There is an easy rule when it comes to hiring a web developer in Brisbane: do not be swayed by a homepage that looks good on paper. Make sure you have covered all your bases on experience, project scope, testing, SEO, costs and support before putting pen to paper.
Any decent Brisbane web developer will have no trouble walking you through their process in plain English, putting forward live examples and being candid about what transpires should the project run into difficulties. Put the right questions to them and you can spare your business from pages that are slow to load, vendor lock-in or an invoice with a few unwelcome surprises. Or the digital version of finding the dunny door does not lock after opening night.
My name is Harper Wainwright. Over the years I have put local operators in a position to compare services and ask the hard questions so they do not end up paying for it. Here is my guide to the sort of things you should be asking of a web developer, useful when finding a Brisbane specialist, be it for a West End café, a trade in Logan, an online operation with a Queensland customer base or a professional practice in the CBD.
Brisbane Business Experience
A developer with the right kind of experience will know your operating conditions, your customers and your competition before he puts down a line of code. He can see common issues coming a mile off and that can mean time and money saved in the long run.
Do not let an impressive roster of industries put you off. Find out if the developer has dealt with a business of your size and make-up, one with the same sales process. The technical and content demands of a national retailer and a sole practitioner’s consultancy are not comparable even if both require a website.
Inquire As To Past Projects
“Have you put together websites for a business like mine?” is a good place to start. Then probe on the results, the number of pages, integrations and what the business was trying to achieve.
This is not an invitation for the developer to disclose anything confidential. It is to see if they have a grasp of the practicalities: local search, mobile enquiries, quote forms, stock management, accessibility and the like.
You might also want to know how the team went about it when something went awry on an earlier project. A well told success story is fine but a straight answer can be of more use. There is a hiccup in every project; the point is whether it was put right in short order.
See Some Live Work
Taste is evident in a portfolio but live websites are where you see the delivery. Have a look at some examples on your phone and try the navigation in a hurry to see if the page is as clear as it should be.
Two or three that are akin to what you are planning would be ideal. Pretty designs are all very well but they do not demonstrate a capacity to deal with post-launch changes, page speed, forms and content.
Make A Proper Test Of The Portfolio
Are the contact details easy to come by? Do the menus function and does the form give you any feedback? Load it up on mobile data and see how it fares. Steer clear of the need for flashy animation and look for quality in the execution.
Find out who did what on each example. An agency may do everything from strategy to development under one roof or they may outsource. There is nothing wrong with either but you should be aware of who is on the hook for the outcome. If it is a major project get a reference and put some questions to the client on how change requests were managed and if the support held up once the site was live and whether they stuck to the agreed scope.
Get To Know The Team
It is better to know who is building your site; it simplifies communication and there is less chance of detail getting lost in the ether between the design, sales and development sides of the house. You also have a better sense of accountability.
Is the work done in-house or is there an element of outsourcing? When specialists are brought in it makes sense, yet you ought to know who is minding your information and putting defects right.
Clarify Roles And Communication
Be clear on the lines of communication. Who is the person you are dealing with on a day to day basis? Who has the say on technical matters and who is called in for an emergency? Get confirmation on response times and if the fee quoted includes meetings.
And what if your principal contact is not around? You do not want a process hinging on someone’s Friday afternoon mood or his private inbox. On a sensitive matter, you should also ask how payment and customer data are kept secure. It is also wise to verify that contractors have the ability to get into your hosting, CMS or analytics accounts and under what circumstances that access is revoked.
The Right Website Platform
For a Brisbane business the most widely used CMS is not of necessity the one to have. What matters is a system your team will be able to operate with some degree of safety and consistency once the site is live.
Have the developer put forward his case for WordPress, Wix, Squarespace or something else in light of what you require. A proper comparison should be forthcoming on such points as performance, security, editing, integrations, ownership and the cost down the track.
CMS And SEO Considerations
WordPress has its ecosystem and flexibility in spades but demands prudent maintenance and an eye on plugins. Smaller teams might find Wix or Squarespace less of a burden to run if they can put up with more circumscribed integration and customisation.
Inquire as to how the platform deals with on-page SEO: page titles, structured content, internal navigation, redirects, image descriptions and URLs that are search friendly. You want to be able to make edits in those areas without having to put in a call to the developer.
As for mobile responsiveness, it ought to be in the basic build and not come at a premium. Request the designs be shown at the kind of phone, tablet and desktop widths one would expect. After all, a customer in a Brisbane shopping centre or at a bus stop is not going to be using a large monitor; a page that does not accommodate that is not doing its job.
There is a practical side to this. The ABS has statistics to show that just about every Australian business makes use of the internet. Your website is not some ornament over the shop front but the means by which customers will make contact with you and form an impression. You can review the ABS business technology statistics for current national context.
Scope, Timing And Cost
You need a project scope to cover both parties. It will set out what is to be built, your part in it, decision deadlines and the pricing for any extra work. Do not make do with a few emails and an amiable chat for a proposal; while good intentions are fine they will not suffice to define a change request on a wet Tuesday at 4.45 pm.
Break Down The Quote
When you look at the quote, see if discovery, copywriting, photography, testing, migration, SEO and training are factored in. Are hosting and licences separate? Is GST included? In Australia indicative prices are all over the place. An online store or membership site with the odd custom integration can run to tens of thousands of dollars compared to a few thousand for a brochure site. Take any number as a guide until the developer has gone over your requirements.
