Web Development & Programming
Choosing the Right Website Programmer: Zigma’s Web Development Checklist
When it comes to finding the right website developer, you need to know what you’re looking for. You will hear many people say they are web development experts, which is why we have created this checklist to help you choose the best person to help you grow and elevate your business.
1. Can the Web Developer Program Your Website’s Specific Needs?
Every business is unique, and your website should reflect what makes your business stand out from others. Your website is the hub of your business; it will generate leads and engage your target market (if it’s programmed correctly to achieve your business goals).
Your website should not act as an online brochure; websites and brochures have very different marketing purposes. You need to hire someone who will create and use your website as a powerful marketing tool. Make sure that the website developer you choose can creating a website to help you achieve your business goals, online and offline.
At Zigma, we take the time to thoroughly understand our client’s businesses, and their goals. Our website programmers use this information to make the website functional to fit the needs of each individual business. Websites are designed to maximize lead generating potential, and effectively represent our client’s brands.
2. Does it Have the Right Content Management System (CMS)?
If you’re working with a web programmer who has not discussed (or defined) a Content Management System (CMS) with you, this is not a good sign.
The CMS allows users to add, edit, and organize all of the content on a website. It helps streamline your workflow, and provide your customers with current information on your products and services.
Using a CMS while creating a website is an integral part to the programming stage; clients and website developers need to make this choice together at the start of the website development process.
Web Design & DevelopmentAt Zigma, we create websites to engage our client’s target market. This strategy gives our clients the opportunity to convert leads into customers.READ MORE
Custom Web DesignsHaving a visually appealing website is not enough if you want to generate leads to your website.READ MOREThere are a variety of CMS options, but it is important to discuss your requirements with your website developer to choose the best CMS for your needs.
3. Is the Website Responsive?
Did you know that as of April 2015, Google lowers the organic rankings of websites that are not mobile friendly? A quality website programmer will address the need for a mobile friendly website.
At Zigma, we recommend choosing a responsive website over a mobile website. Why? A responsive website is programmed to fit the screen size of whatever device is accessing the website. Whether it is a desktop, tablet or mobile phone, the website is programmed to fit the screen.
4. Where Will the Website Be Hosted, and Will it be Secure?
Hosting determines the website’s speed, security of a website, and overall reliability. Has your website ever gone down before? This issue can be traced back to a hosting problem.
Zigma is recommending using NGINX so you can operate services and deliver content at the high standard your customers and developers demand. (Nginx is a web server which can also be used as a reverse proxy, load balancer, mail proxy & HTTP cache.)
If you programmer did not choose a secure hosting company, your website can be slow to load and even crash if you receive too much traffic (the opposite of what you need to run a business).
Zigma offers secure, reliable website hosting for all of website development and design clients.
Lead clients to your business with proven internet marketing strategies.
5. Is the Website SEO Friendly?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a fundamental piece of every website. It should be integrated into your website at the start of programming, not as a separate project. Learn more about SEO services here.
Your programmer should ensure the website has the ability to add and edit title tags, meta description, and H tags. These capabilities are sometimes not fully customizable in old platforms (E-commerce), which are essential to ranking higher on search engines like Google and Bing.
Have you asked your website programmer about indexing your pages by submitting XML sitemap? What about robots.txt file? Ask — and expect your website programmer to answer — these questions when developing or redesigning a website.
6. Will the Web Developer Test the Website Before it Goes Live?
Before a website goes live, a web developer needs to test its functionality. They should confirm that all the links on the website work correctly, and direct users to the corresponding landing page. Your website programmer should check, on all devices, that your website is reconfiguring correctly, and that it opens on different browsers (e.g. Google Chrome, FireFox, and Safari).
A quality web developer will put a website through a series of tests before it goes live. Typically, a staging website is set up on a test server so the programmer can check the areas mentioned above, and the client can confirm that the website looks and functions how they expected.
A staging site is a duplicate of your live website that allows website developers to easily test changes to the site before it goes live. This gives the web programmer the ability to prevent any bugs or issues on the live website, and it gives your customers a better user experience while your site is being updated.
7. What is the Website Programmer’s Response Time to Changes?
We hear the horror stories all the time. Your website goes down, and you can’t get a hold of your developer. Now what?
At Zigma, our first priority is our client’s happiness; we want to earn your trust by helping your business grow online.
A web developer should be available to answer questions, respond to concerns, and make any changes you want or need to your website. We pride ourselves on our open communication with clients to ensure they are always happy with our service and their website.
We can confidently say that Zigma is capable of meeting all of the web development requirements. As you’re looking for a website programmer, make sure to ask them all of these questions before trusting them with your website. If you would like to work with Zigma on a website project, we would love to connect with you!