Brainstorm your project
The first thing to do before sending your project off to your local web development firm is to brainstorm your project. This is definately not a requirement but helps the web developer understand your project and how you would like it laid out.
Include some important key factors like:
- How you would like the site to look graphically: Find other websites that have a similar look and feel you would like to capture.
- Include a website hierarchy: Draw up a simple website hierarchy. Include all pages, and if possible include the content you would like for each page seperately.
- Other special needs: Do you need a Content Management System? Is there other special features like seperate employee access sections you would like to utilize.
Choose, but choose wisely
Choosing a web developer is difficult and sometimes can be a costly one. It is important to understand how developers work. Some things to remember are the size of the firm always indicates the price you will pay. If the developer is freelance and on his/her own you should expect to pay a lot less then going with a large sized firm.A lot of times we hear of "developers" who have other day jobs charging a large amount of money for something that shouldn't be. The main idea here is if they have another day job, it is highly likely your project won't get focused on. Make sure you see the developers past work. Is the past work recent?. Is the developer qualified and experienced enough to do your project?. By qualified we don't mean there are certain qualifications needed to design a website, there isn't. However there are standards "modern" developers adhere by. If they are up-to-date on the newest technologies and changes in the web industry, odds are you will get a very nice site. Most of the time however we redo past developers' work because it was designed with standards from the year 2000 and we are currently in 2007.
Think about these things on your next project, we will add new content to this article when we think of more
