Your website is the front line of your business branding, it is your responsibility to maintain and get the right developer to initiate it. During the negotiation stage, the developer seems to understate the timeframe and cost involved in the project. If the latter happened, the customer’s budget will suffer which then results in the project under development for a long time.
What Might Cost You
- The developer will charge you for additional maintenance & Configurations
- The cost that any third party tools that the developer’s use that requires license
- The developer will charge you for security and website maintenance
- The developer didn’t set a regular backup plan for the website
- and the list goes on…
In this blog, PORTA SFTP SERVER is going to tell you what you need to know about the following before engaging with developers.
- Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)
- Choosing Right Developer
- Hosting Provider
- CMS Platform
- Storage Cost & Limitations
- Security and Target Audience(Perimeter)
- Tools Documentation
- Search Engine Optimization(SEO)
Important Notes
You have to closely work with your developer from the beginning toward the end. With that said, all the work from setting up any accounts use such as CMS accounts configurations, backups configurations, and any third-party tools. Also, you have to make sure that upon setting up all the accounts, you should only give the necessary access for that developer to move forward. This is to prevent the developer to have access to all of your sensitive information, especially if working with someone from overseas.
If you are not that tech-savvy, you can always consult with Alpa Scuti LLC by sending a message from the contact us page.
Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA)
This form of agreement is very important and gives you peace of mind that the developer is aware of the information or intellectual property (IP) that needs to be protected and not to be disclosed. Learn the different Non Disclosure Agreements (NDA) types. As an entrepreneur, you have to know how to use word variance to protect your intellectual property (IP). With that said, it is strongly recommended that you have to talk to an attorney that specialized in IP Law, Copyrights, and Trademarks.
Choosing Right Developer
Once you have the necessary paperwork, choosing the right developer is crucial. Not all developer is customer-centric and sometimes have lack of communications skills. Things you need to request from the developer are links or proof of previous work, website profiles, and talk via video or 1-on-1 call to test the developer’s trustworthiness.
Important questions you need to ask
- How did you meet your previous clients’ expectations?
- Are you going to do the development alone?
- How do you handle constant changes?
Hosting Provider Service
This is the first thing you need to ask as this is where your domain, storage, security, and backups reside from the first place. It is very important to know the different hosting provider’s subscription plan types. These type of plan includes such as shared hosting, dedicated hosting, VPS hosting, and offer customizations. Remember that what you paid is what you get most of the hosting provider’s concerns to speed, storage limitations, etc.
Important questions you need to ask
- What hosting provider should I register with?
- What specification should I get based on my requirements?
- Is the hosting plan can be easily scaled up?
- Is the hosting provider compliant (If compliance is needed)?
- How much will be the renewal cost of the subscription plan?
- Which subscription plan will save the most $?
CMS Platform
Most startup businesses use Content Management System(CMS) platform such as WordPress + WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, etc… This means that this will help you start a business without needing a dedicated developer in the first place but hire later on when your business grows. This eliminated a lot of the expensive custom coding for the functionalities and design, which can take several months or years (Depends how many developers you have).
Important questions you should ask
- What platform is best suited based on my requirements?
- Is there going to be custom coding needed?
- Is there going to be any additional licensing fee?
- How secured is this platform?
Remember that after the development is done, the developer should leave any accounts to you as you are the owner of everything for your business. You should be able to deactivate the developer access if needed as you want to protect the information once the business is running. By the time your business is growing then it is essential to have your dedicated developer.
Storage Cost & Limitations
Make sure that you will ask this question as it is very important to know. Especially if you are working with a contractor overseas and do not plan to hire that developer as a full-time employee in the future. Make sure that you have full access to where your files reside as you need to create a backup of your files.
Important questions you should ask
- How much the storage cost and what its specification limit?
- Is the storage you choose for my website secured?
- Are you going to be responsible for the website backups?
- Where are you going to store the website backups?
- What are your website security practices?
- Are you going to fix any issues? If so, how much?
Security & Target Audience(Perimeter)
If your target audience is country-specific only such as the United States then you may want to block other countries from accessing your website. This will minimized and prevent bad guys from accessing your website to escalate an attack as they need to gather information about your business. There as some tools that block other countries from accessing your website and your developer should know it.
Important questions you should ask
- How do you block other countries from accessing my website?
- How much does this tool cost me?
- How this tool will be maintained?
Tools Documentations
Developers use different tools and you have to make sure that it is all documented. The latter does not mean that the developer needs to document all the functionalities. It is your responsibility to learn what is the developer is doing and the more you know it the better. You should know what tools have been used such as plugins, themes and etc…
Important questions you should ask
- Did you use plugins that need to be upgraded?
- How much these plugins cost me?
- What does this plugin do?
- Is this plugin reliable?
This will also help you hire the right future dedicated developer as you need to ask the tools used for the website during the interview.
Search Engine Optimization(SEO)
When your website is already developed and published, Search Engine Optimization(SEO) is very important as you are competing with a lot of websites. You have to make sure you have a good plan of competing in order for your website to be indexable or searchable in any search engine. The developer should know some tactics and at least has experience in analytics to boost your business SEOs, If you do not want to pay Google Ads and etc…
Important question you should ask
- How can you help me with SEO?
- How do we track SEO improvements?
- What analytic tools we can use?
Conclusion
The purpose of this blog is to give you minimal insights into what you should know with regards to paperwork needed and questions you need to ask before or during the development of your website. Although this is not perfect, this is a good foundation for you if you are not that tech-savvy person.
