12 Essential Tips to Keep In Mind before You Hire Website Developer

In today's digitally-dominated era, a vibrant online existence isn’t merely optional—it’s downright essential. 71% of businesses worldwide will have their website in 2023. Consequently, an ever-growing number of businesses, innovators, and brands are on the hunt to hire web developers, aiming to develop websites that mirror their messages and brand ethos authentically.

Whether you’re a fledgling startup or a well-rooted business aspiring to refresh your website, familiarizing yourself with the crucial nuggets of wisdom before hiring a web developer is vital.

Let’s delve into some tips you need to know before hiring a web developer.

Define Your Objectives Clearly

Start with clarity! Engaging a web developer who will truly address your distinctive needs depends upon your intimate understanding of what you seek. Given that your website is oftentimes the initial handshake with your clients, it needs to truly reflect your brand.

What's your website’s mission? Informing, selling, lead generation, or something unique? Do you need a blog, a contact form, or perhaps an online store?

This understanding paves the way for a smooth dialogue with your developer, ensuring your site resonates with your aspirations. Make a list of websites that capture your attention and be explicit about what enchants you in them. This pre-work not only streamlines the briefing but also minimizes iterative tweaks down the line, conserving both time and energy.

• Decide Between a Freelancer and a Web Development Company

This pivotal choice between opting for a freelancer or a web development firm has a substantial impact on your project's trajectory. Freelancers often infuse a project with a personalized touch and agile flexibility, tailoring their craft to your precise needs, often at a competitive rate.

Yet, they might not bring the panoramic skills and resources inherent to companies. On the flip side, web development firms bring to the table a kaleidoscope of skills from a diverse team, encompassing everything from code creation, and design aesthetics, to SEO expertise.

Firms offer more extensive, continuous support and are equipped to manage larger, intricate projects due to a more expansive pool of resources. In making your choice, consider your financial budget, the scope of the project, and the specific expertise required.

• Examine Their Portfolio

Peeking into a developer’s past creations affords a lens into their skillset, aesthetic finesse, and how congruent they are with your brand. A portfolio rich in variety speaks volumes about their journey through varied experiences and their flexibility in meeting assorted demands. Analyze their work, keeping an eye out for their design flair, technical wizardry, and overall methodology.

Pay heed to aspects like loading speed, adaptability to mobile platforms, and seamless navigation which signal their mastery over user experience (UX) and technical adeptness. A robust portfolio should narrate a tale of diverse, tailored solutions, underscoring the developer’s ability to navigate through different project landscapes.

• Prioritize Communication Skills

Fluent communication extends beyond mere updates, enveloping areas of problem-solving, managing expectations, and enlightening clients with knowledge. When you hire a web development company, they should not only comprehend your needs with precision but also communicate and propose smart solutions in a language that you grasp.

Consistent, candid communication safeguards your project, ensuring it sails smoothly toward your goals while addressing issues promptly. Hire web developers who welcome your thoughts with open arms, give constructive critiques, and keep the communication lanes unhindered and fluent. This cultivates a synergistic relationship, safeguarding that the outcome sings in harmony with your brand and aspirations.

• Check Reviews and Testimonials

Reviews and testimonials offer a fleeting glimpse into the satisfaction levels of past clients and the adherence of the developer to standards of quality, punctuality, and budget fidelity. They sketch a picture of the developer's professionalism, reliability, and efficacy.

Examine reviews on independent platforms, and on their digital front, to gauge consistency in client experiences and quality of work, along with potential recurring challenges. Embrace both the positive and negative shades of feedback to achieve a balanced perspective.

If feasible, connecting directly with past clients can furnish a deeper dive into their journey, offering a richer comprehension of what might be in store for you. It’s paramount to observe how developers respond to less-than-perfect feedback and whether they embark on corrective paths.

• Understand the Technologies They Use

Getting a grasp of the technologies your developer taps into is fundamental. Various web projects call upon different tech stacks, spanning programming languages, frameworks, and content management systems.

For instance, while Magento or Shopify might be the go-to for e-commerce platforms, content-heavy sites might lean on WordPress. Initiate a conversation when you hire a web development company about their choice of technology and how it adds value to your project.

