The website development market, at first glance, is oversaturated with offers. The prices vary from several thousand to several million, and all the companies are alike by their descriptions – we have several offices, have been working for ten years, and have implemented 200 projects, trust us.
Let’s try to make sense of all these suggestions.
Search engines
The first and most logical thing to want to do – is to google “best website developers”.
The disadvantage of this approach is that most make the site not for the client but for the search engine. Open such a site – solid text, where every word mentioned keyword “site creation” emphasizes bold.
Check their website
The website is the face of the company, and this is true for everyone. The developer’s site should be modern, user-friendly, and demonstrate capabilities. Isn’t that precisely what you need?
Do not believe in “we have no time to add a portfolio, but we’ve already done 200 sites”, or “our website is still in development”. Very rarely, there are cases when a company has a vast flow of clients and doesn’t have time.
Portfolio, customers.
Most of all, you should be interested in the portfolio section and the list of clients to whom the studio has already provided services.
Look at the latest works at the top. Usually, these are the works that the studio itself is proud of. Compare the website in the portfolio to its working version.
Creating a website is just the first step. It needs to be constantly maintained, promoted, and developed. If the site was designed several years ago, look at how it has changed, whether there are a lot of new features on the site, whether it works correctly, and look at its position in search engines.
Contests
Large and good studios send their and their developed sites to various competitions.
Here is a list of the best-known:
- FWA
- Webby Awards
- CSS Design Awards
- CSS Light.
Reviews
One of the most controversial and controversial points is customer reviews on the site. A tiny percentage of customers are willing to leave a positive review. In fact, if the service is provided qualitatively, it should be so, but if the developer “messed up”, then you can speak up, but no one will publish this review.
Most often, reviews are either entirely fictitious or written by developers themselves. Video and audio reviews are quite different, you can see the client himself at once, and he will not just dictate the text he has written but will insert his remarks.
In any case, you should check reviews. But remember an important point – bad reviews are not always bad. The whole review may be good, and the negative part is directed at specific moments you will not face when working with a company.
Company services and staff.
You need to analyze the range of services provided based on your needs. Do you want to develop and promote the site, and whether the studio have SEO specialists for that? Does the company have warranty support? Perhaps they will charge you for each treatment, or the initial amount includes technical support, promotion, and hosting with a domain.
It happens that companies do not take into account adaptability and mobile versions. In today’s reality, this is a must. See how their sites work on different devices.
Technologies
It is necessary to determine how your site will be developed and based on what technology.
There are many outdated technologies that developers stubbornly continue to use. If you apply them, the site may not display correctly on some devices, work less stable, slower, and not be supported by hosting companies.
A lot of controversy about what engine should be the site. There are many popular CMS – WordPress, Drupal, Opencart, Joomla.
In addition to ready-made CMSs, developers are increasingly using frameworks (such as Ruby on Rails (Ruby), Laravel (PHP), and others.
Ideally, you should learn in advance about each platform’s pros and cons and the difference between CMS and frameworks.
Prices
The rule almost always works here – “a cheapskate pays twice”.
It is important to understand that there are template and box solutions deployed in a few hours – download a template, install a CMS, enter the name of the company, and set up a couple of modules. That’s precisely what you’ll get at a low cost of the site.
A good site will take at least two months to develop, involving at least eight professionals. Can such work be cheap?
It is not enough to make a site. It must be constantly refined, maintained, and promoted. And the fewer “performers” change during the process, the better.
Worthy professionals are very few, and their services are not cheap. We hope this article will help you choose a reliable European software development partner.
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