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Choosing a Website Developer
You're looking for someone to build your website. So many choices. It seems there are more claiming to be developers than there are customers. You want to be able to choose a developer who can deliver real results. You want your website to be profitable. You want the ability to bypass worthless sales hype to understand real capabilities and potential of your website's developer.
Know Your Developer
You need to communicate directly with the developer(s). Understanding is paramount about your product(s) and the product industry in order to develop an effective design. To have this information filtered through a website design company representative to the developer prevents the developer from understanding subtitles of your product. What you don't want is your site development to be done in an assembly-line process by a team of faceless robots that crank out websites as if "one size fits all."
Communicate
Be prepared to discuss your company, its products and customer demographics. To develop an effective website, the developer must understand your company and its products. The developer must understand your customer's needs. The potential developer should be asking many questions about how you do business, your customers and how having a website will be integrated into your overall company's marketing program. This information will tailor the proposal to your situation and maximize the potential of the website design the developer creates. Avoid those who talk about how great a job they can do for you when they don't know anything about your company, your products or your customers. Avoid those who are don't freely communicate - even if they come highly recommended! Avoid those who talk about the results without explaining how those results will be achieved. What worked for one site doesn't mean it will work for yours. If they are difficult during the proposal stage, they are not likely to be any less difficult should you hire for their services.
Ask Questions
The developer's best customers are those who take time to learn about the services they are buying. Ask questions. Ask why, how and, if not clear, ask for an explanation. Use the responses from one potential developer to use as questions for another. Ask about alternative approaches to design. Don't allow their favored approach to be confused with the best solution. Don't let "promises of performance" go unchallenged. Take notes and in the end, get it in writing.
Website Promotion
As part of the communication between you and the potential developer, ask how customers will find your site. Be wary of the reply "we'll register your website with all the top search engines." Web search engines all work differently and knowledge of how they work is required for effective website design. The reality is that search engines are constantly changing how they accept new sites and how sites are listed. Most developers have only a superficial understanding of search engines and is the reason some otherwise very well designed websites are sometimes very difficult to find. Having a great website means nothing if nobody finds it.
Get Examples of Capability
Ask for a demonstration of their skills. If from a larger firm, make sure examples are from those who will be actually doing your website. Shallow claims of search engine savvy can be easily verified. It should be easy enough to find a developer's clients websites using a search engine of your choice. Creative design, ease of navigation and site features, such as having a message board, will give a better idea of total capabilities of the developer.
Get it in Writing
Get a contract. Don't immediately sign it. Review it and compare it with other offers. Contracts should be tailored to your needs and budget. A contract should reflect your website's potential performance and contain all claims verbally discussed. If the contact contains monthly maintenance, it too should be tailored to your needs. Ask for explanations of proposed charges and what they include. When you decide on a developer, have your lawyer review the contract.