How I Work

You’re here because you’re considering hiring me! Great!

First off, you can learn more about me and why I’m doing freelancing here. What I’d like to share here is basically my Terms of Service for hiring me and hopefully get you more familiar with how I do things.

I think it’s best if you know how I don’t work first.

How I don’t work…

I don’t do content

I can build a custom Gutenberg block, but I can’t go in and add it to the page you want to use it in, that’s on you. And yes, that includes using ACF fields, page-builders, etc.

I don’t do SEO or accessibility, I’m not an expert in these things, it wouldn’t be wise to hire me—hire an agency instead.

When creating a static non-WordPress site (yes I do that), I can update your site with the initial content but after that updating anything beyond small minor edits will require hiring someone else. The idea of copying-and-pasting new content over isn’t what I do.

I don’t build complete WordPress websites

Why? Because I think you should hire an agency for that kind of work. That kind of work takes a team of people to do right and on time—not me. 

That also means I probably won’t build complex WordPress themes for large business websites—again you should hire an agency for that. But for smaller straight-forward theme creation, sure I can do that.

I can build small to medium static non-WordPress websites though, but more as an offering to people who can’t afford WordPress development or want to avoid the complexities of using WordPress.

Examples of work I don’t do

  • Build a from-scratch custom WordPress website—hire an agency instead!
  • Build a custom Laravel application—I can build something that talks with one though.
  • Optimize your content for SEO—but I can update your theme’s HTML semantics to be more SEO friendly.
  • Add fields to your admin using ACF fields through the UI—I would use code to do this instead.
  • Manually replace images on your site with modern formats—I would write a custom script to do it instead though.
  • Update any content—that’s on you.
  • Design anything—I am not a designer, as long as you have it designed already, I can get it on your website!

How I do work…

Examples of work I do

  • Improve your sites Core Web Vitals performance metrics—but not SEO or accessibility
  • Tweak your server configuration for better performance
  • Build a custom plugin that adds new functionality to your site
  • Take something from Figma or Photoshop and integrate it on your site with functionality or build a simple theme
  • Register a custom post type and customize it so you can track or publish new content
  • Fix something that’s broken on your site, or change something
  • Add features and abilities to the WordPress admin area
  • Fix crashes, 503/502 erros, etc
  • Debug complex issues going on with your site that no one else can figure out
  • Help fix something that isn’t looking or operating correctly on your site
  • Build custom API endpoints
  • Hook into existing plugins and make it behave differently or look differently
  • Build something that communicates with an external API when something happens
  • Configure your site’s CRON system to work more efficiently
  • Add a feature or fix something in a legacy WordPress plugin or theme
  • Talk to your hosting provider on your behalf about an issue your website is having
  • Build a WordPress plugin to sell in a WordPress plugin directory
  • Build a WordPress theme based on a design file or template you have

I can just about do anything for WordPress other than design or update content.

I always sign my work

In any code I write, you will often find things like @author Aubrey Portwood—I believe real artists sign their work—so I sign mine.

I’m not a psychologist, so I don’t know what causes somebody to become such a perfectionist, but that’s the way he looked at the world. Even the original Macintosh team, he made them sign the inside of the computer case because, he said, “real artists sign their work.”

In conversation: Walter Isaacson
The Steve Jobs biographer on the Apple founder’s genius, cruelty, obsessions, and indifference to money

I hope the work I do for you is so good that other people will see it and choose to hire me as well.

I work 8 hours a day and not on weekends

I’m a married 42 year old dad with two kids, I have a busy family life too. If something crazy-bad happens, I might, but don’t count on me to do extra work outside of my normal working hours.

I always follow WordPress Coding Standards religiously

At past agencies I worked with—more on that here—I was tasked with implementing WordPress Coding Standards into legacy codebases. I also grew up in the burgeoning Web Standards era in the early 2000’s. So coding standards are important to me—and I love how WordPress formats and standardizes its code. It’s what I follow. Expect all my code to follow those standards, even in current codebases.

Fiver

On Fiver, I want to be clear: You are usually hiring me for a set number of hours to work towards a project (unless you are having me build a static non-WordPress website). I will do everything in my power to help you choose the right package and number of hours to get your goals met. But—once those hours are used up—I will stop working on your project until more time is purchased—hand over what deliverables I have—and work with you to get more time to finish your project.

  • I will deliver all the work I have done up until that point, even if it’s unfinished—you always get a deliverable
  • If you need extra time by the end, we can create a custom offer via Fiver messaging to get the extra time, if needed, to finish stuff up

Always contact me before ordering—I can then assess your project and suggest a package and the right hours. I recommend you use my trained AI chatbot to chat about your project before contacting me—it will help you weed out the details of your project.

If you order the wrong package we will have to cancel it and re-pick a better package.

If we ever need additional time, we can always setup something custom to finish things up!