Hire Developers: 101 Questions to Ask Before Bringing Them on Board

This is another post for my readers who are interested in starting a business.

I’ve posted a couple of articles recently on ecommerce. This is another one. It focuses on how to make a good decision when you’re hiring a web developer.

When it comes to hiring a web developer, it’s important to take time asking the right questions to avoid stress and trouble in the long run. Your website is your key to a successful online presence, so you want it to be at its fullest potential, and most appealing and functional condition.

Hiring developers involves getting portfolios, comparing services, and taking into consideration budget and business needs. In this post, you’ll learn the right questions to ask before bringing a web developer on board.

Do You Build Websites Using Templates?

Web developers can customize or use templates when creating a website. Using templates can be efficient, such as engineering resume templates, wherein the required information or data can merely be entered without too many things going on. If you want a simple website, templates are useful to start.

Here are the recommendations of expert developers when using templates:

  • Templates are useful for business card websites or sites that only need a few web pages to promote products and services.
  • Only use templates for minimal site activity, such as for advertising purposes or showcasing portfolios.
  • E-commerce sites should avoid using templates. These business websites fully benefit from customized sites.

What Website Security Features Do You Install?

Cybersecurity is paramount in web developing. It should be the priority of the website owner and web developer more than the site’s aesthetic appeal and excellent functionality. It’s useless to have a good-looking site if it’s not secure. A secured website increases traffic and conversion rates. It will encourage your visitors and customers to stay on your site and do business with you.

Here are the security features you can seek an explanation for or ask from a web developer:

  • Secure Sockets Layer: SSL is a standard web security feature involving using encrypted links instead of open data transferred between a browser and a server. It means that credit card numbers and other sensitive information are protected through encryption or codes rather than transferring the actual information entered.
  • Verified Seal: It is also called a “Trust Seal” or a Business Verification Seal. It is a seal granted by a qualified entity to businesses or websites for display, representing due diligence of the website owner or business owner to safeguard security. A verified seal increases the trust and confidence of consumers to a website.
  • HTTPS: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure or HTTPS adds an extra layer of data security through an SSL or a transport layer security protocol connection.

How Do You Ensure Website Responsiveness?

A responsive website is also observed in the mobile version. Most consumers go online using mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. Before bringing a new hire onboard, it’s important to ask how a developer ensures creating a responsive website.

Here are some ways how developers can create a responsive website:

  • Building several website prototypes and testing them on different screen sizes.
  • Using tools such as Adobe Edge Reflow to convert Photoshop files into CSS and HTML, and CSS for adjusting the design with the use of mobile breakpoints. Another tool is called InVision, which allows for the creation of interactive website prototypes for testing buttons, navigation, and scrolling.

How Do You Ensure Fast Loading Time?

Consumers nowadays hate waiting for a web page to load more than three seconds. That’s why it’s essential to ask a developer how your website maintains its loading speed. There are tons of ways to attain this goal, depending on your site traffic, scale, and online activities.

Here are some ways a developer can do to speed up your website:

  • Minimizing HTTP Requests: Check the “Network Tab” of your website’s developer tool for HTTP requests.
  • Minifying and Combining Files: Remove unnecessary whitespace, formatting, and code.
  • Using Asynchronous Loading: You can use this for JavaScript and CSS files
  • Deferring JavaScript Loading: Preventing a site from loading until other elements or contents have loaded.
  • Minimizing Time to First Byte or TTFB: It refers to the amount of time a web browser has to wait before it gets its first byte of data from a server, and Google recommends a less than 200 millisecond of TTFB.

Conclusion

The security, responsiveness, loading time, and aesthetic appeal of your website reflect its success in attaining the short-term and long-term goals for your business. By asking the right questions to a web developer before you bring one on board is important to avoid facing a major disaster because of a poorly built website. Gain more traffic, and generate more leads and conversions by hiring a good web developer.

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