Small Business Sanity Check: The Messy Process of Web Development

If you haven’t had the chance to check out “How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell” from The Oatmeal, I highly suggest you do so now (don’t worry, it’ll open in a new window so you can come back and finish this); it should be required reading for anyone planning to create a presence on the web.

In all fairness to the difficult clients parodied in that comic strip, I’ve seen more than my share of insane web developers too. It’s not uncommon to run across a developer who begins the process before the client ever actually agrees to hire them. The initial sales meeting somehow mysteriously turns into a design kickoff meeting; the developer has a few designs at the ready and before the client knows it, they are agreeing on one of them. I’ve also seen web designers turn into belligerent children that refuse to turn over access to client paid-for domain names and design work, so while seasoned, professional developers shouldn’t display behavior like this, don’t be afraid to ask for references and recommendations from previous clients to see what they had to say about their experiences.

Web development is a messy process; it often costs more than you anticipate and it takes longer than you anticipate. The relationship between the client and the developer can become strained along the way if not completely deteriorating into a heaping pile of crap.  While this can and does happen, it’s typically due to failings on both sides of the relationship.

Sometimes it’s because the developer isn't a great business person and has no clue how to clearly spell out the design process and the client’s role in that process. Add to that the client’s lack of experience in all things web, and design starts to be dictated by emotional criteria, personal preference, and anecdotal study instead of current market conditions.

On top of these challenges, there is no sure fire way of hiring a good developer. Large companies will often put junior level people on projects that don’t meet a certain financial level -- I’ve seen actual clip-art-based web design come out of “world leading” development companies.  Smaller firms can sometimes be hit or miss with one or two portfolio projects looking and functioning fantastically, while the duds have been buried, redesigned by someone else and forgotten.

So does having a smooth development project come down to random chance? Perhaps, but here are some things that you can do to make the process a more likely to succeed.

Anticipate adding 30% to the cost and timeline

If you have $10,000 to spend, tell them you have $7,000, then try to make everything as clear as possible. It’s not that developers are trying to rip you off. They just often will quote for your entire budget because they can easily use it to make a better website. Before you sign off on starting work, force the developer to give you an itemized list of costs. Let them know that you understand these will be estimates, but if they change, they need to let you know. You should always sign off on price changes.

Here’s what should be included on the cost list:

• Web hosting
• Design of layout (how many design comps will you get?)
• Logo design
• Coding of the site
• Setup of a contact form
• If you are getting a content management system, the cost of training for use
• The cost for having the developer make updates to the site
• Content creation (if you need it)
• How many pages will come pre-loaded on the content management system
• Setup of Twitter
• Setup of Facebook
• Google Analytics setup
• Goal tracking setup in Google Analytics of the site's most wanted responses

This list should give you a good start. Any other items that come up you will want to add them to the list and get price quotes for each.
If you are getting an ecommerce site you are going to want to flush out everything you get with that as well.

• How many products are going to be loaded?
• Will they setup the payment gateway?
• How are pictures of the products going to be handled?

Know these details…no exceptions!

• Be sure that you have your contact information somewhere on the domain name registry; never let the web developer have all the contact information for your domain. It would actually be better if you buy the domain name yourself and then point it to your Web developer’s servers.
• Get all of your material on a disk or sent to you in some way -- all art should be sent to you in multiple forms. This can be handy for using the art in other marketing.
• Understand what the process is if you want to move the site to another host at some point.

Get the most from your developer by communicating well.

• Understand that you hired someone to develop your site for you. Trust them. Feel free to ask questions if you think the design process is going in a direction that is different than you anticipated, but they are the expert… let them do their job.
• Many developers tend to be sensitive introverts.  They aren’t always motivated by money, they are often motivated by people appreciating their work. You will get more out of your developer if you are nice to them and regularly tell them how impressed you are with what they’ve done so far.
• Setup calls or meetings at regular intervals, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. Keep a list of what needs to be done and monitor how it’s all going. Ask if everything is staying within the scope of the project. If there are cost or time overruns, get a list and sign off on them.
• Don’t panic… stay calm and consistent. If you start leaving long rambling messages at 10:00 at night for your developer to call you first thing in the morning, you are just making things worse. Make a list of concerns to talk about at your next scheduled call.

If you’ve been through the messy process of web development before, what other advice or tips would you offer to entrepreneurs who’re about to embark on building their first web site?

Sage Lewis is President of SageRock Inc., a digital marketing company founded in 1999 with the goal of helping clients engage customers across an ever expanding interactive marketplace through multiple channels such as search and social media. You can keep in touch with Sage on Twitter, Facebook and via his YouTube Channel.