Finding a good WordPress developer is one of those things that sounds straightforward until you have done it a couple of times and realized it is not. The internet is full of people who can build you a WordPress site. The number of those people who will build you a good one, communicate clearly, show up when something goes wrong, and still be reachable six months later is considerably smaller.
I have been on the receiving end of this search for over twenty years. Clients come to me after a bad experience more often than they come to me fresh. So I have a pretty clear picture of what goes wrong and what to look for before you hand someone access to your domain and your wallet.
Start With Referrals, Not Google
I know that sounds self-serving coming from someone whose entire business is built on referrals, but hear me out. When you find a developer through a referral from someone you trust, you have already cleared the most important hurdle: you know the work is real, the communication was acceptable, and the client did not feel burned at the end of it.
When you find a developer through a Google search or a marketplace like Upwork or Fiverr, you are starting from zero. The portfolio might be real or it might be stock images. The reviews might be genuine or they might be managed. You have no way to know until you are already in the middle of a project.
If you do not have a referral, ask around in your professional network before you start Googling. Someone in your industry has probably hired a WordPress developer in the last couple of years. Their experience, good or bad, is more useful than any review you will find online.
What to Look for in a Portfolio
When you are looking at a developer's past work, you are not just evaluating whether the sites look good. You are evaluating whether they built sites for businesses like yours, whether those sites actually function well, and whether the work holds up.
Click around on the live sites in their portfolio. Check them on your phone. Fill out a contact form if there is one. See how fast they load. A site that looks great in a screenshot but crawls on mobile or has a broken checkout tells you something important about how that developer thinks about quality.
Also pay attention to whether the sites in the portfolio are diverse or all look like variations of the same template. A developer who builds custom sites for different kinds of businesses will have a portfolio that reflects that variety. A developer who applies the same theme to every project will too.
Questions Worth Asking Before You Hire
Not every developer is right for every project, and a good developer will tell you that honestly. Here are a few questions that tend to separate the experienced ones from the rest.
Who actually does the work? Some developers are really project managers who outsource the actual development. That is not automatically a bad thing, but you should know whether you are hiring the person who will be in your code or someone who will be managing someone else who is in your code.
What does the revision process look like? Every project has revisions. How a developer handles them tells you a lot. How many rounds are included? What counts as a revision versus a scope change? What happens if you are not happy with something?
What do you own when the project is done? The answer should be everything. All files, all credentials, full admin access to the site, the domain, the hosting account. If a developer is vague about this or builds on a proprietary platform that keeps you dependent on them, that is worth knowing upfront.
What happens after launch? Does the developer offer ongoing support? Is there a warranty period? What do they do if something breaks a week after the site goes live? A developer who has no answer to this question is a developer who has no plan for what happens when things go sideways.
How do you communicate during a project? Email, phone, project management software? What is the expected response time? This matters more than most people realize. A developer who is hard to reach during a project is going to be even harder to reach after it.
Need a WordPress site built right the first time?
20+ years of WordPress builds. Direct access to the developer, fixed-price proposals, no agency overhead. Let's talk about what you need before we talk about cost.
Red Flags That Are Worth Taking Seriously
No contract or proposal. If a developer wants to start work on a handshake and a deposit, that is a problem. A clear written proposal that outlines scope, timeline, deliverables, and payment terms is not bureaucracy. It is the thing that protects both of you when there is a disagreement about what was agreed to.
Prices that seem too good to be true. I am not saying expensive is always better. I am saying that a custom WordPress site for four hundred dollars is not a custom WordPress site. It is a template with your logo dropped in, built as fast as possible to maximize the developer's hourly rate. You will get what you paid for and then spend more fixing it later.
No questions about your business. A developer who sends you a quote before asking anything meaningful about your business, your goals, or your audience is not designing a solution for you. They are selling you a package. A good developer asks questions first because the answers should shape how the project is built.
Vague timelines. "A few weeks" is not a timeline. A real proposal includes milestone dates and a launch target. If a developer cannot give you a timeline before starting, they probably cannot give you one during the project either.
Slow communication before you hire them. This one is simple. If it takes three days to get a response when they are trying to win your business, imagine how long it will take when they already have your deposit.
What Good Actually Looks Like
A good WordPress developer asks more questions than they answer in the early conversations. They are upfront about what is and is not included in the scope. They communicate regularly without you having to chase them. They deliver what they said they would deliver when they said they would deliver it. And when something goes sideways after launch, which it sometimes does, they show up and deal with it.
They are also reachable. Not just during the project but after it. The sites I built in 2010 are still running, and the clients who owned them know they can reach me if something comes up. That kind of accessibility is not universal in this industry, and it is worth seeking out.
The Bottom Line
Hiring a WordPress developer is a real business decision with real consequences if you get it wrong. A bad hire costs you time, money, and the opportunity cost of whatever your site could have been doing for your business during the months it took to sort out the mess.
Take your time. Ask for referrals. Look at real work. Ask the questions above. And if your gut tells you something is off about a developer, trust it. There are plenty of good ones out there. The right fit is worth waiting for.
If you want to talk through what your project actually needs before you decide anything, we are happy to have that conversation. No pitch, no pressure. Just an honest discussion about whether we are the right fit.
