How to Find a Website Developer

Here's a quick list from BusinessKnowHow.com on how to pick a web designer.

I have three different companies that I recommend based on what I know about them both personally and professionally. I'll give you my recommendations at the end.

Finding and Working with a Web Developer

by Janet Attard

You'd like to finally get a website built, or to have your current site redesigned. You want the site to look professional and make prospects want to call you or place an order online. And, you want to be sure your site can be found by search engines. How do can you find and work with a web developer who will get your site built quickly, professionally and at a reasonable cost?

Here are several suggestions.

1 - Talk to other business owners whose websites you like and get the contact information for the companies that created those sites. Ask the site owners if they were satisfied with all aspects of the work and service, and what they paid to have the site built. (If they won't tell you the price, ask if they have any idea how much you might have to budget for website design.)

2 - Look around the web and make a list of websites that you find attractive. Be sure to copy the complete url for each site you like. Along with your list make note of what it is about the sites you like. You might find one that has a color scheme you like, another that is easy to navigate, still another with the type of artwork or photos you like. The list of sites will help whoever you choose as a web developer get an idea of your tastes and preferences, making it easier for them to please you.

3 - Look towards the bottom of the pages to see if the name of the development company is listed. If so, contact the companies whose work you like.

4 - Make a list of the important keywords and phrases for your business. A good web developer will ask for this to set up page titles and do some basic optimization.

Note: keywords and phrases are terms prospective customers are likely to use to describe your product or service or look for it on an Internet search engine. For example if one of the things you sell are baby shoes, typical keywords and phrases might be: "baby shoes", "infant shoes," "shoes for babies," "baby sneakers," "walking shoes for babies," etc. If you're not sure what keywords are important, ask friends, family and customers what they'd search for to find your type of products or services.

If you buy search engine advertising, use the tools provided by the search engines to help you discover important keywords.

5 - Decide whether you'll sell directly on the website, or just use the website to get leads.

6 - Decide on and prepare all the editorial information and marketing copy your website will contain. At minimum, you'll want a homepage (the main page for your site), a page or pages describing your products and services, an "about us" page and a "contact us" page. You should also consider having a page that will offer visitors a free newsletter or coupons or something that will get them to give you their email address so you can contact them again after they leave your website.

7 - Write or have a professional writer create the editorial content as soon as you decide what you want on the site. The purpose of your website is to market your business, and web developers usually just design and program sites. They don't write marketing copy. (If they do write copy, they usually don't write particularly good marketing copy.) Remember, the web developer can't finish the job until you give them the copy that goes on the website.

8 - Don't just hand the web developer your marketing brochure to put on the web. Marketing brochures are often the marketing equivalent of a coffee table book - they look nice, but don't do a great job of selling. A website's job is to get attention AND get the prospect to take action. In other words, to sell.

9 - Decide what photos or drawings you'll need, and make it clear whether you'll provide the graphics or whether the web developer will need to do it. Graphics you may need to provide yourself would include photos of staff, photos of pictures, and other graphics the developer wouldn't be able to get for you.

10 - If you will be selling directly on the website, realize that you will need to get a merchant account that can be used on the web and/or a PayPal account to accept payments. If you have a retail storefront, don't assume your off-line merchant account can be used on the web - they often can't. Call the service provider and ask. If you don't have a merchant provider or your current provider can't handle transactions on the web, ask the developer you choose for suggestions.

11 - If you will have a shopping cart or any other database driven application on the site, work out how you want it to work (i.e., what the customer sees first, where things should be on the screen, what they do next, etc.) as much as possible and tell the programmer before they create the application. After a database application such as a shopping cart is set up, something you see as a "little change" in the way it works could be a major programming headache (and expense to you).

12 - Be sure you sign a contract that spells out all the details you have discussed with the developer.

13 - Be sure the contract gives you full copyright ownership of your site and the work done for you, so that if you decide to change web developers or hosting companies at any time in the future you will be able to do so without having to have your site recreated. The copyright ownership must be written into the contract. Otherwise, under copyright law, the developer may own the work they created for you.

14 - Review work in progress quickly. Remember the developer can't move ahead with your project until you sign off on what they've sent you to review. If you delay, they may be moving ahead with someone else's project when you finally get back to them, and may not be able to schedule your work in again for some time.

Copyright 2008, Attard Communications Inc.

About the author
Janet Attard is the founder of the award-winning Business Know-How small business web site and information resource. Janet is also the author of The Home Office And Small Business Answer Book and of Business Know-How: An Operational Guide For Home-Based and Micro-Sized Businesses with Limited Budgets.

In no particular order I have these three recommendations for developing a website.

Each of these companies and individuals I know personally and each has a different area of expertise, so it's up to you to talk to them and see who can take care of your needs. (Click on the underlined links.)

Floyd and Partners is a full service nationally recognized advertising, marketing and public relations firm based here in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Talk to Bob Floyd.

One of Floyd and Partners most recent projects is iChooseAdoption.org which is an integrated website and national organization.

Andrew Zelt's area of expertise is building and updating websites and has links to some of the sites he has done in the past year. He is working with a couple of my clients right now.

And on a related subject, there is the award winning graphic design team at Advanced Graphic Imaging. Contact Tim Luncsford, the President of A-G-I.

When contacting any of these gentlemen, go ahead and drop my name, Scott Howard.

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