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How to Install a WordPress Theme: 3 Methods Every Beginner Can Apply
If you're new to setting up WordPress themes and want to get the hang of it, this article is your guide.
In this post, we explain why a business should use the services of a WordPress development company to build a website or handle a specific task. You will learn about the advantages and disadvantages of collaborating with a company, its most common alternatives, and the key factors that impact the choice of a reliable WordPress website development company.
Read on for some very useful insights.
What Is a WordPress Website Development Company?
A WordPress website development company is a business organization that provides a wide range of WordPress development services. Those include building websites from scratch, developing custom themes and plugins or customizing existing ones, creating unique designs, providing assistance with website migration to WordPress from other platforms, improving the performance and security of websites, and others.
A typical WordPress website development company has a team that consists of several types of developers along with other professionals:
- Core developers. These, as should be obvious from the name, deal with the platform’s back-end, writing code that enhances its functionality, as well as solve any issues that arise in the system core.
- Theme developers. These develop WordPress themes based on custom designs provided by clients or created by the company’s design team. They also customize third-party themes, tailoring them to reflect a particular business’s style.
- Plugin developers. These create WordPress add-ons to meet specific business needs or tweak existing plugins in accordance with the client’s requirements.
- Designers. If a client has no designs, these professionals can create them based on the client’s ideas, adhering to the best industry practices.
- UX/UI Experts. These design user interfaces in compliance with the essential usability principles.
A WordPress website development company normally has a large talent pool to handle multiple tasks and projects simultaneously by following well-adjusted procedures and workflows.
Depending on the company, clients can choose from a number of engagement models, including fixed price, time and materials, dedicated team, and some others.
Just like with any business, there are some negative and positive aspects of working with a WordPress development company. Let’s look at those next.
The Pros and Cons of Collaborating With a WordPress Website Development Company
The Main Benefits of a WordPress Development Company
Comprehensive Expertise and Collective Experience
One of the most attractive features of a WordPress development company is the all-around expertise and collective experience of the team. As we have already discussed, a company has all the right WordPress experts conveniently gathered under one roof: designers, developers (core, plugin, theme), UI/UX designers, and more.
That means you don’t have to jump from freelancer to freelancer, wasting your precious time in an effort to find someone to handle a specific task, such as adding a feature or customizing a theme. In addition, a company usually has numerous successfully completed projects to its name. This collective experience guarantees high quality and short turnaround times.
GetDevDone is an excellent example of a WordPress development company that has a close-knit team of professionals with diverse skill sets and years of experience under their belts. Over almost two decades in the web development industry, we have done thousands of projects for agencies and brands across the globe.
Tried-and-True Workflows
Another benefit of collaborating with a WordPress development company is that it works by following processes tested on multiple projects and with different types of clients. Once a project gets underway, a dedicated Project Manager is assigned to it.
Their task is to supervise the work from start to finish, serving as the primary point of contact between you and the team. They will be regularly updating you on the development progress and eliminating any bottlenecks. That ensures a timely delivery in compliance with your precise expectations and requirements.
GetDevDone is famously known for its well-polished project management and communication processes. Apart from the dedicated management service, you can monitor the progress of your project using almost any project management tool you prefer, including Jira, Trello, and others.
The same is true for communication channels. Use any messenger (Skype, Slack, etc.), email, or phone to stay in the loop until the final delivery.
Instant Start
A typical WordPress website development company has an abundant talent pool that allows it to tackle several projects in parallel. Thus, you won’t have to wait for your project to kick off (in most cases), falling behind your schedule and putting your business commitments at risk.
With our large team of expert WordPress developers, we will get your project underway right after you give the thumbs up to the quote.
Partnership Approach
Unlike some freelancers who may suddenly vanish once they have delivered the work, a WordPress website development company puts a long-lasting collaboration in laser focus. It will provide the ongoing support and maintenance of your website, making sure it is always up to date and secure. Happy clients mean more happy clients down the line.
GetDevDone is a good example of a WordPress website development company that practices the partnership approach. Should you experience any technical issues or bugs after your site is out in the wild, you can always contact us, and we will resolve those problems in no time. More than that. We will even do that for free unless the code has been altered by someone after we delivered it to you.
Access to Latest Technologies
The modern-day tech world is evolving at breakneck speed. What was all the rage just a few years or even months ago can now be buried and forgotten. That has particular importance in a business setting.
Nowadays, consumers care not only about content but also about the look & feel and performance of websites and applications. When they come across a site that is slow and looks ‘90s, they’re likely to quit it then and there.
