What is a WordPress Agency?

Heard the term ‘WordPress Agency’ being used? Confused as to how a WordPress agency differs from all the other kinds of agency? Read on!

What is a WordPress Agency?

‘WordPress Agency’ is used to describe a highly specialist type of digital agency with deep expertise in working with the WordPress content management system.

A WordPress agency is typically made up of project managers, designers, developers and other roles that come together to design and/or develop projects for their clients using WordPress – the CMS that now powers over one third of the internet.

As the digital world has developed and agencies of all different kinds have emerged, clients have wanted to work with agencies that are more specialist than ever. As a result, a new breed of specialist agencies has emerged with niche focuses on certain disciplines. A ‘WordPress Agency’ is one of these.

What does a WordPress Agency do?

Not all WordPress agencies are the same.

Some WordPress agencies are super focused on exclusively designing and building websites with WordPress – this is their only service offering.

Some are even more focused and don’t offer any strategy, UX or design services – all they provide is WordPress development and development only.

However some agencies have broader services offerings even though they might position themselves as a WordPress agency. They might offer everything including strategy, design, development and digital marketing services like SEO, PPC, content marketing and more.

So in summary ‘WordPress agencies’ often provide a range of different services depending on their focus and

Team Structure & Roles

Depending on the service offerings offered as described above, WordPress agencies might all have slightly different team structures and sizes.

If it is a pure ‘development only’ WordPress agency, you can expect the team to be made up of roles like project managers, front end developers, back end developers, quality assurance specialists and DevOps specialists to name a few.

If the agency also provides design, then you can potentially expect UX designers and digital graphic designers to also be on the team.

At 93digital our core team is made up of the following teams:

• Digital strategy
• Project management
• UX & design
• Development (including front end and back end specialists)

We also have roles looking after marketing, finance and other middle or back office functions, so you can expect most agencies to have the same if they are beyond a certain size.

Process

Establishes agencies will often have mature and advanced processes to support their work – this is one of the main reasons that clients will choose to work with an agency over a freelancer.

Solid processes ensure the delivering of quality work, and so most WordPress agencies will use a number of systems and tools to support the processes that their team are trained to follow.

For example at 93digital we have full continuous integration/continuous deployment pipelines to support our WordPress development process and ensure our work meets our best practice, accessibility, performance and security standards. To manage our projects we use project management software, and we also have an internal knowledge base where lots of our company processes and policies are stored for our team.

Agency vs Freelancer

A WordPress Agency will often have technology, process and team structures that allow it to deliver quality work at speed and scale, and ready for high pressure enterprise environments.

A freelancer will always be cheaper than an agency given the lack of the things mentioned above and the lower operational costs. But then it’s also very unusual to find one freelancer that can deliver digital strategy work, UX research, design, both front end and back end development and project management. If one person can do all of those things to a high standard, then they are likely to be able to command a very high salary!

In most cases clients work with an agency because they have the combined internal experience of solving similar challenges before, whilst also having teams of deep specialists within all the roles needed to deliver a project.

Sector Specialism

If an agency defines itself as a ‘WordPress Agency’, the likelihood is it is able to deliver WordPress focused projects for all kinds of different clients.

But often when a client is looking for a WordPress agency the conversation very quickly moves beyond WordPress itself.

Why? Because clients want to work with agencies that have solved similar challenges for similar clients in the past. Being able to deliver well coded, fast, scalable, secure WordPress is one thing, but making sure it strategically delivers impact is another.

So it is worth thinking about whether the WordPress Agency you need also has strategic experience working with other clients in your sector, and can demonstrate having delivered impact for these clients before. If you can combine this with award winning WordPress design and development, you might have found just the perfect agency for your next project.

If you’re looking for some help from a WordPress Agency then get in touch – we’d love to see if we can help.