPress site from start to finish. Being on the front line of project communications it never ceases to amaze me when a prospect thinks the tasks that lie ahead to take on the undertaking of developing a website should only take a ‘couple of hours’. I am sharing this list to demonstrate what is involved from delivering a fully functional WordPress site.
When you think something should take a “couple hours” to do, remember that a good WordPress website should be delivered with:
- Communications
- Client onboarding: getting you set up
- Hosting access and deployment help
- User setup
- Caching
- Sitemap
- 301 Redirects
- On-page content formatting
- Custom post types
- Media settings
- Image/Media optimizations
- Front page post streaming
- Posts to Posts setups
- Custom fields
- Pixel Perfect layouts
- Hosting improvements
- DNS configurations
- Search optimization configurations
- Security layer
- Backups, snapshots, rollbacks
- Performance optimizations
- Script and CSS enqueueing
- QA and testing
- Mobile responsive testing
- Edge case debugging
- Custom programming requests
- Media selection (fancy sliders)
- Training and help
- Priority help
- Fast turnaround and rush jobs
- Content suggestions
- Project management
- Site cleanup
- Old themes cleanup
- Plug-ins review and cleanup
- Update core
- Update plugins
- Replace bad plugins
After reviewing this list, you may think “I don’t need all that”. The truth is if you are a serious business you do, but you just don’t know it yet. Our quotes are based on what we are familiar with and are directly correlated to understanding the vitality that the above list plays in delivering a fully functional WordPress site. A quote or job with any of these components left out inevitably leaves the door wide open for issues to arise at a later date which equate to additional development costs. We never advise going this route as cutting corners leads to a perception of bad work which is something we are not advocates of.