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Hire TalentIn today’s marketplace, you need a strong digital presence to push your product and service, attract new customers, and capitalize on the new money-making opportunities. A professionally designed and developed website is the key to attracting customers and tapping into new sources of income.
That is when you will need a reliable web development partner that would create that website for you. Today, we are going to give you some tips on how to choose the best web development company and talk about the things to consider before choosing a web development company.
There are many things to consider before you get to make your final decision, and so let us take a look at some useful tips for choosing the right web development company.
Define Your Web Development Project
Before you even start choosing a web development company for your project, you need to understand what your project is. Examine your business requirements and understand exactly what kind of website you are going to build. That will help in narrowing down your search field.
Set Clear Goals
What kind of website are you trying to build? Whether you are trying to build an MVP of a website or a full-fledged website, you need to understand what the final product is going to be like. There have to be reasons why your website exists, and so you have to have a clear set of goals you want to achieve with it.
List the Required Features
It might be hard to put a finger on all the features you want to have on your website before you start working on it, but you have to at least have a rough outline of what it is going to be like. That way, you will know what kinds of technologies are going to be used in the development process, which is critical for choosing a web development firm.
Plan Your Budget
This is an important point to consider – how much money are you willing to spend on your development project? The cost of developing custom software might vary drastically, depending on a bunch of factors. Developing a website might cost anywhere between just a couple of thousand bucks and up to $75,000 or more. Figuring out the budget of your web development project is something your vendor can help you with.
Create a List of Potential Vendors
Once you have all of your requirements and goals figured out, you can start making up the list of potential vendors for your project. With clear requirements for your project, you will know how to choose the right web development company by following a set of simple steps.
Experience
You would not want to trust your project to rookies, and so you should probably look for a company that’s been working in web design and development for years. As a side note, Intersog has been around for 16 years, and we excel at delivering top-quality web solutions to clients across industries.
Expertise
Years in the industry are not the sole identifier of a great software development partner. You would also want to check out their portfolio to see what kinds of projects they’ve been working on. This will give you a clear picture of what they are capable of. Additionally, you’ll be able to contact their previous clients to ask for their feedback.
Reputation
Check out rating websites such as Clutch to see what kind of reputation the vendor has. See what other people say about that company and what kinds of projects they’ve delivered successfully.
Location
If your business is located in the U.S., you might want to check out the vendors in your location or somewhere nearby. You may choose between onshoring, nearshoring, and offshoring your project. The latter two would prove more cost-efficient as it is generally cheaper to hire people outside the U.S. However, you should also remember that the further away your vendor is, the more challenging it would be to establish an effective line of communication.
Technology Stack
See what types of technologies the vendor works with and whether their expertise matches your requirements. For instance, you might need such frameworks as Angular, Ruby, Vue.js, React, or any other web development framework for your project. Your potential vendor needs to have experts who can leverage such technologies to develop the product you’ve envisioned.
Communication
Again, you don’t want your vendor to be located on the opposite side of the globe as it might cause communication delays, not to mention cultural and language barriers between you and your team. Talk to the vendor’s representative, hear them talk, see whether they are a cooperative type. You want your vendor to understand you, both literally and figuratively, and that is why communication is the key factor to your project’s success.
Avoid Potential Web Development Risks
Of course, there are certain pitfalls along the way you would want to avoid. There are many companies out there that pose as if they are able to deliver a quality product to their clients when they are not. That is why you should pay attention to the following red flags.
Cheap Cost
Cheap things are rarely good, and the same goes for web development services. If your developers charge some $15 per hour of work, you know you are dealing with rookies. Well, there’s a small chance they’d finish your project, but in most cases, cheap prices are a huge red flag. So, you should not be cheap when hiring a software development vendor for your project.
Lack of Experience
Avoid hiring companies that have been in the business for a short time. Of course, even a relatively young firm might have a great team of developers on board, but it is a much safer bet to just hire a company that has been around for many years. You don’t want to hand your project to the rookies, so it is better to get things going with a reliable partner.
Unclear Timeline
If you see your vendor wiggling around when giving you a timeline for the project, it might be yet another red flag. Of course, there might be some fluctuations in the delivery timeline, but an experienced vendor will be able to give you a more or less precise timeline for the project. If the vendor tries to delay it, this might be a sign that they are just trying to squeeze more money out of you.
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Language Barrier
Working with a foreign vendor might be cost-efficient but it also has its flaws, one of the major ones being the language barrier. Sure, your developers might speak good English but that does not guarantee you’ll have completely flawless communication with the team. The language barrier and a failure to convey proper meaning might be a downfall of an entire project, and you don’t want that to happen.
Ask the Right Questions
Once you’ve narrowed down your list of possible vendors, you can approach them and start asking the questions. At this point, you need to know exactly what kinds of questions to ask and what kinds of answers you would want to hear. Here’s a list of the questions and possible answers:
How do you ensure code quality?
A good vendor always has Quality Assurance experts on board. These are the people who run tests and check the software for any possible bugs and flaws. Their work allows the developers to improve the quality of the product on the go.
How do you ensure meeting deadlines?
The vendor has to guarantee timely delivery of the product. Of course, some unexpected issues might cause some fluctuations, but usually, good planning and project management make it possible to meet the deadlines.
How do you minimize software security risks?
The vendor might offer secure-by-design solutions. Basically, they would equip your software with all the necessary security measures like firewalls.
How do you report your work?
Usually, the developers split the project into sprints and provide the reports at the end of each sprint.
These reports can be documented or just communicated to you verbally. Here, you can choose whatever floats your boat.
How long will you support the product?
A good vendor will support the product for as long as you need that support. Intersog offers
support and maintenance services to all the clients and keeps their products up to date for as long as they need.
Evaluate All Factors
So, now you know the 5 factors to consider when choosing a web development company, and that is how you can start putting together your list of possible partners. Of course, you want to partner with a reliable vendor who’s been in the industry for many years and has already delivered many successful projects to a wide variety of clients.
That is where Intersog might just be the right partner for you. We have 16 years of experience behind our belt as well as hundreds of successful projects and satisfied clients in our portfolio. We are a U.S.-based company with R&D centers across the Americas and Europe, and we offer you a vast talent pool of the industry’s best web developers.
Now that you know how to choose a web development agency for your next project, you can start equipping your team with the industry’s best experts, and that is something Intersog can help you with.
