Having a website created for your business can be an overwhelming task.
Identifying a good developer is hard and there is many possible things that could go wrong in the process.
I have built a lot of websites as well as worked on websites built by other developers (sometimes terribly). So I have a lot of thoughts on this topic.
Here are some things I would tell other businesses to look out for:
1. Make sure you control the domain name for your website or you don’t own it.
2. How is the developer building the site? If they are using a common platform such as WordPress it makes it easy for you to modify the site going down the road. You don’t want a developer to use some sort of uncommon platform and then you are stuck working with them if you want to make any modifications.
3. Does the developer ask you basic questions such as:
– Where are the images coming from?
– Who is writing the content?
– How many pages is the site?
Without having these questions answered there is no way they can properly price the job and often I see web developers end up plagiarizing content/pictures from other websites online without the client even knowing! This is not good for SEO or brand reputation.
4. Does the developer/designer know anything about marketing? Are they focusing on making a conversion friendly site or are they just trying to create something passable.
There’s a lot of details that go into building a good website that are unnoticeable to the untrained eye. I could mention a bunch more details including technical details such as ensuring images are compressed for fast load time, SSL is installed for security, meta tags are included.etc
At the end of the day websites are not cheap, and if they are there is a reason. This is one industry where you truly get what you pay for.
