10 things your web developer must have

This article first appeared October 27, 2009.

It’s a jungle out there for companies wanting help with their website. Just ask Simon van Wyk, chief of web services firm HotHouse.

“I think there are more web developers in Sydney than there are milk bars,” he says. “There are a lot of cowboys in the industry. It’s an industry that continues to move exceptionally quickly. It’s very, very hard to get anybody with long-term experience and a deep level of experience.”

There are a plethora of web experts available, specialising in topics from social networking to illustration design, so making a solid website should be simple. But with so many voices telling you what to do, how do you figure out which to ignore and which advice to take on board?

To help you find the right assistance for your site, we’ve developed a 10-point checklist of things your web developer should always have.

1. Credentials and experience

Craig Reardon, head of development firm The E Team, says businesses need to hire developers whose websites have delivered returns on investment for their clients, and are willing to brag about it.

“I think the biggest thing to do is work with people who are proven to have good business results, not just whose sites look good. It’s easy to say you have a good looking site, but it’s not until you use them that you find out how good that website is.”

“A developer should invest as much as possible in making a site look good, but at the end of the day it’s evidence of your professionalism. Clients are going to trust you with their cash, and a good website is going to convert sales for you. You need developers who have achieved that before.”

John O’Neill, managing director of web marketing firm Komosion, says businesses must look for developers who are “reputable… with experience”.

“You want someone who is designing something appropriate, and you want to see they have done it before. It’s really quite fundamental. Depending on your functionality as a business, you want a firm that has done similar work before.”

2. Long-term commitment

These developers can cite several instances where a client was promised a design job, but when problems arose the developer said the work was done and they wanted nothing more to do with the site.

Matt Chamley, general manager of development company Webfirm, says regular maintenance and updates are critical when choosing a designer.

“People put energy into getting a website constructed and built, but after that they get distracted with normal business and need someone else to take on that job. If you need the website to be updated constantly, you need someone who can offer long-term maintenance if things go wrong.”

“It just looks bad to have an outdated site. If you go to a site in June and you see Valentine’s Day promotions, that sends a bad message. It doesn’t look good, detracts from the message and that isn’t needed – professionalism is paramount.”

Sean Fishlock, marketing manager for web development firm Datalink agrees, and warns businesses should avoid certain freelancers who may not have a proven track record.

“These may be uni students who can do a site for cheap, but will leave them in the lurch. You need to find a reasonable developer that isn’t just going to leave halfway through a project.”

But the experts also warn about the opposite – watch out for developers who will lock you into a long-term maintenance contract that will provide no avenue of escape if the service isn’t what you had expected.

3. Creativity

It’s obvious a designer should bring an element of creativity to web design, but these experts recommend developers who have a proven streak of creating unique websites that may not follow the usual trends.

Fishlock says developers should be able to recognise interesting trends and adopt them for use in their own websites, as this will demonstrate relevance and professionalism.

“With the whole Twitter phenomenon, one trend that has been revived is illustrations. There are a number of sites that have used the little blue Twitter bird in their own unique ways, and that gives your site a certain look which is a whole field in itself. This type of creativity goes a long away, and I see a lot of companies doing that sort of development now.”

4. Business sense

Good experience in the web industry is one thing, but these experts say developers won’t build you a successful website unless they understand business and your particular industry.

Chamley says businesses must first have a clear understanding of what they actually do, and their target market, in order to communicate that need to a developer.

“One example is that we dealt with a company that sold furniture and asked them what their market was, and they said “everyone”. That wasn’t good enough, so you need a developer who can understand that and tailor the site to suit a certain demographic.”

“For the financial services industry you want to go with companies that have experience in working with the KPMGs, and so on, and have done work with companies in the industry you work in.”

O’Neill says understanding how your business can market itself is paramount, “because it doesn’t begin and end with your website”.

“The web gives you that ability to create and build a media channel to market yourself, but you can’t do that without knowing and communicating to a developer what it that market is, and they need to understand it.”

5. SEO skills

Dominic Gamble, chief executive of WebDynamic, says there is no point in hiring a developer if they cannot spend resources on making your site easy to find.

“If you go to a web company that doesn’t have a proven record in SEO and don’t have that capability, you will end up having to pay for it elsewhere. The most relevant thing is not building a website, but figuring out how you get traffic. A lot of people claim to use SEO but will take your money and give you no results.”

Fishlock also warns against developers who may design sites without any thought about how it will affect Google rankings.

“Many developers use Adobe Flash to design sites, and it does look good, but keep in mind your site then won’t rank in Google at all. If something like that happens you may fall behind your competition.”

6. An up-to-date skills base

Entrepreneurs can hardly keep up with their own business, let alone the fast-paced world of web development. Shayne Tilley, marketing director for Sitepoint.com, says self-development and education is important for businesses wanting to hire individual developers as employees.

“They need a willingness to learn, as things change quickly in this industry. You need a programmer willing to continually keep abreast of news and changes that will affect how they code.”

“When interviewing, we ask leading questions like, ‘what blogs do you follow?’, ‘what was the last conference you went to, and what did you get from it?’, to gauge how active they are in the wider programming community. We certainly put effort and investment into learning, but post hire, we need people with a desire to learn, so the effort is worthwhile.”

7. A holistic approach

It’s inevitable that creating a good website is going to cost you a lot of money. But Reardon says businesses should avoid throwing all their money at making a site look good, and instead think about what your site actually needs to succeed.

“Suffice to say that it’s important you shouldn’t spend all your money on design. There’s a whole range of things that might be particular to your business. You need to look at your industry and what it needs, and that might be a little extra money here or there in different things.”

Gamble says businesses need to view their web development as an investment, and perhaps sacrifice some money from a design budget if other avenues, such as email marketing, will deliver a better result.

“If you buy a cheap product you get what you pay for, but if you put in a little bit more you get the results. But look at what you’re spending money on, because you may want to sacrifice some money from design to get a bigger benefit.”

8. An ability to grow with your business

When businesses design a new website, Fishlock says they must work with designers that have the ability to scale up as the business grows and can deliver new products and services.

“We’ve seen a number of projects where they will be contracted at the small business level, but once the business reaches a certain stage, the amateur might not be able to keep up. At the higher end, you might see companies want to integrate emails or a CRM, but the developer says they can’t do it, it’s a recipe for disaster.”

“At the higher end, I think you really need a one stop shop that can achieve the technical goals of the project as well as the visual goals of the project. It’s hard to find a developer with the right mix of those skills.”

9. Project management skills

David McLaughlin, marketing coordinator for development firm Revium, says a number of SMEs have run into trouble when their developers miss a deadline, only to be told the company had outsourced the work.

“Look for a company that keeps things mostly in-house. Many will divvy out work to subcontractors, and that increases the line of supply. You’ll have developers say ‘It’s not our fault we missed this deadline because the subcontractor is doing it’, and that can obviously cause problems.”

“There’s nothing wrong with outsourcing but it has to be managed closely and transparently. We have used freelancers before, but we guide every program along meticulously and keep an eye on what’s going on. They need to be transparent with you.”

10. A well-educated client

While developers need to keep an eye on industry developments by themselves, Fishlock says business owners would do well to educate themselves before bringing someone on the team.

“It’s important to have a bit of technical knowledge because you need to recognise what your developer can do for you. For instance, some developers code in languages that aren’t supported by a lot of web hosting services, and that will end up costing you a lot of money. A little bit of knowledge goes a long way.”