Questions You Should Ask Any Web Developer
This article covers some of the key things most people forget to ask a web design company when meeting to discuss building a website. We think this is standard stuff and extremely handy to know. Although experts will differ in opinion when approaching different tasks, sales people might generally tend towards to bright side of things just to make a sale. If your development company is candid enough to answer these questions honestly, you're probably in good hands. This document may give you the edge to recognize the warning bells before its too late...
These answers are to help you know where you stand with your development company, so lets get started!
Is my website naturally optimized for search engines?
A good question to ask! Public facing websites (i.e. websites available to the public) will get indexed by search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing. It's extremely important that your website is found once crawled, and that you use every opportunity to increase the frequency of your site being found and used. Naturally optimized sites are website that use lightweight CSS designs, proper meta keywords and semantic XHTML for marking up your web page documents - that means using text for title and headings, not using images in place of headings or text and even having description names on the address bar for your website.
There are many other techniques for helping your pages reach high rankings in search engines. It's the small things that can help a lot.
Does my site use current web design techniques and adhere to W3C standards?
The web evolves as time goes by and website design methods continue to bend and sway in better directions. It's important now days to use current design techniques like table-less design with separation of content, style and behavior. Some web design companies only learn so much at a single point in time and then refuse to further themselves as methods move on. It's important not to sit and stagnate in a past of clunky, audience excluding concepts.
Taking advantage of modern concepts will give your website and edge with search engines, be lighter weight and smaller download, be easier to use by your visitors and provide for a feature rich experience that will encourage your users to return and read or return and buy.
Is my website centrally hosted or can my website be easily hosted anywhere?
Sometimes web development companies insist on a centrally hosted solution which locks you into staying with them. While not always bad for the right product and situation, you should know what you are getting into. At times a centrally hosted service can hinder your optimizations for search engines.
Take the scenario of URL's for instance. If our website was centrally hosted, we could end up with a url to our homepage like http://www.precisionmarketingcompany.com/xy2zab1/index.html. That random looking part in the middle (the xy2zab1) can ruin your SEO quite dramatically. Not only does this put our content in a directory lower level, the xy2zab1 is meaningless to what we do and the content we are trying to serve.
It's a definite advantage to be able to move easily from web host to web host with your website's code and database, if it has one, than to be chained to a single host which might not deliver the performance your website needs.
It's not the be all and end all one way or another, sometimes it's a good thing. Just make sure you know where you stand so there are no surprises along the way.
Will your code be compatible or usable if I prefer another web development company?
Coding styles differ from company to company and person to person. Usually if you change to a different development company, they should be able to pick up where it was left off. That is, if they have the complete source code for your website. Sometimes the source code can be tricky to acquire, especially if your relationship with the first company ends on a bad note, but also if your website is using a proprietary content management system or online shop, you may not be entitled to take the code with you.
If you do have the complete source code for your website, best practices will also help with compatibility when going elsewhere. If the new development company follows the same best practices, they should have no issues taking over. See the question below on best practices.
It's good to know where you stand on this subject.
Who owns the intellectual property behind my website? Who owns the content? and Who owns the design rights?
Intellectual Property can be a tricky business and is not often simply black and white, so this is an area where it is good to know where you stand to avoid nasty surprises down the line.
Sometimes you can be sold a website, thinking that you own the rights to it in it's entirety. Some web development companies and/or sales representatives avoid or neglect this subject, which can lead to issues further down the track should you want to move your business away.
The code, html and scripts used to create software, a website or application typically remain the intellectual property of the company that created them.
It is quite common to buy a licence to use software like a CMS package to run your website with. Since the content management software is a product of the web development company, the intellectual rights will want to be retained by the company themselves. In this case you will usually receive a licence to use the software to host your website. It's also worth noting that some content management systems require hosting to be controlled by the web design company usually because they don't want their valuable source code going outside of their control.
Usually designs are copyright of the artist or graphic designer that created them, which is similar to the way photographers work.
Content of your website is usually wholly the copyright of the person or organization doing the writing. In the case of a CMS, where you have the rights to use software, you will still retain copyright on the content within it.
Do you follow best practices when building web sites and programming web applications?
An extremely important part of programming and building websites is the following of best practices. Best practices are simply guidelines on how a task should be approached or executed. For instance, there are best practices for optimizing a website for search engines, instruction for developing HTML and code portions of a website and extremely important guidelines for when writing the code for an application or program.
Best practices exist to achieve several goals:
- Give an industry standard model which all can follow
- Encourage producing consistent results (this can also help when more than one group needs to work on the same project)
- Discipline when working with a certain subject matter
- Deter poor practices in coding and development
- One good question to ask when designing a website is whether they follow the W3C's HTML and CSS guidelines?
Does my website require a database? No, really. Does it REQUIRE a database?
Databases are used to store your application or website's content, records and data. They're an invaluable tool for content management systems, product catalogues, back offices and intranets, but are not always the right tool for the job.
We've seen many companies sold huge elaborate content management systems, when often they required maybe a few updates a year on their website. Databases are really good for storing and searching loads of information, so if you have a lot of content or like the convenience of a CMS, it's probably easier to use a database backend to run your website. If you have a small site and don't think you'll need to update it often, you might be better to think about creating a static website (i.e. a site where its content doesn't change dynamically) and paying for updates as you need them. Although not guaranteed, smaller updates like address and phone number changes often slip through without being charged, the few hundred dollars you spend periodically could be significantly less than a huge up front cost of setting up a CMS and database.
Should I have Macromedia Flash on my website?
