Many clients come to us having had a bad experience when trying to develop their site. When trying to choose the right web developer for your website, make sure you do your homework.

Hire professionals.
Yes, it’s true that sometimes friends or family members can create a simple website, or even a complicated one. But when it comes to your business, hire professionals. Your friends and family have the best intentions, but do they know the tricks, trends, usability guidelines, browser compatibility fixes, or search engine friendly rules needed to develop an effective website (just to name a few)? And, even if they do, will they give you the time you need to keep your website updated whenever you have something to add/edit/delete?

Have a realistic timeline.
Developing a professional and effective website that works today and for the long-term takes time. There’s planning, research, design, production, programming, and testing. Not to mention time to process feedback and make the necessary rounds of revisions. Pushing for a website to be ready “yesterday” may limit its long-term effectiveness.

Have a realistic budget.
Know, at least in round numbers, what you have to spend on the site and on its marketing after it is launched. Remember that you get what you pay for… even with websites. If budget is an issue, discuss it with the developer. A website can be developed in stages.

Hire a team.
It doesn’t have to be a large team or even a team working under the same roof. But you do want more than one person working on your site. First, there are different skills that go into developing a website. You need a creative and artistic person to do the design; you need a skilled and detail-oriented programmer to code the back-end; you need a writer who knows how the search engines work; you might need a photographer, or an illustrator, or a Flash animator. Second, if you depend on only one person, what happens when that person goes on vacation, or gets sick?

Know how to review a portfolio.
A good portfolio goes beyond good looking samples. You want to make sure those samples show a variety of work.  Do the websites actually look different… or do they look like templates with different logos, colors, and fonts? Are the websites all for the same industry… or do they show a wide range of experience?

Review testimonials.
If you are able to read a few testimonials, you will obviously be reading good things about the web developer. Go deeper. Notice if the comments refer only to the end product or if people mention how great it was to go through the process. You want to choose a developer that makes the process simple and smooth… AND gives you a great website at the end. You can have it all.

Talk to them.
Are they good communicators, or did they lose you with technical terms? Don’t assume that communications will get better after the project starts. You want to understand everything that you are getting without having to learn the technical terms.

What are they asking you?
Are they only asking you about colors, photos, and numbers of pages? They should be asking you about your business, your industry/market, your competition, your goals for the website, your internal resources, your long-term vision for the site, and more. They should clearly understand business in general and show interest in your business in particular.