There are 2 specific areas I let folks know about before securing Wordpress development help:
1) Plugins: Discuss with the developer their thoughts on plugins and how they should be implemented. Does the developer want to write their own? If so, discuss ownership and existing support. Leverage existing plugins? DIscuss conflicts of support among changes developer made vs. plugins.
2) Hosting: Non-technical people sometimes don't understand the effects hosting can have on a small business website. I suggest to them to ask the developer for their thoughts, especially if the developer is doing the hosting.
Wordpress is a great platform for small businesses.
Here is the text of an email I sent a relative when they were looking for WP development. This is the part about hosting.
"The dev sounds pretty sharp. About the hosting ... it's great they want to offer a one stop for the development effort, but keep in mind a few things:
1) If you discontinue your relationship with the developer, it might be difficult to "take your site" to another host if your agreement includes hosting.
2) The developer might be a reseller for a hosting company, which is usually ok. Try to find out which hosting company it is and let me know. Some hosting companies are better suited for the sales you are trying to drive versus an informational site.
3) Find out if the developer is responsible for regular maintenance of the back end (web server serving pages and security updates to the operating system). "
1) Plugins: Discuss with the developer their thoughts on plugins and how they should be implemented. Does the developer want to write their own? If so, discuss ownership and existing support. Leverage existing plugins? DIscuss conflicts of support among changes developer made vs. plugins.
2) Hosting: Non-technical people sometimes don't understand the effects hosting can have on a small business website. I suggest to them to ask the developer for their thoughts, especially if the developer is doing the hosting.
Wordpress is a great platform for small businesses.