Web development has become an integral part of running a business. It is not enough to have a business website. Now businesses need to have a website that is beautifully designed, powerfully developed and is informative and useful to the visitors. It should be one which visitors like spending time on and come back again and again. To achieve this, you must hire the services of a web application developer, because only a thoroughly professional developer can develop an equally professional website. Apart from this, there are many more intricacies involved in website development. Therefore, it is important to keep the following things in mind when approaching the developer.
Requirement
Before approaching any company or individual developer, you should be clear about what purpose the website will solve for your business. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Is it going to be purely informative, providing all necessary announcements and information about my company, products, and services?
- Is it going to be an ecommerce platform where I will sell my products or services directly from the website?
- Is it going to be a web application, where the website will be the service in itself and the users can avail the services by just logging into the website?
- Where do I see my business in 3 years time? Do I want to be ready when my business takes off, or do I want to just try it out for now.
Be certain about what exactly you want to develop. Then determine what your budget is. You should note that the budget of your website is calculated after doing a fair bit of research and it may still not necessarily match the one of the developer. But you should anyway go prepared. State your own needs, requirements and expectations clearly. There should be absolutely no communication gap for the project to be a success. Tell the developer about any additional services you may need, whether you would like to have a mobile phone application, an emailing service on your website, shopping cart and so on.
Experience
Experience is the most important parameter when zeroing in upon a developer. This is because only an experienced developer knows how to deal with any kind of situation that crop up during the development process. Have a look at the developer's portfolio and go through the testimonials as well. An experienced developer will not only save time and resources but will also adopt a better and more trusted methodology.
Platform
The developer should preferably offer you all the latest technologies in website development. It is better to get a responsive site built because it fits to any screen size it is viewed upon perfectly and give the myriad devices in the market, it only makes total sense. Most companies also advice getting a responsive website built.
You should preferably choose open source technologies like PHP, HTML5, JQUERY, XML and CSS, open source content management systems like Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress or open source ecommerce software like Magento and Pinnacle Cart. The main reason behind it is that they are free of cost (or very minimally priced) and this cost effectiveness does not come at the cost of quality. They are just as powerful and capable, if not more, than there proprietary counterparts. You can also go for a mix of two or three languages so as to build impressive pages.
Optimization
Optimization of a website does not begin after the website is complete. It begins on the very day the website development begins. Everything should be well taken care of – the content of the website, search-engine friendly URLs and design and usability of the website. Google pays a lot of focus on all the above. Once the website is complete, you should make an elaborate content marketing strategy to gain some social relevance and online popularity.
Marketing & Promotion
Discuss with the developer if it would like to take responsibility for the marketing and promotional aspect of your website. Chalk out a launch date and prepare for it beforehand. Create a buzz on social media platforms in order to make the launch viral. Social site campaigns for promotion are highly effective and spread positive word of mouth amongst the netizens. Whatever is the strategy, it should be unidirectional, and targets customers that the site intends to reach. Always make sure that the site portrays things that people of a place are familiar with. For example, if it is for Hong Kong, then the site should have images of indigenous people, celebrities, localities, memorials, statues and highlights the language that people are familiar with. In this way, it will be more easily acceptable and have a far greater impact on people who would visit the website.
Follow these simple tips and pave the way for future online success.
