Lumenica, llc

Hiring a web developer – Things a smart business owner should keep in mind

Scenario: You are a small business owner and like most small businesses you don’t have a marketing budget. One way you decide to save money is by hiring your neighbors kid or asking a friend to create a website.

Pro: You feel like a smart business owner who just saved a few bucks

Con: You will most probably be stuck with a static website that you can’t update and possibly a useless worthless website.

So, how do you protect yourself?

No matter who is making the website for you, always always always ask for a contract, yes even your neighbor’s kid or friend.  This contract should write everything in detail and should include the following:

• Start of the contract- yes this is important, you want the web developer to meet your deadline, if any, to start creating the website
• Samples- prior to the website development, you should specify how many mock ups you would like to see of the website.
• The termination of contract policy- We never want to think that things can get nasty with anyone we are dealing with, but to save ourselves we should keep the termination policy in mind
• Communication clause- how will everything be communicated, will there be a form used, who will be your account manager, how soon can you expect a response?
• How will you be billed for website development and maintenance- will it be hourly, will be rounded up to the minute or hour, how often will you have to pay? All of these questions need to be answered in the contract. Make sure you understand the different billable things- website hosting, website development, domain name purchase, website maintenance
• Who will have the rights to the content- yes it is important to clarify this.
• Who will have the rights to the domain name – make sure you have those rights, life happens, you don’t want your web developer to be the only one with this vital information.
• What will happen if the company liquidates- yours and theirs, it is important to specify this in the contract
• What will the website designer create- make sure everything is listed
• What will the website designer not do- it’s important to clarify this beforehand to avoid frustrations in the future
• Make sure you have the capability of editing the website yourself.  Ask for a user manual, ask for access. You need to be in control
• Make sure there is a way to analyze the website – google analytics and other free services are out there, for FREE. Utilize them!

Having a good relationship with your web developer is important, being clear in communication is vital, being patient and offering as much information as you can helps web developers create a website to your liking. A smart business owner wants a good, easy to maintain website that they have control over and smart business owners have a thoroughly written contracts with their web developers to save their behind.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Related posts:

1. Creating a Winning Business Profile on Twitter