Find out the payment schedule and what happens to the timeline. Any plan worth having will allow for revisions, approvals and the like. If you are to be providing the copy and images, get the dates confirmed. There is no launching a finished website with half the content still on a laptop somewhere.
| Area To Confirm | Question To Ask | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | What is covered in terms of pages, features and integrations? | So essential work is not put down as an extra. |
| Timing | Where do my content and approvals come in? | To see what could put the project back. |
| Cost | What ongoing costs are not included? | Hosting, renewals and maintenance fees will be made clear. |
| Changes | How does one go about getting a change request approved and quoted? | To avoid any dispute over additions. |
| Delivery | What constitutes “finished” before we go live? | For a common understanding. |
What To Put In Writing
Before you engage a web developer, the matter of ownership is paramount. Payment does not confer unbridled access to what is behind the scenes. Make sure you have it in writing who is in control of the source code, the CMS, the domain and so forth when things are done.
Check Every Digital Asset
Register the domain in the business name and email address for instance. You should be given administrator rights to the registrar, hosting, analytics and business email. On the subject of source code, if it is custom made for you, is it being licensed or do you get it outright? Can you take the site to another provider?
Then there are the designs, photographs, fonts and paid for plugins. Some of these may only be licensed and not transferred to you, which is something to bear in mind in the event of a change of developer.
There is a danger of vendor lock-in, of being put in the position where you cannot walk away and not have your files, functionality or access with you. A well drawn up contract will set out the technical constraints, fees and how a handover is to be done before it becomes an issue.
Testing Before You Put The Site Live
This is what turns a website with potential into something your business can rely on. Insist on a quality assurance regime that is thorough and addresses security, performance, accessibility as well as the more mundane like forms, links and browser compatibility.
In Brisbane one has to be practical about testing. On a developer’s office screen things may appear fine but the likes of poor reception, an old phone, a user in a hurry or the glare of the sun will show up any deficiencies.
A Launch Checklist
- Verify that spam filters do not turn away legitimate enquiries and that forms and auto emails are going to where they should.
- Do a once over of the mobile side, page speed, spelling, redirects, privacy details, analytics and search indexing.
- Run through the motions of a booking or payment from beginning to end, even a failed transaction or a password you have forgotten.
- Before the launch make sure you have the CMS logins, hosting access, SSL certificate, emergency numbers and the final domain.
Inquire if the developer will put up a staging site for your perusal; you ought to be in a position to sign off on the final product and see to it the content is right.
And do not think a launch is done when the homepage is there. Once the live domain is up, someone needs to be on top of the third-party integrations, the analytics and the forms. Ask who is doing the monitoring and what the plan is for launch day.
Post-launch Support
The site will require some tending once it is live. Find out what way of support, maintenance and training is part of the deal and what will be an additional charge. There is no need for a costly subscription if a straightforward support plan will do; it should also tell you the response time for a real fault.
Keep Extras And Fixes Apart
You want to know how long the developer stands behind his work to remedy defects found at launch. Make the distinction between a bug and a new feature or a departure from the scope of the project. If you are dealing with customer data, ask how security incidents are put right. As for the CMS and plugin updates, backups and so on, ask if that is covered by maintenance.
Any content training should be of a practical nature. One does not want to be left with a blank white rectangle on the homepage after trying to make a change. Learn to put up an article or an image and manage enquiries safely.
Should you wish to cancel a monthly plan, put it to them what the consequences are. Will the site stay up? Can another developer step in? Are the backups still yours?
Making Your Decision
When you have your answers, do not go for the cheapest quote on a whim. A low initial cost has a way of catching up with you if it means no support or ownership. With a Brisbane specialist you want to find one who is a good listener and will put questions to you about your customers before proffering a technological solution. The whole affair should be orderly, not an enigma.
A Scorecard
Put the candidates through their paces and rate them on a scale of five for their portfolio, the way they communicate, their grasp of SEO, the terms of ownership and post-launch support. Note down your evidence for each mark so a good sales pitch is not given more weight than the proposal on paper. Opt for the developer that makes for a maintainable site. After all, you are employing someone to deliver a result for the business, not to put pixels on a page.
FAQs
Business owners in Brisbane tend to pose these questions when they are weighing up web developers. The answers below are a guide but get the specifics in your agreement.
What To Ask Before You Hire?
From the total cost and timeline to SEO and training, the interview questions you put to a developer will tell you more about their approach than what they are putting forward.
How To Pick A Good One?
By the written scope, the live work, the communication and the support. A competent developer will be upfront on limitations and risks rather than make out every feature is going to be cheap and easy.
Portfolios
Do not be swayed by a pretty screenshot. See a live site with the same sort of objectives and check the navigation and forms. Can the developer account for his part in the project?
Ownership Of Code And Site
Leave nothing to chance, the contract will make it clear. Before a deposit is paid, be sure of the handover process and who has the rights to the source code, designs, content and domain.
Support Requirements
For the most part a business wants to know there is a process for the inevitable bugs and security issues. What is extra? What is included?
In the end the best decision is rarely the most dramatic. Go with the Brisbane developer who is realistic and gives you control of your digital assets. Get it in writing and allow yourself the time to test properly before you launch.