Your website matters now more than ever before. It acts as an online representation of your business and could draw the line between increasing sales and losing leads. With most businesses looking to attract and retain clients through their website, competition is stiff. Your website will be competing with your competitors’ for visitors and conversions online. That’s why it’s vital to hire an outstanding web developer.
With a great website, you can ensure customers understand your business thoroughly and can navigate through your list of services with ease. Since the technical parts of your website matter when it comes to SEO ranking, working with a reputable web developer will increase your chances of ranking higher. For instance, if your website takes a long time to load, you could easily have high bounce rates, which lowers your ranking on SERPs (search engine result pages) — page load speed is a vital website ranking factor.
Finding the right web developer for hire isn’t rocket science. It just takes a little strategizing. To begin with, you need to pick someone with the right technical and soft skills. More importantly, you need to understand what you want on your website as a business.
Read Coalition’s tips on how to hire a web developer who will improve the success rate of your website:
Understand What Your Business Needs
Knowing what you want before you hire a web developer could save you a lot of trouble. First of all, having a clear idea of what you want will help you create a detailed job description. This description will help weed out the wrong developers and zero in on the best candidates. Besides, you get to cut a few costs if you know what you want from the onset.
You won’t have to pay the developers more for the time spent brainstorming the ideal design elements of your website. It also reduces the chances of unmet expectations, which further eliminates the delays and costs associated with redeveloping specific elements. Sure, you can always ask potential web developers for their suggestions or opinions, but you should start with some essential details. Here are a few things to include in your job description to help you hire the right web developer:
- Include a design mock-up — having an idea of what you want your website to look like could reduce the planning time between you and your web developer. There are multiple tools, both free and premium, you can use to create a design mock-up. Drawing an idea of your ideal design on a piece of paper could work, too.
- Provide samples of designs you adore — while a design might not tell the full story of what you want on your website, it could give your developer insight into your tastes. Save and share screenshots or links of other sites that closely match what you want.
- Create a list of must-haves — what features are most important to you? Include a list of these features in your job descriptions, or at least have them with you before you hire a web developer. This could include certain ecommerce features to improve sales.
- State the design styles and color schemes you like and don’t like — this will further help your developer understand your tastes when developing your site. You can choose from a couple of design styles, including minimalist, playful, and sophisticated.
- Set a realistic time frame for the project’s completion — while you might have a tight deadline, it is advisable to leave some room for delays. Bugs and minor setbacks could easily increase the time needed to complete the project, and allowing some deadline flexibility will help. It also reduces the chances of needing to cut corners with the code, which could lead to regrets later on. The good thing about working with reputable and seasoned designers is that they can anticipate setbacks and adapt quickly enough to meet the deadline.
What To Look For In A Web Developer
As you learn how to hire a web developer, you will discover that the right person should have skills that go beyond their technical know-how. Having an understanding of coding languages, a great portfolio, and web design experience is only but the threshold. If you have a couple of developers who all have the technical skills it takes to work on your project, their soft skills can be a differentiating factor.
For instance, you need to work with someone who collaborates well with others, since you will be communicating with them throughout. You also need to pick someone who has a strong work ethic and high levels of self-motivation. Here is what to look for in terms of soft skills as you hire a web developer:
- Creativity
A great web developer should know how to get out of their comfort zones. They can overcome obstacles throughout your web development process and develop viable solutions. A web developer who can make do with the available time and resources without compromising the quality of your website will be ideal. They should also know how to handle pressure with enough creativity since they could be working at a time crunch in most cases.
- Detail-oriented
A good web developer should know how to strike the right balance between being detail-oriented and seeing the bigger picture. If you hire a web developer who only focuses on the bigger picture, it is easy for them to miss specific elements that could negatively affect the overall user experience. A detail-oriented developer will easily avoid common website mistakes. You can gauge how detail-oriented a potential developer is by including specific questions in the job description and interview.
- Collaboration Skills
Collaboration skills are among the top soft skills you need to focus on as you learn how to hire a web developer. In most cases, the developer might need to be in constant communication with the sales, marketing, writing, and support team. If they are hard to reach in times of need, this could be a recipe for disaster. They need to have strong communication skills and can easily work with other team members, especially if they might have to work with other developers at some point in the project.
- Passion and Curiosity
The web development industry is never stagnant — new and more efficient ways of doing things develop every day. A passionate and curious developer will always be looking to upgrade their skills. If you hire such a web developer, the chances are that your website will enjoy some of the best and latest features with regard to the platform you use. It could also help reduce problems with the code and delays.
Make Reviews Your Best Friends
The best web developers tend to have amazing reviews, but reviews will tell you more about their working style than anything else. A great review will reveal the cultural fit of the web developer you want to hire as well as their other soft skills. It will also help you gauge how they handle pressure and identify red flags at the onset. Look through review sites or testimonials on their website for more information.
Once you have narrowed down a shortlist of web developers, the rest will be determined during the interview. You can talk about their previous projects. Ask about any difficulties they faced in specific projects and how they overcame them to gauge their problem-solving skills.
The key takeaways are that you need to know what you want from the web developer, assess their technical and soft skills, and make sure to check out reviews. If you’re looking to hire a web developer, these tips will set you on the right path. Go out and find the best developer for your company’s needs!