How do you choose a website developer?
There are so many options today that it can be a really difficult choice, but here are a few tips from the developer’s perspective that might be useful in helping you narrow down the choice.
The best results come from a good relationship with the developer – it is not just down to them if your website goes off like a Tesla at the traffic lights at midnight, and it is not just down to them if your traffic moves like a Tesla when you haven’t re-charged it!
It is a two-way relationship and those work best when you communicate – if your gut feel tells you this might not happen with this person don’t ignore it – people deal with people at the end of the day.
Ask the question
If something is on your mind ask the question, a good developer won’t break under a challenge and a good developer won’t be afraid to ask you the difficult questions either, it leads to a better outcome.
Set some goals
Work out how the development team react to deadlines and milestones – again this is a two way process, so if both parties know what is expected and when it is due, the project will have a much better chance of success.
Work out the difference between price and value
When there are so many “experts” out there you will often hear people say I could make that for less, this usually comes up when they are looking at a finished product and takes no account of the original process – these guys leave you high and dry when they have to initiate something rather than copy it.
Whatever your product is there will always be someone selling a “cheaper” version – that doesn’t make it better, and it doesn’t mean it saves a customer any money. Whatever your product or service is there will always be a cheaper option somewhere – and there will always be a reason why it is cheaper – finding that reason too late can be very expensive.
Confirm the details
If you are buying a car and you didn’t ask for the model with Air Conditioning, GPS and Leather Trim then you can’t be surprised when it arrives without those features. They can always be added, but it is reasonable to expect there will be a cost, and that cost might be higher than if they were included from the start. Be open about the must-haves, even down to the colour and texture of the Leather Trim!
Talk over any changes with the developer as soon as you can, they will try and help you out but if they assume you will pay, and you assume they should have been included from the start, the difference between those assumptions can cause issues.
Be prepared for changes to arise and build in a contingency plan for the addition of extra feature
