Top 12 Questions to Ask Your Web Development Company
Selecting the right web development company for your website design and redesign can be a challenging task.
Your website being the first point of contact that your visitors have with your brand, it is essential to hire the best web designer who can understand your business goals and deliver results accordingly.
Asking the right questions accompanied by a great proposal can do wonders.
To make your chores easy, we have compiled a smart bunch of questions you need to ask your potential web development company.
Their answers to these questions will reveal if they understand your vision and will give you the user experience you want.
Let these questions decide who will handle your brand’s next web development and redesign project.
Ask these questions to your potential web development company
1. Have you worked in my industry and on projects with goals like my own?
Your potential web development company should understand your vision about your website.
Therefore, it is good to have developers with prior experience in similar projects and domains as yours.
If your firm operates in a unique or complex industry, developers with prior experience in similar industries and projects will have a less steep learning curve and hence be less costly.
They will be able to offer beneficial recommendations with regard to content, site architecture and user experience.
2. What is your research, web design and development process like?
Developing and designing a website that makes it easy for your target audience to understand your core services, mission and goals is crucial to have a successful web presence.
The web development company you are partnering with should do thorough research on your target audience to hit it right. You need to know about the extent to which they do their research.
You should also ask about the internal processes they follow in the design and development of a website.
The processes play a greater role in impacting your project speed and efficiency.
3. Will my website be fully custom or based on a customized theme?
When you are building your website, you need to know whether you are getting a custom website or a customized one.
The former means that your web development company is making a website uniquely for you to meet your specific needs.
Whereas the latter refers to a website that is built on a merely pre-built theme.
They might be modifying or changing the theme to suit your needs.
IF you are paying and expecting a uniquely hand coded website, ask this question without fail.
4. How long will it take to complete my web development project from start to finish?
Working with a web development company that completes your task within a stipulated time is crucial if you have a deadline for your website’s completion.
Different agencies and developers take different time to complete a project.
Therefore, it is prudent to confirm their time schedule beforehand. It helps you get the most from your budget.
5. What services do you offer?
Diverse range of packages and services are offered by different web development companies.
You need to find out which services fit your needs. You need to know if they implement SEO strategies, offer social media marketing and other digital transformation services, how far they do the designing, etc.
It’s better to list out the services that you actually require and crosscheck with each of your potential developers if they provide them.
6. Can you provide examples of websites that you have designed?
Referring to the previous design of your potential web development company helps you understand their design style and diversity.
You also need to check the performance of the sites, navigation patterns, how well-crafted each one is, are they updated with modern designs, how effectively their design captures the business goals, etc.
7. What strategies will you use to generate revenue for my site?
The web development company that you are zeroing in should tell you about their revenue generation models for your website.
An expert web development agency will have some tried and tested strategies they normally incorporate into a site design.
You need to confirm that these strategies are in alignment with your website goals.
8. Will I be able to make edits on my own?
However magnificent is the website that you develop by collaborating with your preferred web development company, change is inevitable.
In future, you may need to edit some website elements. You need to clearly ask them if they are giving you easy access to make necessary changes.
Ask them about the tools that they give to make your task easy.
9. How do you guarantee a consistent and functional experience on all devices?
We are living in a multi-device world and therefore building websites and web applications that are smoothly accessible from different devices and screen sizes is inevitable.
You need to ask your agency how they are ensuring responsive web design. How they are ensuring a highly optimized user experience.
10. Do you offer a content marketing package?
Getting a web site from an experienced web development company does not ensure any leads or increased ROI.
There should be a proper content marketing strategy in place.
Therefore ask your agency about any content marketing services to optimize and create quality content, enhance visitor engagement, etc.
11. What content management system (CMS) do you recommend and why?
Experienced web development companies have their favourite content management systems (CMS).
It’s beneficial to ask them why they prefer a particular CMS and probe to know the pros and cons. You can even ask them to show you a demonstration of their CMS solutions.
You also need to ensure that the CMS platform is suitable for your business needs and goals. You also need to check if they have the expertise to deal with the back-end design of the CMS interface and the administrative functionality.
12. What do you charge for a project of this scope?
Do a thorough research on the approximate rates in the market. Rates of different web development companies differ and hence decide the amount you are willing to pay before approaching a web development company. Remember that you get what you pay for.
Therefore, do not get excited to know that your potential web developer is cheaper than you expected. If you want to get a website that your brand will be proud of, be ready to pay for quality work.
Wrapping It Up
Finding the right web developer for your business is not magic. You need to spend time doing ample research.
You need to have clarity on your requirements. Having precisely listed requirements in hand will help you hire a web development company that suits your needs perfectly.
