You lack technical knowledge, so you hired a site developer to build your website. Now it’s live, but part of it doesn’t work, or it’s ugly, or customers are complaining it’s not accessible. Your sales are already dropping, and your bounce rate in Google is sky-high.
Not all professionals are equal, and it’s very easy to hire the wrong team to build your site. You’ll end up wasting money on something that doesn’t work for your business or, worse, negatively impacts your sales, reputation, and bottom line.
How Do You Know You Hired the Wrong Team of Site Developers?
Sometimes, it’s obvious. If chunks of your site aren’t working properly, your content form is giving a 404 message, content takes forever to load, or the whole site doesn’t even load at all, then you know you hired somebody incompetent. However, bad teams are seldom quite that obvious. Here are some of the most common signs that you have a web developer or team that isn’t ready for prime time.
Lack of Communication
Your site developer or team lead should check in with you frequently during the process and then at intervals through the maintenance phase—at least weekly, if not daily. If your web developer isn’t talking to you, isn’t saying much when they do, or, worse, is not showing, then you likely have an issue.
If your web developer isn’t communicating with you, check on them. They may have a good reason, but they may also be a poor communicator (which indicates they will likely not meet your requirements) or, worse, not actually progressing on your project.
Also, your web developer should ask a lot of questions before starting on your project, such as your ideal client, your competitors, brand guidelines, and the assets you have available.
Poor Performance
A fast site is vital. People won’t wait around for pages to load, especially on mobile. If your site is slow, this is likely a sign that the back-end code is poor quality. It may also mean your server is not sufficient for the demand you’re placing on it.
Page speed optimization is a basic thing your developer should do. If your pages take more than a couple of seconds to load on a modern system with a good connection, this is a sign that your site is poorly coded.
Inadequate Security
The most obvious sign of this is if they are managing your security certificate and allowing it to expire. But there are other signs, too. If anyone is getting a security warning from your site, something is badly wrong, and you may have been hacked.
Insecure content on an otherwise secure page can also trigger an alert. You can use a website checker to ensure that your site looks good. You can also ask your developer about a website firewall and what security their team adds to sites.
They’re a “Yes” Person
If your web developer says yes to everything you ask of them, then you need a new web developer. They’re the experts. It’s their job to push back if you ask for something that isn’t going to work or isn’t likely to help your site get traffic.
Choose a web developer who’s not afraid to tell you that you are wrong and why.
There are many more issues, but these are some of the big ones to watch for. So, what do you do when you realize you did hire the wrong team?
How To Fix Things and Move Forward
If you do realize you’ve made a poor choice, first of all, don’t beat yourself up over it. Everyone makes mistakes, and it can, again, be very hard for less technically savvy people to know how to choose the right site developer or team.
Don’t Let the Old Team “Fix” It
You need to hire a team to fix the problems the first one created. Unless the problems are minor, don’t take them up on an offer to fix them. If they couldn’t do it right the first time, chances are they won’t do it right the second time, either. You’re typically better off cutting your losses and hiring somebody else to resolve issues with the site or, if necessary, build a new one.
Take Your Time, and Don’t Panic
Don’t let the fact that you need to move fast cause you to make a second mistake. Take a deep breath and the time to choose the right team to fix your site. If necessary, put up placeholders to cover any broken functionality. Be aware that you may need to start over and prepare accordingly. Another option is that if you have an old site that is functional, you may be able to put it back as a temporary measure.
If the site is not completely broken but has other problems, such as poor performance, then you can relax about leaving it up for a bit longer while everything is fixed.
Choosing the Right Team of Site Developers
Choosing the right new team is vital. Moving too fast can often lead to a second mistake, a worse situation, and a need to start over. These are also things to consider if you are building a new site, in general, to avoid ending up with the wrong developers in the first place.
Read Reviews and Testimonials
Look at reviews and testimonials and, ideally, at sites the developer has already worked on. A reputable developer will have testimonials on their website that include who some of their clients are so you can go look at their work. Make sure that the sites they point to are fast, easy to use, and free of obvious bugs.
Seek Communication
Communication is paramount, especially if you are asking them to fix a major problem with your site. Make sure that they listen when you explain your needs. They should be more than willing to have multiple, extended conversations about exactly what you want, including telling you when you should adjust your expectations to match technical reality.
Check Experience
Does their team cover all the things you need? If you have to start over, you need a team experienced in website migration. If the problem is your ecommerce store, you need to hire a developer who has an ecommerce specialist on their team. The more experience your team has, the better.
Working with the right team will give you a website that’s built for your needs and will be properly maintained and updated.
If you have hired the wrong web designer, don’t panic. Instead, contact Ndevr. We have extensive experience identifying issues with websites and providing tailored solutions to resolve them, develop the site further, and maintain it properly.
