What to Do When WordPress Plugins Do Not Fit Your Need
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WordPress is an amazing website building tool. WordPress is built in such a way that anyone and everyone can add functionality to WordPress through means of WordPress Plugins.
You can do just about anything you want with your WordPress website through Plugins.
You want to added in a form submission? There’s a plugin for that!
You want to add in an image gallery, other than the WordPress default one? There is a plugin for that as well!
Want added in Google News Sitemaps for your articles…yup, there are WordPress plugins for that!
Okay, you get the point! There is a plugin for just about anything you would like to do (see our top 10 plugins), but what do you do when can’t find “the one”? Or the plugin you found could be fine tuned to better meet your need. Or worse, it slows down your site!!! errrrr.
That is when you need a way to get your problem solved with your very own plugin solution. Here are some questions you may have on how to get to your finalized plugin solution:
- Where do I start?
- Who do you trust with your WordPress Plugin development?
- How much will it cost me?
- Support after my solution?
These questions and many others will come up. So let’s talk about how to tackle them.
Where do I start for special WordPress Plugins?
There is a couple different ways to go about this. If you have a great web developer or web support guy/gal, I would recommend talking to them first and see if they are capability of handling your project.
If your website support team cannot help develop your custom plugin solution, or you don’t currently have a web developer, where do you turn? Within the WordPress community, there is a couple great resource that we recommend you use.
Jobs.WordPress.net
Jobs.WordPress.net is a website built and run by WordPress and MidOut. So, you know you can trust the site. This resource is free, and it is more of a forum style site. Basically, you post your need with your contact information and receive responses via email.
When posting your project/task on this website, make sure you are very clear on what you want and what you need help with. The more detailed the better responses you will get. As I mentioned before, you will have to leave contact information for the people to respond to you, and you might want to create a new email account for the responses to be sent to. Because you will get a lot of responses! You can create Gmail Account or another email account under your domain on your website to keep your main email account from being bombarded.
Your posting will stay on the website for 21 days or until you tell them to remove it. I’ve seen a bunch of different task on this website from simple theme help to full customized requests. There seems to be a good following on the website; so, you will get some great leads from it.
Guru
Another place to list your website plugin development task is on Guru.com. Guru is a website that allows developers, designers and support teams to create profiles that include a portfolio, example and resume section. So, when you post your project (for free), you will then be able to look through each response and see their work examples and learn more about the person/company. I’ve noticed there seems to be a lot of foreign countries on Guru so if you aren’t comfortable working with people outside of the US, then I would recommend using Jobs.WordPress.net.
Who do you trust with your WordPress Plugin development?
When you are searching for your developer or support team, who do you trust? Some business cannot afford to lose a day with their website down. How do you know the code you will be getting doesn’t have a backdoor?
Okay, don’t be scared. There are a lot of trust worthy developers out there, you just need to weed through them.
The Interview Round
Interview the people that are interested in working with you. Just like you are going to hiring someone to work for you. First off, you don’t want someone who doesn’t respond to your emails or calls. Get examples of past work and references. Have a set of questions ready for each person.
A few questions I think that can help you weed out a couple.
- What timezone are you in?
- How many years of experience?
- Is this a team of people or just you working on the project?
- What hours are you available for email or phone calls?
- What kind of support will you provide after development is completed (and will it cost more)?
- Ask for past and current examples of their WordPress work.
- Do you have references that I can contact? (Past testimonials)
How do they develop?
During the interview process, be sure to find out how will the person develop the plugin? Will be it directly on your website? Will they development it offline or somewhere else for you to test before deploying to your website? These questions can help you understand the impact of development on your website. If they develop on your LIVE website, and have a coding error, it will could keep your website from loading. Which is BAD!!!
Trust your GUT!
If you don’t have a good feeling about the person, trust your gut. No matter how cheap the developer is. If your gut is yelling at you. don’t go with that person.
What is this awesome WordPress plugin going to cost me?
That is a hard question to answer. You need to have a range that you are willing to pay. Your range will depend on the answers above plus some other factors. How quick do you need the plugin developed? Some companies and individuals might have a rush fee for short deadlines. A good way to understand the scope of your idea or project is, how long does it take you to explain the idea to the developer. If describing the plugin is extremely difficult, then, more than likely, the plugin is going to be more expensive. Because it is probably a is harder solution to program.
Figure out the cost yourself
How much would you be willing to pay someone hourly to work? What sort of budget do you have for the website project or add on? What is your ROI (return on investment) for this idea? Can you break out the development into phases to keep your cost down and develop a relationship with your support.
Support? What now?
Just as any other software program, updates are a necessity. Within your WordPress website, you will have to have updates made to your custom plugins, off-the-shelf plugins, and WordPress itself. What do you plan to do if your website doesn’t work because you hit update all? This is something you need to iron out with your developer. Talk to them about this before development begins. What is their support plan, will it cost you, will it be free? These answers you need to know before proceeding with a developer as it will change the cost of the project. Yes, in a perfect world we wish the software would always work perfect but with the constant change in browsers, operating systems and the internet; we never know what will happen next.
So, have a plan for support or have a developer that you can trust on call. Plan, prepare and attack.
When all avenues fail…
What do you do when all avenues fail? Image In A Box. We offer over 10+ years of development experience. Image In A Box can develop customized WordPress Plugins on time and within budget. We understand WordPress, as we use it on a daily basis. We also ask the right questions to make sure the project is fully understood. This allows us to better quote your work and provide you with excellent plugin solutions.