Ensure the chosen technologies provide a strong backbone for scalability, maintainability, and dynamic functionality. One thing that needs to be understood is that future tweaks might demand specific integrations or features. Hence pick a tech stack that can stretch and is in sync with modern web standards and SEO norms.

• Understand the Timeline

Ensuring your web development sails smoothly with your overarching business ambitions and debut strategies comes down to a tight, realistic timeline. Understanding when to expect key project milestones enables shrewd planning, from marketing stints to product rollouts and more. Craft a clear, mutually agreed timeline with your developer, detailing critical milestones, deliverables, and the eventual launch date.

Allocate buffer times for testing, revisions, and unexpected hiccups to safeguard against last-minute rushes or quality dips. A well-spun timeline, segmented into distinct phases, steers systematic progress and serves as a beacon for close monitoring throughout the development journey.

• Ask About SEO Knowledge

SEO mastery is key to carving out a space for your website in the digital realm, ensuring it’s easily found and ranks sweetly on search engines. The majority, or 53%, of a website's visitors will come from organic search results.

Developers should intertwine SEO best practices, from slick, optimized code and snappy load times to mobile-friendliness and intuitive navigation. On-site SEO, which involves keyword optimization, image alt texts, and crisp heading structures, should be seamlessly interwoven during development.

Question them on their SEO knowledge and how it’ll be integrated throughout the development process. SEO should be intertwined from the get-go, ensuring your website is optimized for search engines.

• Seek Responsiveness and Mobile Optimization

Responsiveness ensures your website delivers an optimal user experience across varied devices, especially mobile platforms. Developers should integrate visually alluring designs with adaptability to different screen sizes and orientations. Mobile optimization shouldn’t just stop at design but should also waft through functionality, ensuring features and navigation elements respond intuitively on mobile devices.

In the age of Google’s mobile-first indexing, mobile optimization also intertwines with SEO. Ask developers about their strategies toward mobile optimization, ensuring your site retains its charm and user-friendly nature, irrespective of the access device.

• Ensure Scalability

Scalability is the secret sauce that enables your website to blossom alongside your business. A website that scales gracefully can embrace heavier traffic and new functionalities without a hiccup in performance. Ensure your developer chooses platforms and technologies that are allies in growth.

The website should be crafted in a way that allows room for feature additions, expanded offerings, and management of burgeoning user volumes without a glitch. From a streamlined database to modular code, developers should adopt practices that let your site scale vertically or horizontally with ease.

• Discuss Ownership and Intellectual Property

IP conversations safeguard your ownership and control over your website and its various elements after the development phase. Clarify details about code ownership, copyrights, and data use, ensuring all artifacts crafted during the development phase belong to you. A clear, legally binding agreement should lay down that all assets created, from code to visuals, fall under your ownership, offering you a free hand for future tweaks.

Ensure all third-party assets are duly licensed to sidestep any legal hurdles. A crystal-clear IP and ownership agreement shields your business interests and enables hassle-free future use and modifications of your site.

• Be Clear About Costs and Payment Terms

Maintaining financial transparency and a well-defined cost structure fends off unexpected expenditures and ensures your budget stays on track. Extract a detailed estimate that bifurcates all costs, spanning from development, and testing, to deployment, and any post-launch support that might come into play. Get a handle on the payment structure, milestones, and provisions for extra costs that might sprout from possible scope modifications.

Make sure that revisions or scope shifts and their billing are clear to avoid misaligned expectations and disputes. Ensure agreed payment terms lay down a financial pathway that aligns with project milestones, weaving a smooth collaboration and building trust.

Conclusion

Taking the plunge into the digital world or giving your online presence a makeover requires a clear roadmap. And understanding tips you need to know before hiring a web developer is a significant pit stop on that journey.

Whether you decide to shake hands with a solo developer or collaborate with a web development company, doing your research will pave the way for a site that's a shining reflection of your brand and meets your goals head-on.

Atman Rathod is the Founding Director at CMARIX TechnoLabs Pvt. Ltd., a leading web and mobile app development company with 17+ years of experience.