It’s safe to say that a website is a must-have for your business. After all, that’s where people will get to know more about your company, take a look at your offers, and hopefully make a purchase.
And given that 88% of consumers will likely not return to a site after having a bad user experience, your website needs to be in tip-top shape, both in terms of visuals and functionality.
Sure, nowadays, with website builders like WordPress or Wix, setting up a website by yourself is no rocket science.
But if you’re looking to save time, don’t want to deal with technicalities, or are willing to build a website from scratch, working with web developers might be a better bet.
That said, let’s take a look at how to hire the best web developers out there.
Table of Contents
1. Define Your Project
Having a clear understanding of what your project will be about is essential in hiring web developers. This allows you to pinpoint what skills developers need, set your expectations and estimate your budget.
Otherwise, you may encounter problems later down the line, like needing to hire multiple developers with different skills or blowing the budget on a website that does not represent your end goal.
That said, start by highlighting exactly what you want. Perhaps, you may want to add a few additional features to your website, like a CTA button or a contact form, or maybe you’re looking to build a new site from scratch.
This enables you to determine whether your existing in-house team can handle parts of your project.
After that, outline the development process. Think about what the workload will look like, how long it will take to complete, who will be in charge of onboarding, and how the project will benefit your business to see what it might be worth.
2. Determine the Types of Developers you Need
There are three types of developers: front-end, back-end, and full-stack developers.
As the name suggests, front-end developers deal with the part of the website that visitors interact with. In other words, they are in charge of the look and feel of specific design elements and build them into your website.
Don’t confuse front-end developers with designers, though. Designers build mock-ups of your color schemes, layouts, and other visuals, while front-end developers take these mock-ups and ingrain them within your site via CSS, HTML, or JavaScript code, for example.
But that doesn’t mean your site is fully-functional yet. That’s where back-end developers come in. They handle the web structure behind the front-end and determine how your website works.
Suppose you want to create a registration form. The designer builds a mock-up of what that form will look like. The front-end developer integrates that mock-up within your website with visual code, and the back-end developer builds the form’s functionality, making the registration possible.
Lastly, full-stack developers handle both the front-end and back-end. But keep in mind that, while they can do both, they are often not specialized in either field, making them a good choice for simple websites.
To summarize: hiring dedicated designers, front-end and back-end developers, is a good idea for complex projects. It ensures that every step of the development process brings maximum results.
Whereas hiring a jack-of-all-trades or a full-stack developer is suited for small-scale projects, as they require less coordination, accelerate development, and ultimately save you more money.
3. Determine Your Working Model
There are three ways you can hire and work with web developers. More specifically, outsourcing, outstaffing, or working on a project-based model.
With outsourcing, you’ll get in contact with a web development company and hand over your project. The company is then responsible for assembling the team and working on your project from beginning to end.
In other words, you’ll pay someone else to do your homework.
That said, you won’t have to deal with recruitment, training, supervision, and management.
This makes it a good option for companies that do not have any technical expertise yet are looking to set up a high-quality website as fast as possible.
However, note that outsourcing is often expensive and doesn’t give you direct control over the development team that works on your project.
With outstaffing, you’ll add remote developers to your in-house team. But you don’t need to go through the recruitment and training process.
Top recruiting agencies are responsible for managing recruitment and human resources for you. All that’s left for you to do is to preselect your developers and lead them through the website development process.
That said, outstaffing is the more affordable alternative to outsourcing. This makes it a good option for companies with an internal team in place but still lack specific skill sets and don’t want to spend the extra time recruiting and training new members.
Another advantage of outstaffing is that it allows your in-house team members to learn from the outstaffed team’s experience.
However, you might need additional time to set up a development process that can be quickly followed by both the outstaffed and internal teams simultaneously.
With the project-based model, you’re responsible for the recruitment and training and leading your team through the developer process. As the name suggests, the team will work for you until the project is complete.
That said, this working model is suitable for small businesses that focus on small-scale projects. It’s cost-effective, doesn’t require a permanent in-house team, and you’ve got complete control over where your project is going.
4. Choose a Payment Model
Although outstaffing and outsourcing will likely require you to pay monthly, the project-based model gives you two options: you can opt for a Pay as You Go model or set a fixed price.
With the Pay as You Go model, you’ll essentially pay your developers by the hour. This option might be a good choice when the time frame and scale of the project are difficult to determine.
Fixed prices can be a better option for smaller projects. Based on the functionalities and features you need, you can estimate the length and scope of the project and thus set a fixed price.
Final Words
All in all, regardless of which option you choose, keep in mind that every developer requires a specific set of soft skills to ensure that your project flows smoothly.
More specifically, be sure that your developers have a strong sense of teamwork, good communication skills, and are proactive.
