How to Find and Hire a Designer for Your WordPress Blog
What do you do if you want your website to stand out, but you don’t know the first thing about website design? Hire a designer! WordPress designers can help you upload new themes, tweak your theme’s design, and completely customize your WordPress site.
Where to Find WordPress Designers
You can find WordPress designers through freelance websites such as Ifreelance.com, Elance.com, Odesk.com, Freelancer.com, and more. You can even publish a call for design help on Craigslist!
There are also blogs and websites that put designers and WordPress users in touch with each other. Check out Bloggingpro.com and Problogger.net, both of which offer job boards where you can post your design job.
Another great way to find blog designers is to search through galleries on premium theme provider websites. Find blogs and websites built on WordPress through those galleries or through your own trip across the web. Contact designers or site owners, and ask who did the design work for their blogs.
Another great way is to follow designers and WordPress gurus on Twitter. It’s highly likely that these people will follow WordPress designers.
How Much Should I Expect to Pay?
How much does it cost to get help with WordPress design? That depends on what you want to have done to your site’s design.
- Basic Design—If you’re looking for minimal tweaks to an existing WordPress theme, such as a color or font change, a header file uploaded, or another change that can be done in under an hour, you should be able to find a qualified designer to help you for less than $100.
- Upgraded Design—If you’re looking for more comprehensive tweaking of an existing WordPress theme to make your site more unique, you should expect to spend several hundred dollars.
- Customized Design—For a highly customized site that looks like no other site, includes functionality and design elements unique to your site, and is a comprehensive project that will take weeks to complete, you can expect to pay several thousand dollars.
Of course, the more additional functionality and parts and pieces you need tweaked on your WordPress site, the more the design work will cost. Designers are likely to charge either by the project, for large-scale design work, or by the hour, for smaller tweaks and changes.
The investment you make in WordPress design is entirely up to you, your objectives, and your budget.
Choosing a Designer
Before you commit to working with a WordPress designer, get several estimates for your project as well as recommendations for a designer’s work before you commit to anything. Not all designers’ skill levels are equal. It’s important that you take the time to visit sites they’ve designed and ensure that those sites work well and meet your standards.
Be explicit with what you’re looking for. Find examples of other sites you like that you want to emulate with your own site design, and ask for estimates to complete your specific project, along with any other recommendations from the designer. This way, you can compare apples to apples and be sure you’re choosing the right designer to meet your needs.
When You Need a WordPress Developer
A WordPress designer is not the same thing as a WordPress developer. While many blog designers can do some development work, a designer works primarily with the CSS coding related to the presentation of content on your WordPress site. A developer, on the other hand, uses the databases and configures the functionality that make your WordPress site work. So if you want to change something about the way your WordPress site works or functions, you probably need a WordPress developer rather than a designer.
Working with a WordPress designer will let you concentrate on creating content and while they take care of design and development. It’s a match made in heaven! Good luck, and happy blogging!
From The Complete Idiot’s Guide to WordPress by Susan Gunelius
