How to find web developers
December 18, 2015 9:07 AM   Subscribe

What are some good tips or processes for finding the right people to rebuild a web site.

I'm doing some research to assist our small B2C company rebuild their web site. What are some tips, informative URL's and other processes we can use to avoid the pitfalls of web development?
Our business model has not historically been attuned to the power and possibility of using our domain assets to propel our brand. We've lost some ranking on Google through lack of attention.
As a small business, it's problematical to build the kind of expertise needed to compete in this realm as well. Our competitors for keywords are larger and have these processes nailed down much better than us.
Some fails from past site builds would be purchasing a one-off CMS from a developer, who disappears eventually, then finding out the site doesn't search well, is losing rank and doesn't support various things like hosting video, or other social media connections.
We are in the sports equipment niche, selling B2C. We have a list of goals for the site. The problem would be translating business goals into functional technology that supports us for the next 2-5 years and finding a person or business who can translate their technical expertise into language we can parse, discuss, plan act upon and utilize.
One potential pitfall I see in this process is that a designer could end up making a clean, attractive site that can be pretty useless in marketing terms and not grounded in the practicalities of marketing, content, conversions, and customer support.
We're looking at local resources, asking our connections in our business community, the local university and business accelerator program. I'm hoping to find some additional tips here from the hive mind.
posted by diode to Technology (7 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
One exercise I've been recommending lately is to create a site on Squarespace or Shopify. Just use one of their templates and try to make something you think is effective in an afternoon or two. Any web developer will need to do better than that and you'll have an easier time comparing ideas, portfolios, etc with something concrete to mentally apply them to. That process might help.
posted by michaelh at 9:28 AM on December 18, 2015


Best answer: I would look for 3-4 non-competitor websites you think are doing it right. Look for companies the same size as you, but selling in a different consumer sector. Talk to them, see if you can meet, ask for their recommendations not only for designers but for web and social media strategists they have used.

In your line of business (so not one you can probably contact) one that does a particularly good job all around is Burton Snowboards. Outside your business, a nice consumer-focused product site is King Arthur Flour. You can shop there, but they have a ton of recipe content. Also a good social media presence. (Both outfits are in the great state of Vermont, natch.)
posted by beagle at 9:33 AM on December 18, 2015


Beagle gave a great recommendation regarding looking at other websites. Also mentioned was the idea of building a small team--not just a web dev, but social marketing professional, maybe a separate graphic designer, etc.

I think you should outline what you want in a formal document and request a proposal from any candidate. The proposal should meet your requirements. (This should be much more laid back than a formal RFP process)

Then those outcomes you are looking for should also be specified in the final contract.

If you have any questions or hesitation about the web developer's ability to do what you need to do, you should be politely asking for references or proof that they've done the things you want to do.

One red flag that stands out here is your concern about design not translating into marketing savvy. I would be sure to address this up front by bringing in a marketing specialist to work with the graphic designer. Otherwise you might end up in an untenable situation with a flustered designer.

The other red flag that stood out to me was "small sporting goods business." There is a lot of demand for web development right now, and as a web developer myself, if I hear about too many poor past experiences from a potential client, I tend to get concerned about my chances of producing satisfying work for that person.

This doesn't mean your past experiences are invalid; it's just to say that clients who have had poor experiences in the past can quickly start to see new things through old lenses, and there is no good reason for a skilled person to work in that kind of a situation considering the current economy. So I'd try to keep things upbeat in order to get the best service, and minimize discussion of past developers (or maybe don't discuss them at all unless asked). Keep an open mind but keep everyone accountable to a reasonable, objective metric or set of metrics, that sort of thing.

Best of luck to you!
posted by circular at 9:53 AM on December 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


We've lost some ranking on Google through lack of attention.

Mostly this. And Beware SEO operators. Other than that looking for a medium company with other active clients and can respond reasonably to the details you've presented. More than a "cool" design, ongoing information your clientele will find useful and interesting on a pretty frequent regular interval.
posted by sammyo at 9:56 AM on December 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Thanks for the great tips. I doubt we are putting our past experiences forward first while talking to developers, that's more or less my spin on things.
posted by diode at 1:25 PM on December 18, 2015


I work for a web dev shop; trying to put this so it's not a sales pitch -- you're welcome to DM me and set up a time to pick my brain. It's unlikely you're a good direct fit for my shop, and we're stacked up with work, so hopefully my advice is seen as disinterested:

It's a difficult process from the client's perspective, and most dev shop or agency sites do not do a good job of explaining how the process should logically go (including our own web site).

A few semi-random points:

- these days there is almost no reason NOT to use a framework/platform like Wordpress for content, Magento or Woocommerce (a Wordpress plugin) for eComm, etc. Unless your needs are truly unique AND your budget is massive, making it from scratch is a nightmare you don't need. I emphasize this because old-school shops and some client prospects are still stuck in this "custom is better" mindset.

- recognize that design is very distinct from implementation. It is HIGHLY possible for a shop to excel at one and suck at another, and there's nothing wrong with getting a designer to design and someone else to code. And there is a third concept, user experience (UX) that is distinct from design but often lumped in. UX is the discipline of making sure the user is getting the results they expect when they navigate the site. Some designers are good at getting UX right, others just think about the graphics and forget about UX.

- yet another component is HOSTING, which often seems to get handwaved, but is a critical part of how a site works. Some dev shops offer hosting, others don't. If they don't host it, make sure there is a roadmap toward future support of the server environment and the site itself.

- SEO is, in reality, an outcome of good design and attention to user experience, good content (that's on you), good coding practices, and good hosting. In other words, you have good SEO when everything else is done right. People who come in and offer to "fix your SEO" are quacks. Period.

Most projects break down in two areas:

- the client doesn't have a vision of what the site should look like (or even what its purpose is), and expects the developer to come up with it. If you aren't clear on this, and the designer/developer is not prepared to spend a lot of time with you (or v/v) to discover this, expect delays and problems. I used to not understand why it was necessary to spend a lot of time designing and prototyping the site before starting to code. But it turns out it's a lot harder to code something (even within a framework) than it is to play around with it on paper or a wireframing tool. Looking at a past site that the firm did (or stock templates) and saying "make it look like that" is a shortcut that leads to chaos, because this means that you're expecting them to know what you're thinking. You can USE a stock template, but you still have to spend some time developing the ways in which you use that template to execute your purposes. Because it's never going to look like the demo, and you don't even want it to.

- (closely related) the client doesn't have the content and doesn't want to work on the content until the site's done or at least coming along. Some shops won't even start work until ALL content is finished for this reason. Because then as the content comes in it doesn't fit the framework that's being built, and then the client starts saying "well, do it again, but this time..." And that's how time and cost estimates get blown sky high...
posted by randomkeystrike at 2:26 PM on December 18, 2015 [3 favorites]


Another web development shop guy here. You can PM if you'd like to talk further. Three keys:

* Needs assessment comes first. Before a single pixel is created or a single line of code is written. Don't proceed without a plan. Avoid formal RFPs, they are not suited to creative projects.
* Make the solution fit the project, not the other way around. Someone may want to throw Wordpress or CMS 123 at you, but that not be the right tool.
* Find a shop focused on process and results over tools and tech.

This guide may help (currently being updated for 2016 but not ready yet):
http://versastudio.com/download/guide/
posted by 4midori at 7:19 AM on December 19, 2015


« Older New mommy help - door safety edition   |   NYE 2016 -- Istanbul Edition. Suggestions? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.