Building a website sounds like fun! Controlling each and every element of your website may excite you. But believe me, it’s not as straightforward as it sounds. In fact, you may face several challenges while developing a website yourself, if you are not a professional website designer or developer.
In simple words, if you don’t have technical skills, you must not build a website. Rather you must hire a professional website builder.
Below are some of the consequences if you try to build your website without any technical expertise:
Your website may not look professional
Your website may lack security.
Your users may experience bugs & errors on the website.
The reputation of your business may get affected because of an unprofessional website.
You may not be able to build a scalable & customizable website.
Should I hire a website developer?
Well, that depends on your own technical skills in building a website. If you know how to set up a CMS like WordPress, make necessary configurations, and customize the codes a bit to make the required change to your website design, then you can definitely create a website yourself. In this case, you don’t need to hire a website developer.
But if you don’t have any of the above-mentioned technical expertise, then it is strongly recommended that you must hire a professional website developer who can create a nice website for you.
Your website is a gateway for your potential buyers to your business. It shouldn’t look unprofessional. Because if it does, there is no point to build a website at all. You can still live without having a site.
Why should I hire a website developer?
I have already explained above that you should hire a professional website developer if you don’t have the required website development skills. But below are some of the other reasons for hiring a website developer instead of trying to do it yourself.
You need a professional website for your business if you are really serious about growing your business through your website.
You need a coder who can make changes to the theme and plugins of your website.
You need to focus on the core areas of your business instead of trying your hands on something that you don’t have to.
You need technical support when you need it in times of emergency.
You need a secured website that can only be created by a professional website developer.
Where can I find a website developer?
To start the website developer hiring process, you can simply Google “website developer” and you will find a lot of options to shortlist and hire a website developer.
You may even get overwhelmed with dozens of good options to hire a website developer. But you have to choose the best website developer because you can not go wrong with your website.
How can I know that my website developer is reliable?
Well, there are many ways in which you can ensure that your website developer is reliable. Some of those ways are mentioned below:
Check the testimonials of your shortlisted website developer. Those testimonials will tell you how happy are other people who have worked with your developer already. In other words, you can read what others have to say about your shortlisted developer’s services & support.
Check the portfolio of your website developer to ensure that you will get the same quality as you expect.
Check the experience and the span of existence of your website developer. More experience means better quality of work.
What are the steps involved in hiring a website developer?
To make sure that you hire the right developer, you must take a few steps. Some of these steps I have already mentioned above are worth mentioning again.
Request for a few website development quotations.
Check the portfolio (past works) of each website developer.
Check the testimonials (their clients’ words).
Ensure that the developer has understood your requirements correctly.
Check the website rates because you don’t need to spend a fortune to build your website.
If you are hiring a website developer in Singapore, you must be ready to pay at least a thousand dollars to create a basic informative website. And if you want to build an eCommerce website, it may cost you more than $3000.
What are the things that I need to provide to my website developer?
When you start working with a developer who will create your website, you must provide him or her with all the required details, information, and materials that will help him to complete the project efficiently.
Below are some of the items that your website developer may request from you:
Content for each webpage.
Logo, if any.
Sitemap of the website (for eg. Home, About Us, Services, Contact Us, etc.).
Website hosting & domain credentials (if your developer is not hosing the website for you).
What should I expect from my website developer?
Below are some of the items that you must get from your website developer, other than the website development:
Usually, the website developers and website development companies develop the sites on their test servers (aka staging servers) to show the work-in-progress to their clients. This enables their clients to check the work and provide feedback to their developer(s).
So, your website developer will update you regularly on the work progress that you can check on the test servers.
After completing the website development on the staging server and implementing their clients’ feedback, the developers would migrate the website to the live server of their clients. After making the website live, it’s visible to everyone.
How should I take over the website from my developer?
The handover is one of the most important steps of website development. When your website developer has completed the job, you must make sure to take the handover of your website from them.
Below are some of the major elements that you must take handover of from your website developer:
All the login credentials.
All the source codes.
All the source files of designs, if applicable.
The license details of the theme or plugins, if applicable.
Will I need to rehire my website developer to make the changes?
If your website developer is using a CMS like WordPress to build your website, you will not need to hire your developer for making small changes to your website. You can easily make those changes yourself. All you will need to do is, just log in to your website backend, make the required changes, and save them. As simple as that.
However, if you want to make any cosmetic changes to your website or add a few features to it, you will have to hire a website developer to do these jobs.
