Here are three questions to ask when hiring your next web designer or developer. As technology becomes more central to our lives, a solid online presence is crucial for businesses, whether running a small shop or a large corporation. To help you make the right choice, consider these questions before you commit to hiring just any local or distant web developer.
3. What Is Your Specialization?
This question is crucial when choosing a marketing team. Often, you'll find teams offering a vast array of marketing services with impressive promises, which might seem appealing if you want to streamline your partnerships and work with fewer companies. But at what cost? By choosing a one-stop shop for convenience, you might be sacrificing quality.
If you need a professional web developer to create a website that you and your customers will love, hire a specialist. Don't settle for a professional graphic designer, print shop, or paid ad specialist who happens to do web development.
Instead, choose someone who most regularly rebuilds underwhelming websites and fixes bugs too. Make sure you receive the expertise you need to guide you to the delivery of a website that doesn't compromise quality.
2. How Will It Be Easy For Me To Manage?
Don't just ask, "Will it be easy for me to manage?" Dig deeper and find out exactly what they plan to do to make your website easy to manage once it's done. Here are a couple of questions you could ask your potential hire:
- What CMS (content management system) do you use?
- Is it drag-n-drop?
- How much can I manage through the backend of the website?
- What kind of maintenance do you expect?
- Do I recieve any training on how to use it? (the CMS)
When planning your website, think about ease of delivery. If you regularly post to the blog, it should be simple to post new content.
Ever Marketing uses open source WordPress.org to power client websites. Their admin panel makes and excellent community (developer) support makes it a incomparable choice.
When it's not as easy as WordPress.org, your developer may need to log into the server and type up code to make every little change. That isn't sustainable long term since everybody shares different practice styles and it's hard to find developers willing to "adopt" the work of someone else when they're gone and you need help.
1. Can I View Real World Examples of Your Work?
It's like hiring an architect who refuses to show you any previous designs or paying a builder unwilling to let you see any of their completed homes. You wouldn't do that, right? The same logic applies when hiring a web developer. When investing hundreds or even thousands of dollars in a new or revamped website, you should expect your newly hired developer first to provide tangible examples of their work that you can explore firsthand. This is the internet, after all—it's not like you need to visit a physical location to experience their portfolio and feel for its quality yourself.
Here are a few things you can look out for when exploring other websites:
- Broken links and buttons
- Images that don't load
- Strange mix of layouts, colors, or fonts
- Lack of responsiveness to screen size
- Typos or uninspired text to read
Why Hire a Web Developer?
If a developer is only willing to show you screenshots or static images, it's a possible red flag. When considering a developer ensure they have a live example or two, at least, that you can browse through, interact with, and evaluate for yourself. This way, you can be sure that your investment is going into the hands of someone who can develop a website and deliver a final product that meets exceeds expectations and aligns with your brand.
Oh... and we're Ever Marketing, a near me North Idaho based web designer. If you're looking for a web designer / developer who can help support you with a new website or an existing on, then I hope you'll reach out and say hello!