That’s where professional WordPress development companies come into play. To be on par with their competitors, they constantly monitor the latest events in web development in general and WordPress in particular.
They know about all the new plugins, themes, and system updates that come out. That guarantees that your website is always fast, secure, and SEO-optimized to provide the best user experience for your current and potential customers.
Post-Launch Support
Your website is “out in the wild.” Congratulations! But that’s not the end of the story. There’re so many issues that could be lurking in the dark waters of the Internet, from server outages to cyber security threats. If you have no relevant background, fixing or even spotting those errors can be problematic if not impossible.
Enter WordPress development companies. They have all the right expertise to make sure your website stays out of trouble by providing ongoing support and maintenance services. In addition to monitoring your website for various issues, they update the plugins and system, install new security patches, and create data backups so that none of your valuable data is ever lost.
Scalability
Every soldier dreams of becoming a general someday. The same is true for every business. When you start your company, you probably expect to expand your operations over time and generate a larger revenue, don’t you?
But when this finally happens, and your audience begins growing like a snowball, your website may suddenly fail to satisfy this increased demand. It may start running slowly, unable to process the new avalanche of requests.
That nightmarish scenario is simply impossible if you get a professional WordPress development company to build your website or app. They design and develop flexible and easily expandable sites that can handle any load whenever your business gathers steam.
The Main Drawbacks of a WordPress Development Company
Relatively High Cost of Services
There is no denying it: an average WordPress website development company charges more for its work than freelancers. After all, there is office space to rent, salaries and taxes to pay, multiple software licenses to buy, and other unavoidable expenses.
Besides, a lot depends on the scope, complexity, and timeline of your project. How many unique elements are there? How sophisticated are the features required by your business? How urgently do you need the website? Do you have designs or want the company to make them? You should keep all those considerations in mind when it comes to a project cost estimate.
Note that even though prices at a company may be higher than those freelancers charge, many companies manage to reduce development costs significantly by adopting a flat organizational structure. The latter assumes a minimum number of managerial levels. Fewer intermediaries mean fewer expenses (no salaries, perks, and so on).
GetDevDone has a flat organizational structure, too, which allows us to offer many services at affordable prices. Besides, we strive to find the most cost-effective solution in each specific case. For example, we can create a custom WordPress feature to replace a premium plugin with a hefty monthly subscription. That will cut down the client’s website maintenance expenses quite a bit down the road.
Check out this post on more about the key factors that determine the price tag of a WordPress website development project.
Depending on the Company for Updates
Once your website is ready with all the bells and whistles you wanted, making changes and updates to it can be challenging if you are not tech-savvy.
You could certainly hire another WordPress developer for the job. However, if the functionality is intricate, it will take that professional some time to get to grips with it. Thus, you may have to invest more money into upgrading the website than it would take if you turned to the company who built the website.
As a reliable WordPress website development company that has been serving clients for over 17 years, GetDevDone provides ongoing support and maintenance of the websites we build. Since our developers are familiar with the code of your site first-hand, they will make any updates or changes to it in a fast and efficient manner.
Communication Issues
Some companies are infamously known for their poor client service. They may have only one communication channel or take excessively long to respond to clients’ queries, causing delays and frustration. That is why we recommend finding out what communication methods a company offers before placing an order with it.
GetDevDone offers clients multiple ways to connect with their development team and project manager. We are praised for fast response times, attention to detail, empathy, transparency, and focus on long-term commitments. Read our client reviews to see it for yourself (GetDevDone is a P2H Inc’s brand).
Standardization Issues
Some WordPress development companies have very lax policies as far as coding standards go. That often leads to various issues down the line. Websites perform poorly, design components suddenly break apart right before your eyes, and so on.
What’s even worse is that updating and maintaining websites built without proper coding standards in place becomes a task from hell. The result? More money out of your pocket and more frequent downtimes.
With GetDevDone, you never face problems like those. Our developers rigorously follow the best industry coding standards and practices. WordPress Codex is like a sacred book to us. It helps us guarantee code consistency and quality in every WordPress development project we handle.
To track changes to the code, we use the industry-acclaimed Git control version system, while daily code reviews help us keep all the developers on the same page regarding coding standards.
Thanks to all those methods and policies, your website is easy to maintain, update and scale anytime your current business needs call for it.
Variable Quality
It’s true that with many WordPress development companies, you never know if you’ll get the high-quality, well-performing website you expect. It’s like drawing a lottery ticket, especially with “new kids on the block” – companies that have been in the business for only a short time.
