Over the last ten years or so, web development technology has significantly progressed. By today, it has become easier and easier for business owners to create their own website, often in a matter of days — or even hours.
This, naturally, begs a big question. Why should business owners even consider hiring a web developer when they can build a website themselves?
On the surface, it seems like an efficient idea. Your costs are reduced, you aren’t working with a developer who you have the potential to disagree with, and the multitude of do-it-yourself platforms available today make the consideration a very real possibility. A cheap one, too.
However, it’s important to also consider what you may be sacrificing by engaging in a DIY job for something so vital as your business website. We aren’t talking about a personal memoir or a photography portfolio here — this is your business.
Today, more and more people are using the internet to connect with businesses. In fact, your website is arguably your most important source of information for your customers, and surely a means by which to acquire new business and turn those viewers into sales.
Websites should be thought of as dynamic, living, breathing organisms. As your business grows and changes, so should your website. In 6 months time, your site shouldn’t be displaying the same content it is now… it should be growing and evolving, much like you would expect of your business itself. In 12 months time, many of the design trends, web technologies, search engine optimization best practices, and other optimization requirements and techniques will have changed and become deprecated, leaving your site no longer as effective as it may be today, if left alone.
This is why it’s so important to enlist the skills and expertise of a progressional web development firm to ensure that your site continues to grow your business, rather than hinder it.
Web developers are well-versed in the industry and its ever-changing, dynamic nature, and all the challenges that come with it.
It’s important to still beware — there are a pool of developers floating around who are in the business to make a quick buck — but passionate, dedicated development firms will demonstrate their yearning for client success. Great web developers love to create stunning, effective websites, and celebrate in the subsequent growth of their clients’ business.
When doing your research, be sure to look for development agencies who boast a good track record of delivering quality solutions for their clients, over a long duration of time. Those who have been in the business for at least several years should probably come near to the top of your list of options.
One of the key reasons to choosing an agency or development firm who have been around for a while is simply their demonstration of adaptability to change.
Trends and technologies are changing every month, and with that so do requirements and best practices that will poise your website for economic success. Older agencies have been around long enough to see the shifts in the industry, and their existence into 2018 shows their devotion to their clients in spite of the changes and adaptations that are constantly occurring on the web.
When building a website, experience is vital to every aspect. This includes design, development and back-end coding, but stretches right to performance requirements, such as delivery a solution which is optimized to actually grow your business, rather than simply existing.
There are more facets to building an effective website than dragging and dropping page components together. In order for your site to accomplish its goal, you have to consider a plethora of requirements. For example, effective, powerful calls-to-action are super-important, and this is something that requires both short and long-term testing in order to implement correctly. Your business website is not purely about providing a couple of informational paragraphs — it’s about accomplishing the artful task of converting visitors into customers.
Besides this, speed, security, branding and marketing potential, are all important factors to consider when building a new business website, or managing an existing one. Points of this nature will undoubtably require the expertise of seasoned professionals.
The quality of your website’s back-end code and infrastructure, as well as forward-thinking approaches to maintenance and updating of the site’s content are also vital to take into account.