Finding a web developer that can offer solutions you won't outgrow in a year or two is an important first step in deciding on a partner for your business Internet strategy. Understanding what makes a web developer successful helps you understand how they can use the Internet to make your business successful, as well as giving you confidence that you're hiring professionals with long-term Internet strategy partnership potential. This document is meant to introduce you to a heaping handful of concepts and services that you can ask prospective web developers about when considering their brand of services for your professional business Internet strategy. Things you should look for: - Online Content Management - These days, you don't need a webmaster to make simple text updates to your website for you, and you don't need to know how to use an FTP program, either. There are enough web developers who have Content Management solutions of some sort that any forward-looking company should be able to find one that suits their needs. (Selecting a Content Management solution is a whole topic in iteself, which won't be covered here)
- Relatively easy to move - If your relationship with your developer goes sour, or if your developer goes under, what happens to your site? Will you be able to continue to run the site, with whatever software is used to power it, on someone else's server? How much special configuration will it need on someone else's server? What software will your web developer NOT let you go away with if the relationship turns sour or the web developer goes under? How does this affect your website?
- Extensible functionality - what you do today with your website, including employee, customer, client, supplier, dealer, etc information should pave an easier road towards expansion in the future. Quality developers can build on what was developed before, and one of the most important things - DATA - does not have to be duplicated in the process. For example, a wholesaler's website which proposes to eventually allow for resellers to log in and place orders and view pricing and documentation online can start with a simple resellers links list on the public side of their website, and an address book of resellers on the private, extranet side of their website, and that same address book data would be used to expand the system as site success, reseller interest, and finances allow.
- Websites and Platform Scalability - this is most important for those who have sites that grow to need to be on more than one server, and those who grow to need to have mirror sites in more than one physical location (ie: international companies may want to have their AUS folk on an AUS server and their CAN and US folk on their CAN/US server). But anyway - can your developer handle that, if you see that being in your near future (ie: next 2 years)? If not, make damned sure you've got a site that is easy to move without a lot of re-work.
- Servers Supported by professionals - Anyone can host a server or two with 100 or so websites, and a mail server supporting 250 users. But what happens when they grow? Are they experienced with the growing pains of computer hardware and computer power? Do they know how to recognize when it's time to upgrade, or when there are problems that are not related to the CPU speed or the amount of memory or disk space? Do they know how to troubleshoot complex problems or do they send you in circles calling places that are apparently to blame for the problem? Are they educated with theory but inexperienced with the reality of, say, a mailbombing incident on their mail servers? Or a runaway script that's chewing up CPU?
- Promotional Tactics - some promotional tactics work but they are not ethical - and they are actually damaging to search engine traffic - when you really explore what's going on. There are plenty of ethical ways to promote your site and products without having to touch any of the unethical ways. Stick with developers who understand money and success does not override living an honest life, and poor promotional tactics are not worth being banned from search engines such as Google.com.
In conclusion, selecting a web developer should be done as carefully as selecting any other high-value contracted service for your business. Finding firms that can perform past the hype means asking the right questions and demanding the right quality of product and service before making the buying decision about this important step in your business Internet strategy. Target audience: SME's with web development budgets in excess of $5000US who envision increasing their use of the Internet as a business tool within the next 24 months |