GetDevDone tolerates no compromise when it comes to quality. Our HR department makes sure that only the most experienced and highly skilled developers join our WordPress team. After they’re onboarded, the new team members undergo continuous training on the accepted industry best practices and coding standards.
We also deliver projects only if we’re absolutely sure they’re flawless. We meticulously test them using both automated and manual methods across a variety of platforms and physical devices.
The bottom line is that when you trust GetDevDone with building your WordPress website, you experience fewer post-launch issues, saving you money and time in the long run.
On the whole, collaborating with a WordPress development company to build your website will bring you more benefits. But how do you find one you can rely on? Let’s look at some telltale signs of a reliable WordPress website development company.
What You Need to Consider When Choosing a WordPress Website Development Company
Experience and Expertise
You would certainly want a company with varied expertise, including theme development and customization, plugin development, design, UI/UX, and more. The tech stack is important as well (programming languages, frameworks, etc.). Apart from that, look for information about the developers’ qualification levels, especially how many senior developers are on the team.
Also, find out when the company was established, how many projects it has delivered to date, and what industries and types of clients it has served.
Portfolio and Reviews
Seeing is believing. A company may claim that it has done hundreds of projects. However, until you see at least a couple of real ones with your own eyes, you should take those claims with a grain of salt. The website of a trustworthy WordPress website development company should have a portfolio that showcases its capabilities.
You should also try to find client reviews about the company you are researching. Services like Clutch.io are a good place to start. Read both positive and negative feedback. Note down what people liked or disliked about the company.
Communication and Project Management
Effective communication and smooth project management processes are essential prerequisites to successful collaboration. Apart from exploring the company’s website for information about available communication channels, write a message to their email address or in their chat to see how quickly they will respond.
In addition, ask them about their project management process. Will you have a dedicated project manager to plan, execute, and monitor your project? A company with a well-adjusted and time-tested project management flow is more likely to deliver high-quality products on time.
Pricing and Project Timelines
Obtaining an exact project cost and time estimate before the project gets started is super important. Find out if there are any extra fees you may have to pay on top of the amount in the quote. Does the company offer any pricing options that will enable you to save something? How many free revisions are you entitled to?
Some companies provide clients with very inaccurate project estimates and then impose unexpected charges midway through the project. You wouldn’t want that, would you?
For a detailed description of the process of hiring a WordPress website development company, visit this page.
Alternatives to Using a WordPress Website Development Company
Collaborating with a reliable WordPress website development company is certainly the best option hands down. There are alternatives, though. You need to know about them in order to make an informed decision, so let’s look at them as well.
DIY Approach
Yes, building your own WordPress website is quite a feasible job. However, along with the obvious benefits of lower costs and quick launch come some serious drawbacks that will manifest themselves later, limiting your capabilities and sometimes even posing a threat to your website’s performance and security. Here are the most conspicuous ones.
Customization Woes
Themes
One of the most cited advantages of WordPress is the availability of thousands of free themes that you can easily install and edit to match your business identity. Very soon, though, you will discover that many other websites use the same theme you have picked.
That may have very adverse consequences for your business. People may stop distinguishing one website from another. You will be losing visitors and leads.
Once you have realized the problem, you will want to customize the theme to make it more unique and engaging. Alas! You will quickly understand that it is impossible to achieve that with free themes, which only offer you the most basic features.
What can you do then? One of the possible options is to purchase a premium theme. It will give you broader customization capabilities.
However, there are several downsides, too. First, you may have to pay a fee for updates and support, which is quite steep in certain cases. Second, you will be at the complete mercy of the theme developer. What if they suddenly stop maintaining and updating the theme? Apart from slowly getting obsolete, the theme may become vulnerable to hacker attacks.
That is why the recommended approach is to collaborate with a professional WordPress development company to craft a custom theme for your website. To know what juicy benefits it will bring your business, visit this post.
Plugins
What we said about themes above, is true for plugins. You will find tons of freely available plugins on wordpress.org. As your business grows and develops, though, you may discover that you need more than just standard functionality. And here you will hit the wall again. Free plugins have no deep customization options.
You will need to upgrade the plugin to a Pro version, which will leave a couple more dints in your budget. Also, when you have lots of plugins installed, they may conflict with one another, causing slow loading speed and crashes.
Just like themes, the best solution is to reach out to a WordPress development company to build custom features or plugins tailored to your specific business requirements.
Performance Issues and Security
You will hardly find many DIY websites with a free theme and plugins on board that perform really well. That is especially true if there are lots of incompatible plugins. Moreover, cyber criminals enjoy exploiting free solutions that have been around for some time and are seldom (if ever) updated.
