Web development is of paramount importance in this decade. Most businesses are now digital, and users love to shop for their favorite products and services online. They want to stay connected to their favorite brand after sales. A website is also important from a marketing standpoint. It displays a brand’s seriousness towards its services and reputation. It is also one of the most important sources of online leads, sales, and overall conversion. So, if you want to direct your marketing and sales efforts in the right direction, you need to have the right website developer by your side.
Preparing A Brief for Web Development Services
Before beginning your hunt for a web development company, you should ideally prepare a document about what you need in your business website. Jot down your qualitative and technical requirements. Turn it into a holistic brief during your developer hunt.
A website should ideally have the following qualities:
- Well-designed and fully functional
- Responsive CTAs and forms
- Optimal loading time
- Intuitive navigation and speed
- Industry relevant design
- Mobile responsiveness
- A basic chatbot
- Brand-specific graphics and typography
11 Tips For Finding A Web Development Company
1. Hiring a freelancer vs. an agency
There are pros and cons to both!
It is convenient and seems economical to hire freelancers. But a website needs more than design and development. It needs testing and quality assurance, deployment, and maintenance. Therefore, if you choose to work with freelancers or remote workers, you will have to hire dedicated staff for each stage of your website’s completion.
On the other hand, if you hire a development team (from an agency), you will only have to coordinate your requirements and project completion details with your project manager – instead of everyone on the team separately.
2. Location and Timezone
The location of your web development agency affects your project completion as well as your budget. That’s why we recommend hiring web developers from the USA locally. Firstly, they’ll operate during the same business hours. You’ll be able to communicate changes and fixes in real time. From a financial standpoint, web development costs are way lower than app development. Hiring an Asian developer for a low budget might not benefit your investment notably.
3. Clutch
Now once you know who you exactly want to hire, it’s time to practically begin your search. While most searches for products and services start online, and that too on Google, it’s time you break the norm.
We suggest users begin their search for technical B2B services on platforms like Clutch. These are independent review websites that rate companies on a specific set of service standards and benchmarks. Some of the benchmarks for developers include frameworks and programming languages. They also include platforms of development, location, minimum project value, and client testimonials. Most importantly, Clutch verifies the client testimonials independently. It publishes them only after receiving honest approvals.
4. Branding
If you have been searching Clutch, you can get your hands on multiple service providers. it’s time to visit their official websites.
You should know that if they can’t maintain a decent and appealing digital presence for their own business, they’ll definitely fail at doing so for you. Therefore, it is equally important to look at your web development company’s website before making a hiring decision.
On their website, make sure to assess the loading time and speed. Check for any server or domain messages, chatbot development, and overall visual aesthetics.
5. Scope of services
You can choose to outsource your website development project and deploy it yourself. Or, you can choose to work with full-cycle digital companies. They offer development testing, website maintenance services, and search engine optimization. But this totally depends on your budget and your launching timeline.
6. Technical expertise
Technical expertise will slightly differ depending on your choices and technical requirements. For example, if you want to hire simple WordPress website development services, then you need to assess your developer’s knowledge of the WordPress platform. This includes PHP, WordPress plugins, and themes.
If you are up for custom design and development, you need to assess your skills in Java and CSS/HTML. You should also check the database and back-end basics.
7. Portfolio
The portfolio reflects the quality of design and development services via previous projects. When assessing the portfolio of a company, make sure to look at the website’s user experience. Assess its performance and loading time, industrial domain, the magnitude of the project, and clientele.
8. Social proof
Social proof authenticates a brand’s credibility and expertise in a niche. It includes social media engagement on Facebook and Instagram. It also includes LinkedIn community building, Quora, and Reddit.
9. Reviews and Testimonials
Reviews have long been used to gauge the quality of different products and services. Use them when you are making a hiring decision that will affect your budget significantly. For reviews, you can check the official website, social media pages, Clutch profile, and Google Business listings. Look at the patterns of reviews. If you find similar stuff in all of them, they might be fake.
10. Payment Structures
Most web development companies now allow flexible payment structures. Two common ones include upfront payment with equal installments and a subscription model. Subscriptions, however, work better when you are signing a contract for maintenance and update services as well.
11. NDA and Copyrights
Nobody wants to get sued for minor legal penalties and copyright damages. So when you go ahead with a specific company, make sure to discuss the legal ownership and commercial use rights of digital assets.
Also, if you are up for releasing a website with unique features like NFTs or Virtual Reality, you should sign a 2-way non-disclosure agreement. This will protect your ideas from competitors before launch.
Conclusion
All in all, when making a hiring decision, you might not initially land the company you had planned to work with earlier. You’ll have to strike the right balance between your budget and quality. Negotiate on the company’s portfolio, development timelines, and the scope of services.
