How to Choose a Web Studio?
Website development, whether a large web portal or a one-page landing page, requires a professional approach. Of course, if you are not willing to settle for standard solutions and template design.
But, as in any service market, there is a fairly high level of competition in the web environment. Simply put, there are many web studios, and choosing one randomly is difficult, and sometimes even scary. Of course, you can focus on a favorable price/quality ratio or choose offers with the lowest prices. But it is much better to pay attention to some other selection criteria.
Choosing a Web Studio: Mission Possible?
In this article, we will talk about selecting a web studio that offers standard solutions – promotional websites about a company, with a product catalog, or online stores where unique development is not required.
Assessing the professionalism of a web studio is quite simple. The main thing is to focus on objective evaluation factors and remember: quality execution of any work costs money. Accordingly, expecting a million-dollar website for a pittance is clearly not worth it. And what else can help you choose a web studio?
1. Check Their Own Website
The saying about 'the shoemaker without shoes' has long lost its relevance. Do you want to get a website that matches your own ideas of quality? Start by studying the web studio's own presentation website.
2. Company Status
Do you want to entrust your website creation to a 'nameless' web studio? Make sure it has legal entity status or at least conducts business activities on a legal basis. Having bank details for non-cash transfers is an additional plus for choosing this web studio.
3. Check the Domain
Of course, nowadays no one uses free third-level domains, as was the case in the early 2000s, when regular .ru domains cost 250-500 rubles.
Therefore, we also recommend checking the domain itself. How to do it: enter the phrase 'whois' in a search engine, and you will get a list of services where you can see at least the domain registration date, and who it is registered to (although the latter is now hidden by default for the security of buyers' personal data).
What will the domain registration date give you? If the studio's site has existed for a year, but they claim 10 years of experience, that raises doubts. To confirm experience, you will need to resort to the actions described in the next point.
Note: sometimes it happens that a studio changes its name or moves from one domain to another, as was the case with our company. When we changed our name in 2017. But we issued several press releases that can be easily found on the Internet.
4. Virtual Introduction
Every web studio has a portfolio – a kind of showcase through which a potential client can assess the professionalism of its specialists. Study the presented works carefully. Visit the websites of companies shown in the portfolio and evaluate the work done from the perspective of an ordinary user.
Check for information about the studio that developed the site on the client's web page (this is often practiced on promotional sites).
If doubts and questions arise, take the trouble to personally talk to those who have experience working with a particular studio. It is quite possible that 'word of mouth' will be much more productive than any other method of obtaining information.
5. Search for the Studio in Search Engines by Its Name
What will you find? If the company has existed for a long time and is active, there should be some traces. Perhaps its representatives participated in conferences, events with presentations, maybe someone wrote reviews, or the company itself announced new services in press releases or commented on other articles as experts.
6. The Real Situation
If we are talking about choosing a web studio that positions itself as a professionally working company, after the virtual introduction stage you will inevitably be offered to move the communication to a real plane.
And here it is important to remember that the lack of an own office of the contractor in this case is rather a minus than a plus. If they offer to meet at your office, a coworking center, or a café, it is highly likely that you will be dealing with an intermediary who is looking for orders. Talking about any professional level in this case is simply ridiculous. And communication with the executor if 'something goes wrong' may eventually turn into an endless game of 'broken telephone'.
An exception may be companies working with distributed teams, where only project managers and account managers are in the office, while production is in other cities or simply remote. