Need to succeed with a new website? Hire a good developer.
Have you heard this sentiment from anyone on your team?
“We’ll just find someone who knows how to code — the website will be fine!”
If so, think twice. You need your online presence to make a great first impression on prospects — potential buyers, partners, employees, investors, donors, you name it. Your website is a mission-critical business investment. Do not skimp on the most important part. The most important part is development.
Yes, content is king. Yes, a great user experience design is essential. Yes, you need a great color palette and imagery to pull it all together — you absolutely need top-quality website design services. (That’s what we do at Merrygood!) But your site can’t come to life, or serve the people it needs to serve at all, without quality code. No matter how good your site design may be, shoddy development will get you a shoddy site that doesn’t look as good as you hoped, is riddled with mistakes, and doesn’t function properly.
If this is your situation, don’t despair — you’re not alone.
We know it happens, because brands often come to us needing to redesign a “just launched” mess of a website. The project may have started off well, but ended up in the hands of unskilled developers. Now the team is back at square one wondering what went wrong.
Get set to make a good developer hire
The truth is this: Not every developer is a good developer. Choosing a bad one can be a costly mistake. Before you hire website design and development services, prepare to make an informed developer decision. Here are Merrygood’s top 12 tips on how to do it.
Professionalize your consideration set.
Job one is to hire a quality developer. So don’t waste time on developers who are less than professional. Start by refusing to hire a developer that does this work “on the side.” Platforms and best practices are constantly evolving. Make sure you’re working with a developer that’s dedicated to the craft and stays up-to-date with the latest and greatest.Don’t let price alone guide you.
Good developers charge higher rates. Why? Because of the value of their experience, of course. But also? Because of the peace of mind they bring to the table. Plus, higher rates don’t always equal higher cost — experienced developers move faster, avoid trouble, and stand by the quality of their work. Short story, you get what you pay for.Don’t think fixed budget — instead, fix your budget.
Yes, budget realities exist. But the budget you reserve for development must be enough to afford a quality developer. Get estimates from top-quality developers to assess how much the site you need actually costs to code. If you find your budget isn’t in line with reality, look for ways to save in other areas and spend more on development.Be sure to think mobile.
Take the time to look at a developer’s portfolio, and not just on your desktop. Your brand lives and competes in a mobile world. So, look at any potential developer’s work on tablet and mobile. Do the sites function in a mobile-friendly fashion? Does the design fall apart? If a developer’s work falters on mobile devices, don’t use them.Check the references.
No matter how good the work looks, you need to talk to the customer to understand the quality. Listen not just for how much the project cost, but what the experience was like. Even if the best of website projects, communication is critical. How did things go when issues cropped up? Or when timelines got tight? It’s worth paying for a developer who has the skills and experience to provide quality and grace under pressure.Ask the designer, too.
Just as you can’t tell what working with a developer is like by looking at the outcome, you also can’t tell how close the result was to the vision. Hire a developer recommended by a trusted creative. Designers can tell you how a project turned out in comparison to the design comps provided. A good designer works with development in mind from the start — and a good developer strives for pixel-perfect achievement of the user experience.Check design collaboration tools.
To create a great site, designers and developers must collaborate. If you’ve already hired a designer, make sure the developer you are considering is familiar with the tools your designer is using, which may be InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator. To be fair, these aren’t the most efficient tools. The most developer-friendly design programs these days are Sketch and Figma. If a developer isn’t familiar with either, it’s a red flag.Understand hosting options.
Always ask where a developer will host your website. You can dictate where your site will be hosted, so tell a developer what hosting you want or need — or ask for their recommendations if you need input. Whatever you do, your site should never be on an independently hosted server. If a developer insists on using their own server, you run more risks of downtime. You’ll also be stuck if that server goes down catastrophically, or your developer suddenly decides to retire to Tahiti.Discuss your CMS needs.
If you plan to update your site content, use a CMS such as Wordpress, Shopify, or Squarespace. It goes without saying that Wordpress website development differs from non-Wordpress website development — so be sure to hire a developer who knows the CMS you want to use. Your developer should give you access to the CMS and code depository. Also, your developer should never “hard code” any site sections you plan to update. Hard coding forces you to pay for developer time to edit code every time you want a simple content change. Which is completely counter to the point of having a CMS.Does your developer offer site support?
If you’re using a CMS like Squarespace, you’ve got built-in support. But if you go with Wordpress site development, you’ll need to consider your monthly support needs. When a site is built and hosted well, things “breaking” and site outages are minimized. Most sites don’t need 24/7 support, but there are exceptions. If access to developer support is important to your business, make sure you ask your developer about it up front: many only offer support during regular business or working hours.Consider quality assurance.
Coding is complicated. Quality assurance should be part of your site budget and time schedule — carve out some space for this if you hadn’t planned on it. As you interview developers, ask about their approach to QA. Do they use a third party QA specialist to test their work on different browsers and device types? This can be extremely important in ensuring your site will function well for your key audiences.Agency or freelance talent?
You could hire a development agency or a freelance developer. The right choice for your site may depend on size and complexity. A development agency will have multiple qualified people available to work on your website, and likely have systems in place for things like QA and site support. However, you will pay for full-service convenience. Good freelance developers with transparent practices can give you great, personalized service for less — especially if your project is small, and/or you don’t need 24/7 site support.
How Merrygood handles development
Another way to get a great developer on your site project is to work with a custom web design agency that has honed partnerships with high quality developers. At Merrygood, we’ve got you covered.
We make development effective and efficient by focusing our web design services on two CMS platforms — sometimes Squarespace, and more often Wordpress. Our teams are highly conversant in the pros and cons of these platforms, and can recommend the right one depending on site size and functionality requirements.
Merrygood has a proven track record of building award-winning, effective websites. We prioritize designs that work across devices, and use a collaborative toolset that makes designs easy to communicate all the way through to development. As the site is built, we have a dedicated QA specialist to ensure there are no visual or functional mistakes. Our QA process tests websites on multiple device types and browsers. Meanwhile, we ensure that client teams are ready to take on site management. All clients receive direct access to their CMS, and all clients get a suite of video tutorials on how to update content on their website.
We host our Wordpress design and development sites on Flywheel — a large, centralized hosting company — unless requested otherwise by the client. Monthly hosting as well as update and support packages for our Wordpress web design projects are available.