Even as more and more businesses continue building their brand online, there are still those that are skeptical about it. However, having a website increases your brand’s visibility. A well-done site that is easy to navigate through increases the conversion rate.
Hiring a web developer who can deliver a great website should be a top priority as this is what will bring in the clients. You need a site that has a great user interface and experience. As much as you may not know too much tech related to websites, you need to ask your potential developer questions that will help you understand what you are paying for.
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1. What access do I have for my website?
Creating your website should give you full ownership of it. Years later, you may need to change it up and add a few extra features to it. Or, you may need to do some rebranding which could ideally involve changing the logo and any information on the site.
Make sure you have control over the following:
- DNS access
- FTP access
- Administrative tasks
A qualified web development company should automatically give you full access to your site.
As a business owner, you may not be accustomed to dealing with such stuff; you could ask for a bit of training so that if you need to rectify something, you can do it yourself. Better still, your development company could help you with such especially if it is in the contract.
2. What theme option do I have for building my website?
Usually, developers will construct your site using an existing theme, customizing an existing theme or building one from scratch.
For the existing themes, they are cheaper and easy to use even for people who are not technical. However, remember that you may share the same theme with other companies and there is a limit to customizing them.
Customizing an existing one will just need very little design work and can work for companies that have a very short deadline.
When you opt for building a theme from scratch, it takes longer than the other options, but you have it designed according to your business objectives. It is expensive though.
Consider the long run benefits and don’t solely base your decision on the cost. Consult the developer and brainstorm through before making the final decision on what theme to choose.
3. Will the website be developed to be mobile friendly?
By now you know that one of the algorithms Google uses is your site’s mobile friendliness. You want it to rank highly on search engines.
Ask your developer if they will optimize the website to be mobile-friendly.
Some of the benefits involved are:
- It increases the chances of your visitors staying longer
- Site loading speed increases which should be less than two seconds
- SEO friendly
As a beginner, you need your website to leave a good first impression to users. It should be responsive as people are naturally impatient and will always leave slow sites in favor to fast loading ones. Nobody wants to receive an error when clicking your site.
Developers should ideally have 24/7 services in case your site breaks down at night bringing an error. Just as https://techloris.com/ has a guide to follow on how to fix a Windows 10 error, so should the company you choose to develop your site.
From the very beginning, ensure the developer builds your website with mobile usage in mind. Remember, a great website attracts people which increases the chances of getting more clients.
4. How do you test your work
An essential phase during web development is testing the functionality of the site. Never skip this stage because it could cost you more. Most especially, if you plan to build an online brand or are in the e-commerce sector, your site needs to be fully functioning.
Ask them what web browsers they use to test if the site is working. People need secure channels when it comes to online payments. First, ensure that your site is HTTPS and when somebody clicks on it, it shows a closed padlock on next to the URL.
5. Do you design according to SEO?
SEO is everything on a website these days. Your developer should know how to code in relation to meeting SEO standards.
A developer who knows their way into SEO knows that script files are meant to be explicitly created for pages but not having the actual script on the web page.
As much as you may hire a content writer to help with optimizing web content in a way that your business becomes visible, you also need a developer who understands how to incorporate it when building the site.
Web development is something you should not take lightly. Hiring the best developer for the project helps you increase your chances of accomplishing your business goals. Have in mind that marketing and your site go hand in hand.
