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10 Questions to Ask Your Web Developer So You Don't Regret Hiring Them

Hiring a web developer is one of the most important decisions you will make when you're building a website. Accordingly, it's important to do your due diligence and ask meaningful questions when evaluating candidates.

Tips for choosing a web development company

First, consider this advice:

Understand your needs. Before you start shopping around for a web development company, you should understand your needs. What type of site are you trying to build and what will its purpose be? Who is the target audience that you're trying to serve? What metrics would indicate that the website is successful, in your eyes?

Once you fully understand the context of your project, you'll be in a much better position to choose the right partner.

Review prior work. When evaluating candidates, always take a look at the work they've done in the past. Every web development company should have a portfolio available for public review; here you can look at and interact with the website state built in the past.

Are you satisfied with how the websites look and feel? Or are there any red flags that you need to be cautious of?

Focus on alignment and communication. The designing process will go much smoother and you'll end up with a much better finished product if you are aligned with your web development partner in terms of values and communication. Do you have similar priorities and a similar vision?

Consider costs and logistical hurdles. Is the web development company able to build a website at an affordable price or are they charging much more than their competitors? Are they able to take on new projects right now or are they overloaded with projects?

Plan for the future. If all goes well, this could be a partner that you work with for many years. Accordingly, you should make future-centric plans. How can you scale with this agency? How can you work together to achieve more?

Important questions to ask your web developer

When you're down to the final candidates, you can start asking some important questions about how the web development company operates and whether they’re a perfect fit for your brand.

1. Who will be doing the work?

How big is the team? What are the specialties of the people on the team? How much experience do they have? The more you know about the people actually doing the work on the project, the more confident you can feel that the project will be done effectively.

2. What services do you offer?

Web development is a given, but you should ask any potential web developers what other services the company offers. For example, do they have in-house designers who can design your website? When the website launches, do they offer web hosting or security? In the future, can they assist you with marketing and advertising?

3. How much will this cost?

It’s tempting to want to reduce costs and pay as little as possible for a developer, but this is usually a mistake. If you want a website that looks amazing and functions the way it's supposed to, it's often worth spending a little more on higher quality work. Still, you should know the cost going in.

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4. Will my website be responsive?

Responsive design is the modern standard, since it serves almost every imaginable device and viewing experience. Websites that are responsive can reflexively shift different elements around to provide a more comfortable viewing experience, based on the device accessing the content. This feature can be coded into your website relatively easily—and your website should be designed with responsiveness in mind, so it looks beautiful and intuitive on all devices.

5. What if I don’t like the design?

In a worst-case scenario, is there any recourse for you if you don’t like the design? Can you start over with a different approach?

6. What are some projects you’ve done in the past?

Always take the time to review a web development agency's portfolio. It’s also helpful to ask your web developer questions about their previous projects so you can get an understanding of how the company has operated in the past.

7. Who’s writing the content?

Don’t underestimate the power of your website content. It plays a role not only in forming a first impression with your audience and persuading them to take action, but also making your website visible and acting as marketing. In many cases, clients provide agencies with established content, but your agency may also offer content writing services. If you take the latter route, make sure you review examples of websites where they’ve written the content in the past to get a feel for their skill and familiarity with writing web content.

8. How much control will I have over the website once it's launched?

This is one of the most important questions to ask your web developer candidates. Is this a flexible website that you can access at any time and customize as you see fit? Or will you have to go through the agency whenever you want to make a change?

9. How do I review my website’s performance?

Google Analytics and other tools can reliably give you access to all the metrics you need. For example, it can measure the traffic going to your site and determine where it’s coming from. It can tell you about each user’s onsite behavior. It can even help you determine website accessibility and detect technical issues with your website. But it's important to ask your prospective web developer about this. Will it be hooked up from the start? Or is there some other way you can measure the performance of your site?

10. What do you need from me to start?

At this point, you should have all the information you need to make a final decision. You should feel confident that you understand the nature of this web development agency and how they operate. If you feel comfortable with the agency, you'll be ready to move forward. What is necessary from you and your team for this agency to begin?