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The next skill set you can provide as a freelance developer is WordPress website development.

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WordPress developers on Upwork charge between 15 and $28 per hour on average, and WordPress is the

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number one CMS.

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So when you want a content management system, that's a website that is easy to work with and it looks

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exactly the way you want to and has all of the ability and the functionality that you need.

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That is why a lot of people go with WordPress.

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It's the most popular content management system for a reason, and that's because of how user friendly

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the interface is and how credible it is, and also how much customization options you have, what you

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put into the platform.

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You'll definitely get back in terms of a scalable, functional site that's easy to update and to maintain.

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It's also available in 60 languages, making it usable for people on every continent.

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Over 455 million websites use WordPress and that number only continues to grow.

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That's an extremely impressive number, with 1.1 million downloads every six months in over 2 million

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per year.

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WordPress is the most user friendly in overall, the easiest way to build a new website.

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It offers over 54,000 plugins, 11,000 themes and layouts to customize websites for small businesses

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to blogs and even commerce websites.

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In addition, it's not just marketing based websites either.

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So WordPress has a plug in offer that is WooCommerce and that makes up 28% of all commerce sales on

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the Internet.

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The platform makes it possible to create a website that works for your business or blog, which appeals

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to many people and businesses worldwide who want to share their ideas but also sell their products along

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with it.

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So using the WooCommerce plugin, it's very powerful because you're still built on WordPress, but now

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you have an open source ecommerce software platform where you can go and sell products and build all

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of that functionality to have the client have a full blown ecommerce website where they're able to sell

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products or digital products.

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And all of that is set up through the WordPress dashboard.

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Customisation is also a huge benefit of using WordPress because WordPress sites are very customizable

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now, depending on how much the client's site needs to grow and how much customization they want, whether

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it's with advanced plug ins or tweaks to a theme.

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Clients need to find a freelance WordPress professional with the skills that are able to bring their

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projects to life.

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And that's exactly where you come in.

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So if a client has a WordPress theme that they like, a lot of times part of the project will be customizing

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that theme and making it suit exactly to what the client's needs are and how they want the website to

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not only look, but also to function.

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And that's why it's so important to ask questions up front.

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Developers don't always build hourly.

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It can be common for a WordPress developer to set a fixed price for the website based on the project

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requirements and what level or lack of customization is needed.

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That's why you need to ask detailed questions and understand the client's true goals with their WordPress

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website and what will be required for you to accomplish those goals for them.

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And when you're determining the scope of work for your project, you want to consider all of these things

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that are going to go into it.

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The first is the research into the industry, the marketplace and the audience.

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Next, you will want to also make sure your accounting for creating a site wireframe with page titles

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and content blocks that you can share with the client.

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And then of course adjust and edit based on their recommendations and what they need done.

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As well as choosing and customizing a theme for the website, followed by identifying and purchasing

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the different widgets and plugins needed to support the functionality that the client wants.

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After that, generating an in-browser design for review and revisions is the next part of it.

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Because you need to understand there's not just going to be a website project that you develop and then

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you hand it off.

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There are going to be different iterations of it and after you get out of that wireframe phase, that's

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when you want to have that in browser design for the client to review and to actually pull up on their

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different devices so they can see how the website actually performs and then they can provide the other

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edits that they need for you to complete.

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Also setting up Google Analytics tools and an XML sitemap and submitting that to search engines is another

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part of a lot of WordPress projects.

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But that's something you need to bring up before you go ahead and you pitch your price.

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And once the website is pretty much polished up, then that's when you go into the testing review and

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approval phase.

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So this is when you're putting everything together, you're testing it, making sure all the functionality

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works, and then you're going to the client and you're getting approval on it.

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And then after that, that's the installation, integration and launch of the actual website.

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Followed by the specific number of iterations or the different number of revisions that are going to

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be included.

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Now, a fixed price project will typically specify the number of iterations that are included in the

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price point, while an hourly project will just keep billing hourly based on how many revisions the

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client needs once the website is already live.

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And as a freelancer, but especially as a WordPress development freelancer, you need to be very wary

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of scope creep because it's important to avoid scope creep by planning ahead to prevent it.

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So here are three ways to help ensure your timeline and scope doesn't grow beyond expectations.

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The first is to be very specific, the more specific you are.

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During your client interviews and your proposals, and even when you're onboarding the client, the

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more it is going to help you in the long run because you want to be specific and understand the exact

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functionality that the WordPress website is going to need.

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All of the different custom coding options that the client may want to take advantage of and everything

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like that.

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So make sure you're getting a very specific so you understand exactly what the project is going to consist

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of.

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Next is to prepare.

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You want to prepare any related materials ahead of time, so you want to write and edit the site, copy

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the menus and the page titles as soon as you have the wireframe for the pages within your site.

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And if you're including photos or other images, check to ensure that they have a high enough resolution.

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You want to prepare ahead of time so you don't have to go back and clean up all of your work.

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And lastly, communication is key to reducing scope creep.

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So you want to establish a way to quickly and efficiently share the project assets and to keep things

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moving forward.

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Being responsive and being able to communicate clearly is essential at keeping a development project

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rolling and not stalling out.

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So setting up a Slack channel or a Dropbox or a Google drive folder where you and the client can share

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the different assets and information and different timeline and objectives for the project that is going

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to keep the email back and forth to a minimum and actually help push the project forward, all while

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reducing scope creep.

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Now let's go over some of the general time estimates for WordPress projects, including variables that

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may have an impact on how long it will take and ultimately how much the client will pay for the work.

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The first is a landing page.

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This can take anywhere from one hour to ten plus hours, and the variables include how detailed is the

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creative brief?

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Is there a template to follow?

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And our copy and images provided from the start, finalized and sized appropriately.

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Next is a simple WordPress website.

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The time estimate is anywhere from 5 hours to 20 plus hours or possibly over several weeks.

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The different variables include how many pages does the site include?

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How much CSS theme customization is required?

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What is the content, text and images?

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Or does it need to pull data with more complicated parameters as well as how many plugins are needed?

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And lastly, a custom site with a theme and plug in integration slash e commerce site is going to take

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5 hours to 100 plus hours.

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And the different variables include how many pages does the site include?

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What are your database requirements?

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How much CSS theme customization is required?

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How complex are the integrations as well as how many plug ins do you need to integrate?

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To summarize, WordPress developers charge anywhere between 15 to $28 on average.

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The top hourly rates for this skill set is $95 and up, and the demand for WordPress developers is high

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and the competition is also high.

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But this is a very big skill set because like we went over, it's the number one CMS and so many websites

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are built on WordPress.

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So if you can specialize in this skill set, you can definitely start to position yourself as an expert

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WordPress developer and start landing freelance projects.

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I'll see you in the next lesson.