Development and improvement of the site for the development and growth of the business is the right decision. And in order for expectations to justify themselves, it is necessary to entrust such work to professionals. Where to begin? How to choose a studio that will understand all your wishes and be able to realize them?
We can get a bad haircut, buy bad yogurt, or get frustrated with our Friday night movie choice. But as far as the site is concerned, the price of a mistake is expensive. Time, money, nerves, and, as a result, even the rejection of the idea of creating a website – thereby you lose tremendous business opportunities. That is why the choice of future development should be approached as responsibly as possible.
Be prepared that this will take some time. It will not work to view the prices for services and determine where it is more profitable. And no one will tell you the exact price.
Today there is a lot of debate about whether you need to create your own staff of developers and programmers, or go to a web studio and hire react js developers and other essential specialists. On the one hand, your staff is better, but if these are one-time actions, then perhaps you should not waste your energy. Indeed, in this case, you will have to conduct interviews, sometimes train future colleagues, and much more. Moreover, React is a voluminous and innovative ecosystem.
Therefore, the outsourcing market is constantly growing, there are excellent companies that can make an individual project according to established templates and even advise a development strategy, pointing out planning inaccuracies at the initial stages. Moreover, companies today provide good conditions, adequate payment requirements, a large staff of necessary employees, guarantees of work performed, possible bonuses (discounts) for a large amount of work, and ongoing technical support not only at the stage of project creation but also in the future of the product being created.
Therefore, in order for the project to succeed in the end and for everyone to be satisfied with each other, it is worthwhile to competently build your work, approach the company, and go through several important stages so that the final website or some other product works correctly, and relations between people remain good, so that in the future if necessary, it was possible to again attract specialists for outsourcing.
Contents
Stage 1: Preparation within the company
To begin with, you must decide on the requirements for the future site. Customers most often do not know what exactly they need, what processes should work, and how.
Not knowing all the nuances is absolutely normal, which is why you turn to professionals and are not personally engaged in development. But in order to be able to immediately contact the studio with a clear statement of your goal, we suggest you answer the following questions:
- who your site is aimed at (a detailed description of the target audience of your company);
- what region is the site focused on;
- goals and objectives of the site (to sell a product, promote a service, collect leads, study demand, increase brand awareness, and so on);
- the time frame in which you want to get the finished site (given the complexity of the project, of course);
- an approximate budget that is available to you for the development and content of the site;
- what content is planned to be posted and who will prepare it;
- whether registration of clients on the site is required and, most importantly, why;
- the need for integration with the company’s internal systems: CRM, inventory control/accounting, calendar, telephony, and so on;
- future development of the project: what do you want to implement, not today, but in the near/far future;
- how the effectiveness of the site will be evaluated: sales, calls, orders, attendance, or something else;
- how it is planned to promote the resource after launch. Do you need special functions on the site itself (discounts, promo codes, special offers);
- whether it is necessary to follow the corporate identity and brand book, whether there are ready-made logos and other attributes;
- what management system is needed (name or requirements for it)?
So, you can immediately receive different options for proposals for the implementation of your particular project.
In the future, you should understand that work on the site does not end after the studio has handed over the project to you. Therefore, we recommend you formulate in advance what resources you will need to ensure the operation of the future site.
At the same time, the more complex the project, the more people it has to involve:
- project manager/marketer who will manage the development of the project, plan and conduct advertising campaigns, and analyze sales/visitor behavior;
- a designer who will search and process photos and draw banners for promotions, special offers, and so on;
- content manager (does not have to be on staff), who will be responsible for filling the site;
- a photographer (does not have to be on staff) who will take pictures of products, customers, and events;
- an administrator who will answer calls from the site, and communicate with customers in an online chat.
An important detail is that the last person should most likely be on the staff.
Stage 2: Choosing a web studio
The more complex your project, the more serious and experienced the contractor should be. If it’s a simple site, you can take the risk of becoming a freelancer for a small cost. A complex, multifunctional site with various integrations or an iOS product that uses Swift is best left to those who have already established themselves in the market. In addition to search engines, you can use expert ratings to select the most reliable companies.
Explore the developer’s portfolio
Are there projects out there that are similar to what you want? Or did you just like it? How successful are their cases (attendance, sales)? Are there jobs in your industry? Are there any works with the selected content management system? Does the company talk about its mistakes, and how common and gross are they?
What is the key advantage of dealing with a company that has the experience you need – they can warn you about choosing inefficient functionality and offer several options for developing a project, thereby reducing time and financial risks.
How does a development company work?
Are development processes transparent? Ability to follow the progress of work.
Are all the necessary specialists on the team? For a web studio, these will be project managers, programmers, designers, business analysts, testers, content managers, etc.
Does the studio provide warranty service and technical support? What is the procedure and terms of payment? (prepayment, full\partial\monthly payment)
Are there approval processes for each stage of work? How is the communication process structured? Availability of test servers to demonstrate finished work and options for testing the final product?
The answers to these questions will allow you to feel more confident in the process of cooperation with the contractor, and clear work planning and well-established communication will save time and resources.
Stage 3: Meeting with a representative of each company
Ask the main questions again – about the company’s experience, principles of work, projects that you liked (or vice versa), etc.
Evaluate the office of the company, the original awards and certificates will probably hang there.
Get to know the team members you will be working with. Get ready for the fact that you will have to communicate personally – you will work with these people for several months.
Live, it is easier to make sure of the team’s interest and professionalism, but the new reality has taught everyone to go to the level of online communications. If this is your option, rate how comfortable it was for you to talk over video.
Stage 4: Comparison of offers from different web studios
Have all your wishes been taken into account? If not, is there an explanation for why this is better? Are optional items identified that can be deferred to the next steps? How many layouts are offered? What is the depth of their study? Are there testing and technical support stages? What does the estimate look like? Is this the total amount or a detailed calculation of all the key points in the site’s development? (analysis, design, programming, etc.).
The last question is really very important when making a decision, as the process of creating a website is quite complicated. And it is simply impossible to compare the total amount here without detailing the project.
Therefore, we advise you to use the most detailed estimate that one of the studios sent you – and send its points to the rest of the tenderers to clarify the final amount.
