Do you want to redesign your existing website?
If yes, I am sure you must be looking for a reliable yet affordable website developer who can create a professional website for you.
But hiring a website developer could sometimes become a challenge for you. Because before you engage a developer, you may not know about the quality of their work & support.
And if you don’t hire a professional website builder, you may have to face several consequences such as delay in website completion, poor quality of work, and sometimes even worst, a never-ending project.
But you don’t have to worry about it if you follow certain guidelines.
In this blog post, I have shared 6 essential skills that you must look out for in your website developer before you hire him/her.
#1 CMS Skills
If you are among the majority of webmasters, I am sure that you must have used WordPress for your website development.
CMS platforms like WordPress have made it super convenient & affordable to create a website.
And that’s the reason that most of the website developers and website owners prefer to use a CMS, especially WordPress, to build a website.
It is, therefore, the first skill that you must check for in your website developer.
In other words, your shortlisted developer should be able to work on the CMS that have been used to build your website.
For example, if your website has been developed using WordPress, you must make sure that you hire an experienced WordPress developer only to redesign your website.
And if your website has been developed using Drupal, you must not hire a WordPress developer to redesign your website.
#2 Support
Support is yet another quality that you must look out for in your website developer.
Website development is not a one-time process.
Additionally, you may also face several issues related to your website performance, even after you launch your website.
Therefore, the support & assistance of your website builder is very crucial. Without prompt support from your developer, you may not be able to fix the issues on your website quickly.
But the question is “How do I know about the support of my website developer before even I hire him?“.
Yes, that’s a common question among many webmasters.
But you don’t need to worry about it.
You can ask your shortlisted website builder to provide you with some of their client’s references so that you can contact them and ask about the quality of support that you can expect from your developer.
#3 Web Design Experience
The experience does matter while hiring a website developer to redesign your website.
The word “redesign” may sound cheesy & easy, but technically speaking, there are lots of complications that may arise while redesigning a website.
Only experienced website developers know about the possible challenges that they may have to face while revamping a website.
Some of the possible challenges that a website builder may face while redesigning a website are mentioned below:
- Migration of all the important data such as customer details, leads database, etc. to the new website.
- Carrying forward the crucial SEO works such as meta tags, anchor tags, etc.
- Compatibility of old plugins with the new theme.
For novice developers, it could be a surprise when they encounter such issues. As a result, they may not be able to handle them which could result in the delay of website completion.
It is, therefore, always recommended to hire only experienced developers to rebuild a website.
#4 SEO Skills
SEO is another important skill that you may also want to check in your shortlisted website developer.
What kind of SEO skills is important to have in your website developer?
- Optimizing the website’s loading speed.
- Ensuring the responsiveness of your website for all the devices.
- Integration of necessary SEO plugins with your website.
- Optimizing all the images and ensuring that each image has an alt tag.
- Provision of meta tags for each webpage.
- Integrate the important trackers such as Google Analytics with your website.
#5 Visualization
After having experience of more than a decade in website development, I can surely say that visualization skills are very important for every website developer to have.
While some of the developers may disagree with me because they believe that visualization skills can’t be included in their scope of work. Instead, it’s the responsibility of a website designer to handle all the visualization tasks.
But I know how difficult it can become for a website designer to understand the viewpoint of a website maker and vice versa.
Therefore, in my opinion, a website builder should always have the basic designing skills so that he can easily handle all the required designing tasks to make the website look perfect, without the assistance of a designer.
It also saves time and helps to complete the project on time because the web developer doesn’t have to wait for the designer to assist him.
Below are some of the website design skills that your website developer should have:
- HTML & CSS.
- Photoshop skills.
- Troubleshooting related to the compatibility of browsers & mobile devices.
#6 Helping Attitude
Last but not the least, a helping attitude is yet another important factor that you must look out for in your website developer while redesigning your website.
In other words, your developer should be willing to help you in the long-run to grow your business, rather than just taking a short-term web design project.
Being a web design consultant, I understand and believe that website development is not a one-time thing.
Even after your website is completed and launched, you will definitely need the assistance of your web developer either for adding new features or fixing the existing issues.
Whichever the case, your website developer should always be willing to help you & support you to grow your business through the website.
