Find a professional web developer to build your website

Next comes the important selection process of finding the right web developer to produce your website. With your website brief ready, you have everything you need to provide a developer or digital agency with everything they need to quote for your project.

You must be confident in an effective working relationship with your web company. They will be an extension of your team in the long term growth of your business and should be able to support you throughout.

Of course, finding the right web developer can be tough. There are 1000s of companies and agencies, all with strengths in different areas, and a very diverse price range for their services.

You'll need to;

• Know what you need from your website - you've got your website brief - check!
• Understand how to search, find and assess potential web companies
• Request a selection of quotes from your chosen agencies
• Understand how to compare and assess quotes based on your requirements and preferences
• Know what questions to ask your shortlist of developers to make an informed decision
• Understand how to confidently finalise your contract and agreement with your chosen developer

In this article, you'll find some guidance and advice for this process - Hiring a web designer in 5 easy steps >>

Secure your perfect website address

If you haven't already, you need to make sure you have purchased your domain name. This is the web address that users will visit to view your website, for example: www.watmanworth.co.uk

There are some key considerations you need to keep in mind when choosing your domain name.

Your domain name needs to be;

• Available for purchase
• Representative of your business
• Effective for brand recognition
• Memorable and easy for users
• Relevant for search engine optimisation

Google provides some great insight into choosing the right domain name for your business >>

You should brainstorm ideas with your team and come up with a shortlist of appropriate domain names. Try these out with friends, family, colleagues, or even focus groups to gauge the reactions and opinions. Take on board feedback and narrow down your shortlist accordingly.

Once you have selected your domain name, you should purchase and secure it via one of the recommended online providers. You should also liaise with your web developer, as they will most likely have a trade account through which they can register your domain at a reduced cost.

Important: If your web developer registers your domain, it MUST be registered in your name with your details.

Taking payments through your website

If you intend to take payments through your website, whether it is selling products, subscriptions, memberships or invoicing for services, you will need a secure, reliable and cost-effective Payment Gateway.

There are a number of options available to you which your web developer will be able to integrate with your website.

You should consider;

• What are the fees per transaction?
• Are there monthly contract / termination fees?
• Are all popular debit / credit cards accepted?
• How long are funds held before release?
• Is there strong support provided?
• Is the integration available with your chosen web developer, and is there an additional cost?

Here, you can get some further information and compare recommended payment gateways >>

We recommend discussing these options with your team and your web developer to decide the right fit for your business and requirements.

Once you have selected your payment gateway, you will need to get your account created early, as there can be significant waits and testing required on your development website.

A shared workspace for you, your team and your developer to share assets and resources

As your website project kicks off, you're going to need to efficiently collaborate with your developer, sharing files and resources quickly and easily.

Whilst most correspondence can be done via email in terms of communicating responses and feedback, it can often become troublesome when trying to share larger files.

To create an effective shared workspace with communal organised access, we recommend setting up a file share. It's quick, easy and free, and we do this as a course of practice throughout all of our projects.

We can set up folders, for documents, images, raw files, photoshop files, brand assets and website content. Everything can be organised into communal folders which you, your team and your developer can add to and access at any time.

As a fantastic file shared and collaboration solution, we use and recommend Google Drive. All you need to do is login and download Drive with your Google Account >> and you're good to go.

There are also a number of other great file share services available, which you can explore here >>

Once you have your file share account created, simply share access with the required team members, and you're ready to start.

Your developer may have already set up a shared folder, in which case, all you'll need to do is create your account and log in to start sharing.

What should you add to your file share?

As your developer begins work on your website, they will require some initial resources from you, to allow you to see the build of the website in context.

They will already have a great deal of information about your company from your website brief, but they will need some content to get started with.

You should think about adding;

• Any written content you have, for your home page, about page or service pages
• A list of categories for products
• An initial list of service or information pages
• Any images you would like used on the site, along with a document to detail if you would like any images used for specific pages.

