Choosing a Custom Web Development Company

Choosing a custom web development company can feel a lot like a game of darts. The problem is that what is good in a game of darts, the sense of hit or miss and the hoping that you will win because you opponent has worse aim then you do, is really bad when it comes to make your website. Actually, it is safe to say that strategy would be considered bad for any kind of a business endeavor. When it comes to how you make your money there should always be a solid plan in place and the corner stone of the plan for your web presence is a solid site that is made by a great custom web development company. This means that the vetting of the company that you choose for your web development needs has to be impeccable.

Now that you know that you have to be careful with your choice of the web development company you use, you need to know what kind of questions to ask. That way you can sort the real choices from the people who just want to play at web development.

Lets look at some of the basic questions that you may want to ask, and find out why these questions are important so that way you can ask intelligent follow up questions.

• What Set of Standards Do You Develop To?
• Will Your Standards Work on All Browsers and Platforms?

When it comes to web development standards you want to see two things. The first is to make sure that they are using current standards. After all you don’t want someone is coding to HTML 4 when HTML 5 has been out for quite some time now. By making sure that your developer uses current standards. While even the most current standard is going to be out of date some day, but the older the standard you start with the closer to obsolete that you already are. You want to start as far away from that point as you can.

The second thing it to know that your site will work on a variety of browsers and devices, after all this isn’t 1999, when almost all of your end users would be on a PC with Internet Explorer. You need to make sure that you are commissioning a site that everyone can use.

• How Much Experience Do You Have?
• With Specific Languages such as PHP or ASP?

To a certain extent the number of languages your developer can use do limit the features that you can have. If you really want animations, but your developer can’t use JavaScript you are in a bit of a bind.

• Can You Optimize My Site to Reduce Load Time?
• Will you fix bugs I find in the site?
• Who Owns The Code When The Project is Done?

This is important on all sites, and critical on mobile sites. People don’t have the patience to wait for a load. If your developer says no, look elsewhere. Any company that won’t clean up its mistakes is also not worth doing business with.

As for the third part of the question, if the answer is not “You do” then the same thing applies, walk away. You don’t want anyone else owning your site.