So, unless you are well-versed in WordPress and the technologies used to ‘serve’ it, finding a reliable WordPress development company to fine-tune your website’s performance and strengthen its security is worth your while.
The DIY method has other undercurrents apart from those we have just described.
Freelancers
Another alternative to using a WordPress website development company is hiring freelancers. This method has its merits too, such as a lower price and direct communication with the developer. However, its drawbacks still put it in second place after collaborating with a company.
We have compared the advantages and disadvantages of hiring freelancers and using the services of a company in one of our previous posts. As a quick recap, here are the main reasons why you should think twice before hiring freelancers:
- Freelancers are usually proficient in a specific area or a couple of areas at the most. For instance, they can be good at web design or building WordPress themes. If you have something more challenging or complex, reaching out to a company is better than hiring several freelancers with different skills.
- Many freelancers are quite poor project managers. They may accept several orders at once, trying to make as much money as possible. If they fail to manage their time properly, that can cause delays and missed deadlines – in contrast to a company, which normally assigns a dedicated manager to every project.
- A freelancer may suddenly vanish into thin air, leaving the work unfinished. If you neglected signing a legally binding contract with the freelance developer, your chances of holding them accountable can be rather illusory. In contrast, you always sign a contract and non-disclosure agreement with a WordPress development company to guarantee timely delivery and data safety.
- Since freelancers often handle several projects concurrently, that may negatively impact the final quality. A company, on the other hand, has rigorous quality control procedures in place to ensure that the website works as expected.
Have you already chosen a WordPress development partner and are now seeking tips on how to collaborate effectively with the team to achieve the best results? Check out this helpful guide.
Using the Services of a WordPress Website Development Company: A Case Study
Hopefully, we have convinced you to use the services of a WordPress development company by now. For a sneak peek of how it all works, here is a brief description of one of our previous projects.
Eezy, a leading creative platform that offers unique design solutions and professional quality content for agencies, brands, and media companies worldwide, reached out to us with a request to convert the new PSD designs of their website eezy.com into quality code.
Overall, we received complete designs for four pages:
- Homepage
- About us
- Careers page
- Job detail page
The client also requested a slight parallax effect on the hero images on the Homepage and inner pages to make them look more lively.
To get the job done, we used HTML5 and CSS3 for the design-to-code conversion part and jQuery to create a parallax effect and copy link feature.
Since the client only needed to perform some basic back-end actions like editing certain website sections, we discussed some possible options with them that would achieve their goals. We suggested WordPress as the most viable and efficient solution, and the client decided to go with that approach. So in addition to the front-end, we ended up taking care of eezy.com’s back-end as well.
When we delivered the website for review, the client had a few comments and updates that needed to be addressed. Our Project Manager stayed in constant contact with the client’s team via email, passing on his requests to our team and getting back to the client with updated solutions.
Since this occurred multiple times, we made sure to address the issues not only during the business day but even during our off-hours to make sure there were no delays or bottlenecks.
Thanks to our communication flow polished to perfection over the years, we delivered the project in 9 business days, which matched the original ETA exactly. The Eezy team was completely satisfied with the quality as well as with our flexibility and agility even though we were located in different time zones.
For more details about the Eezy project, visit this page.
Do you want to know how to write an compelling brief for your WordPress development project? Check out this comprehensive guide.
To Wrap It Up
If you chose WordPress to build your website, we fully support your decision. This easy-to-use, flexible, and versatile content management system is perfect for setting up any type of business website, from a membership site to an online store.
The next big step is to actually create your site. While you have several options to pick from, such as going the DIY way or hiring freelancers, there is nothing more efficient than using the services of a reliable WordPress website development company, even if it will cost you a bit more.
By collaborating with a company, you get comprehensive expertise and collective experience of the professionals who work there along with well-adjusted and time-tested management flows and partnership approach, among many other benefits.
For a detailed description of the process of hiring a WordPress website development company, visit this page.
To find out about other advantages of using a WordPress development company, read this post.
The best thing is that you needn’t search for a company like that. GeDevDone has all that it takes to craft beautiful, unique, fast, and feature-packed WordPress websites to put you in pole position among your competitors. In particular, we provide these services:
- Maintenance and support
- Core Web Vitals Optimization
- Help with website migration
- WooCommerce development
- Theme customization
- Custom theme development
- Builder-based theme development (Elementor, Divi, WPBakery, etc.)
Have another development problem to solve? Reach out to us. We are always happy to assist.