There are a few issues to be aware of with flash and websites. Although flash animation can do some wonderful things, it can often be annoying to users and has some serious problems with accessibility, bookmarking and search engine optimization. A well placed piece of flash, a flash movie or a flash game can work as an asset to a website, helping to pull more visitors. Usually however, flash websites fail to add any real gain to a website. Information is harder to read or find, text and links can't easily be copied and the visitor cannot use their browser's back button.
Flash is a great enhancer. It can do excellent product showcases and allows for a more visual edge when trying to get a point across, but it is no substitute for real content and information that is available to all. If you do have the right application for some flash animation, we'd recommend making sure you back it up with an equivalent HTML page or even better, use the flash amongst the real page's content.
Should I have an introduction page? Are introduction pages good or bad?
An introduction page is usually more deterring to a visitor or search engine than you might think. When users visit your website they'll want to see what you're about and what you have that interests them. This sounds like a great use for the introduction page doesn't it? Well, yes, if you manage to actually convey that information to your users quickly and adequately. Often intro pages have one large graphic with the company logo, or a fully blown flash animation with upbeat synthesized techno cafe music with slides and images that zoom about the screen. There are some great intros out there, but will this get the information to your user quick enough and encourage them to stay on your web site and find out more?
It's very important to have actual text content on your home page. To search engines this is the first and most important page in your web site and search engines need text to index your results correctly and figure out if you site matches what someone is searching for. It's a very good idea to get your website's goals and key features across, and in plain text, on your home page. It lets people know straight away if they're at the right place and gives them all the options they need to get going further into your website.
Summing up, in general an introduction page is a bad idea. They don't get your point across and are unfriendly to search engines. Just having images or flash with no text content won't help in better search results. While extremely trendy in the late 90's, if you ask a web design company now for an intro page and they don't at first try to dissuade you from it, you might have to ask whether they have your website's best interests at heart.
Do I want Web 2.0 and that AJAX thing on my web site?
Today's current trends are based around a couple of buzzwords, AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) and Web 2.0 (pronounced Web Two Point Oh). Web 2.0 doesn't refer to the next version of "The Internet", but rather a changed methodology from the previous idiom of web design for developing richer and more interactive web applications. AJAX is a specific concept for working with using XML data in Javascript to accomplish tasks without fully reloading the page, as is the normal model. AJAX is often confused with the older technique of using DHTML or Dynamic HTML to change the HTML of a web page without reloading it.
While these are just trendy buzzwords today, the techniques have been around for a long time, and when used correctly can add a whole new world of user experience to your site. Still, your website content should come first, and as some of these Web 2.0 techniques can hinder your search engine optimization, the general rule is to avoid unnecessary use of it. Be careful with this one, overuse is its biggest downfall.
Will my website use a CMS? If so, does it really need such a complex system?
Sometimes web design companies always sell their clients a content management system. But sometimes they're overkill and over priced for the needs of a small business, whose content changes infrequently. If you're in doubt, challenge them. The cost of a few periodic updates can be far less expensive than the fees for a full CMS.
Content management systems are best used when one or more of the following points apply
Multiple parties contributing to the website
Has content that is frequently published, added or changed
Lots of pages to manage
Authoring content needs to be controlled by approval before publishing
Site management needs to be handled online
Content management systems are overkill when you have
A small amount of content and/or it changes infrequently
What's called a brochure website
Is the software built specifically for my online application? or will I be getting an off the shelf program?
Some companies are sold software believing that it has been made especially for their website. Maybe you'll buy a licence to use a generic CMS system with or without customization. Other times an unscrupulous development firm might take off-the-shelf packaged software of another company and customize it, before building your website. While it's not necessarily bad, it's good to know where you stand. We think the best method is to use past experience and know-how to build a fresh system each customer, but is sometimes cost prohibitive. Ask the question up front, so you know what you're paying for.
What marketing do I need to do to get my idea or website off the ground?
One often overlooked, but an extremely key aspect, is marketing. Getting your pages indexed in Google is one thing, but there are many other ways to maximize your website earnings, visitors and popularity. There are some simple concepts, like making sure you use your website's address on important day-to-day things like documents, letter heads and business cards. There are many other opportunities to push your site to the public, like sponsoring community or online events, sign writing on your company car and free give-aways and promotions. You can go even further with paid advertising, banner ads or pay-per-click advertising to really get targeted traffic to your site.
Marketing plays a huge part in the success of a great website. With no marketing, you can let your content do the work, by eventually getting indexed by search engines, which in turn starts providing results to relevant users' searching. Word of mouth can also play a part. To give your website a push however, you may need to promote your website through advertising on websites, billboards or even TV.
Will my web site need ongoing maintenance?
Well, it depends on each individual website, but usually the answer is yes. You will want to change something on your website from as little as contact details or content, add an affiliate or partner logo or on the higher end, do a complete redesign, add lots of pages and content and perform optimizations for better search results.
Altering sites to get optimal search engine listings is the biggest motivation as you can benefit by increasing your traffic as trends change. In our experience sites will want to be maintained or changed at sometime, so you should be aware of this.
Will I have to spend more on my website in the future? How much and how often?
Developing a website, and keeping it competitive in search engine results, is a time consuming affair. The different types of sites may require less or more work, as does the software they are built on. Changes or addition of functionality usually incur costs and you should get the work quoted before accepting. Its best to talk about this to get an idea for your specific site.
What statistics are important for my website?
Website statistics are important for monitoring the popular and less popular parts of your web site. You can do things like seeing the number of times a page was viewed per month, what country most of your visitors come from and what sites are sending traffic your way. If you need to bend and sway with the trends, then viewing your traffic statistics can help a lot with bringing your less popular pages into the light or focusing and pushing your popular pages even more