Hiring someone to design and/or build your website can be a bit of a minefield; and even with the best of website development companies at the helm, projects can sometimes go awry.
This article contains 5 top tips to help you as a client get the best from your website development company. 1) Put things into perspective
Some of the biggest causes of disappointment when a business has their website built stem from expectations of what that site will do for them being too high. Whether this is down to the client misunderstanding where their site will fit into their marketing strategy, or whether it is the website developers over-promising the “end-results”, it is important to put your website into perspective and truly understand the realistic impact it will have.
Simply having a website built will not revolutionise your business – it is merely a tool (albeit a potentially powerful one) in your marketing arsenal, and needs to be used correctly to be effective.
2) Work with your developer on a sitemap and plan
Your website developer will typically plot out a “sitemap”, which will outline the various sections, features and processes on your site. This is usually done right at the start of the project, so it pays to discuss this together and ensure that both parties fully understand how the site will shape up and what it’s capabilities are so nothing is forgotten and there are no nasty surprises when the site is finished.
3) Provide plenty of information and content
If your project relies on you providing the content; getting this to your website developer as early as possible will have a positive effect on development; as otherwise they will be working with dummy/filler content, as well as possibly structuring certain parts of your site on assumptions about how you want it to work. Ensuring you provide any written content, imagery and outlines will help things to go much smoother.
4) Ask your developer to create a live testing environment
Some website developers test and update the “in-development” version of your site in a live online location; whereas others develop it “locally” (i.e. on their own in-house systems). If at all possible, ask your developers to set up a live online version of the site during development which you can access. This enables you to view and use the site as it is being built, allowing you to flag any issues early rather than having to wait until the end of the project to test everything – at which point people typically feel pressured into “signing off” the project and getting it live.
5) Communicate
Ultimately if you want to get the best from your website developer, you need to talk to them. Yes, I know a lot of us are odd, smelly, anti-social beings who sometimes find it hard to string together a sentence without it involving some form of code; but keep in touch with your developer throughout the project. Agree “milestones” – points during the project when you’ll sit down together and discuss progress. Establish the best way to communicate with each other in terms of what works best for each of you – whether that be daily emails, or a once a week phone call. Communication is the absolute key to ensure that the website developed is the website you want.
Hopefully this gives you a bit of food for thought if you’re considering having your website developed or revamped; or maybe you’ve had a bit of a rough experience with your web developer and you can now see where things may have fallen down. Whatever the case, I welcome any feedback, and hope this helps.
