How to choose a website developer? A step by step guide.

PUBLISHED ON: AUGUST 19, 2020

When you’re a business owner, selecting the right website developer to create your professional online presence is one of the essential things.

First what you should do is to define your business needs.

Write a detailed list of why do you need a website.

Your Goal.
Do you want to promote your business or to sell your products? What is your target audience? What type of website do you need? (e-commerce, business or personal website, landing page).
Complexity.
Every website is a custom job, so think about what features you want to add to your website: shopping cart, payment system, blog or a newsletter, custom third party systems integration.
Content management System.
How often would you like to make changes on your website. Would you like to add content to your blog or to add products to your e-commerce. Consider that even if your site includes a content-management system, some types of updates will require a professional developer.

Your budget should include not only development, but also content writing, design and graphics, professional photos and/or videos.

Advise: You can write the text yourself and hire a consultant to edit the content to make sure that it is SEO friendly.

Think of your website as an investment, not a cost.

Main things to consider before the interview:

Visit their website.
Check out how professional it looks and if you like their style. Go to the portfolio page and see if the websites they’ve made for others look appealing to you.
Check out what technologies they use in development.
Do they use cutting-edge technologies and frameworks like Vue.js, React.js and Angular, GraphQL, Typescript and Django or website builders like Wix, Squarespace and WordPress.
Ask for referrals
from the web developer’s customers.

During the interview:

If you are talking to a developer pay attention to
how much they are interested in your business
and your audience.
Pay attention to whether they'll
try to stick within your budget
. Do they want to sell their product or to solve your problems?
Ask if they have a
web designer, SEO and internet marketing expert in the team
or can they recommend someone.
Ask them about
payment terms
. It could be monthly payment or a partial payment (for example 50%) up front before starting a project and the rest of the amount after you are completely satisfied with the final website version.
Ask them whether they will offer
support for your website
after deployment, and how they'll charge for that.

Make sure you own your domain name.

It is better that all the discussions and decisions would be documented and an agreement signed.