Just a couple of weeks ago, we launched the new Contractors System and it already lists more than 80 excellent developers who can take a variety of projects at any size.
The idea behind our contractors system is to connect between people who need work done and developers who can implement these projects. We’re very happy to see that so many of our clients applied as contractors. Right now, there are already over 80 approved applications and there are still dozens in all stages of review process.
What kind of work you can get from WPML contractors
The most popular queries that are being sent to contractors are:
- To adjust a theme or another plugin to work correctly with WPML for multilingual sites
- To start or take over custom development, related to multilingual sites
So, if you’re developing a site and you’re running into technical problems which are outside of the scope of WPML support (mainly related to 3rd party code or to your own custom functionality), you should know that help is available. You can find a contractor who speaks your language, from your country and is experienced in the theme/plugin you’re looking for.
What WPML team is doing to drive more projects to our contractors
You might have noticed that there are almost no inquiries about building multilingual websites from scratch (yet). We want our contractors to get projects from business owners and not only from other developers who need technical help.
For that, we’ve started a number of marketing projects, which I hope you’ll feel in the coming weeks.
Cooperation with theme authors about developer for multilingual sites and their themes
We’re now working with several leading theme developers to introduce our contractors to their clients. We’ve created individual landing pages for leading themes, which list contractors who are experienced in these themes. Our goal in this project is to promote contractors who specialize in leading themes, to the communities of these themes. This is already «in progress» and we’re expecting results very soon.
Promotion for multilingual sites with WPML for business owners
Our marketing team is working with bloggers from outside of the WordPress ecosystem to spread the word about multilingual websites. We want business owners to know that when they need a site for outside of their region, they should look for WordPress and WPML. For all of us here, it’s obvious, but a lot of business owners think that a multilingual site is something that’s reserved for huge companies only. When we show them how affordable it is, we hope that more clients will turn to WordPress and WPML. Then, they will post projects for our contractors.
We’re setting up a qualifications program for contractors
Honestly, we were a bit surprised by the number of developers who applied as contractors (surprised in a good way). We realize that many applications also open the door for less accurate listings (a.k.a. abuse). To make sure that our contractors system only includes top-notch developers, we’ll be starting a qualifications program very soon. This program will allow contractors to pass exams that demonstrate skills in various areas. Then, we’ll add badges for these skills to contractor profiles and add them to the search.
Hopefully, this will help maintain very high quality inside our contractors club, which will increase client confidence and increase the number of projects that run through the system.
Feedback?
First, I have to apologize that we still haven’t completed reviewing all applications. There are some applications from two weeks ago that we didn’t respond to. For every application, we carefully review the showcase sites, look at the contractor’s profile and support history and get back to almost everyone with some requests for improvements. This takes a bit of time and we want to make sure that it’s done right. If your application didn’t get any feedback yet, it’s not because we’re ignoring it.
What do you think about the contractors system? Do you have any ideas, suggestions or questions?