1. Experience
This is one of the most important factors you should consider. What is the companies’ experience? Make sure that your Web team has a good level of business, design, and development competency. It is important that you enquire regarding skill sets available in your selected web development companies and match it to your specific project requirements.
2. Portfolio
Has the company worked with previous clients that are like your business? Have they worked on projects of equal scope to yours? Your website will be a vital platform for potential clients, and customers will visit when reviewing your company. It's essential that your website reflects your brand identity and values. Review the agencies portfolio to see their previous work.
3. Marketing, branding & development
Each business is unique and working with unique processes for unique audiences. Therefore, meeting needs for uniqueness is important in developing your brand identity. Check to see if your web development company can develop SEO-friendly websites, using best practices, because technical SEO plays a big role and it begins with the website development process.
4. Support, maintenance & upgrading
Will the agency be reliable & provide ongoing maintenance & support? Programming languages, like everything else, are constantly evolving. Even if an agency has great previous work experience, they have to be willing to keep learning and stay up-to-date with an ever-changing industry. Equally important are security measures. Ask your development agency what security standards, and security technologies/tools they know and where they have implemented.
5. Cost
Development will likely be a high cost for the first few years, so go all in. Cutting initial costs will only lead to upset, and it's the surest way to impede the company’s development. There are also various hosting options to consider such as web server hosting. Selection of hosting requires knowledge of pro's & con's of shared hosting, virtual private hosting, and dedicated hosting. The right development company should be able to guide you to the scale and ongoing costs of your hosting.
Web design Cheltenham & Gloucester
We hope that this list of tips was able to help you to narrow down your choices of web development companies. If you would like to discuss anything further please drop us a line at 01452 855 558 or email us for a chat.
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