Don't worry about your writing being perfect at this stage. We'll take you through that in the Content & SEO stage of the Web Rocket.

Finding image resources

Not everyone has access to original, unique images for all purposes. You may need to look for inspiration and resources online to find suitable imagery for your website.

Image assets can be costly, as can photography. As much as we encourage everyone to obtain the absolute best imagery possible for your website, it's sometimes necessary to make use of some helpful free resources.

You can find a list of great free image resources websites here >>

Get your communications up and running

With your project underway, you can turn your attentions back to your business while your developer gets to work. If you have registered a new domain for the business, you'll want to get your email addresses set up, so you can start communicating under your brand name.

You should identify which email address you would like setting up.

You may just simply need an info@yourdomain.co.uk

Or you may want to set up a selection of email addresses for individual purposes.

For example;

• info@yourdomain.co.uk or hello@yourdomain.co.uk - for general correspondence and contact forms through the website
• sales@yourdomain.co.uk or orders@yourdomain.co.uk - for order correspondence and sales enquiries
• yourname@yourdomain.co.uk - key team members may have dedicated email addresses for a more personal touch to correspondence
• accounts@yourdomain.co.uk - for general account management purposes

Once you have your domain, you will have the option to set up as many email addresses are required. Speak to your developer to request your email addresses, and then you can add them to your devices such as your computer, laptop, mobile phone or tablets.

Your developer will be able to provide you with details on how to add your emails to various email clients such as Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird or your smartphone email apps.

Build anticipation with a great "coming soon" page

Your project is in development, your emails are ready to go, and you have your domain active.

Let's not leave that space empty! It's the perfect billboard to let your eager customers know what's coming.

Whilst your website is being worked on, we highly recommend getting a holding page up to communicate to any visitors that your business is coming soon.

Your holding page should be simple, branded and effective. Remember, this is just a teaser page for your forthcoming website, so we just want to give visitors a taste of what is to come.

Your holding page could include;

• Your company logo
• Your email address
• A newsletter or pre-signup form
• Strong relevant imagery or brand colours
• A brief description of your services/products
• A launch date

Your newsletter or pre-signup form allows you to collect visitor contact information. Just simply name and email is enough. This means that when you launch officially, you can do a mail out announcement to let everyone know they can come back and enjoy your fully live website.

Speak to your developer to decide what you would like on your holding page and make sure any visitors are not met with a blank screen.

Get them excited!

Things are getting exciting!

This is the point where your developer has worked on the creation of your website and is ready for your input.

They will have produced the initial framework, layout and structure. They will have applied your branding, colour scheme, fonts and features. You will be presented with a "staging website" or development link through which you can view the website and start to work your way through the working version in order to provide your initial thoughts and feedback.

Your initial feedback should be directed to the general layout, look and feel of the website. Don't worry if some things aren't fully functional, or you have placeholder text and images. This is an initial review for the benefit of both you and the developer to ensure things are heading in the right direction.

Your initial review and feedback should focus on;

• The layout, look and feel of the website
• Are you happy with the application of your branding?
• Are key elements such as navigation and calls to action clear and prominent?
• Does the website feel user-friendly?
• Is it clear what you do as a business, and does the website reflect your company ethos and personality?
• Are you happy with the fonts, legibility and colour of text?
• Does the website feel organised, with easy navigation between key areas such as service and product category pages?
• Is the image placement effective and relevant?

Communicating your feedback

Work through each of those key points and compile a list of feedback to give to your developer on an email. It's always helpful to have a written list to work to.

Your developer will, more than likely, want to chat through with you and discuss the points. It's always great if you can set aside to go through things in more detail, either via a call or in person.

Following your discussions, your web developer will continue to work and implement the agreed feedback on your website.

In the meantime, you can begin to think about collating resources such as written content for your pages, images and service / product information.

You will repeat this process with your web developer as they complete each round of feedback until you are both happy that the website is ready for your content.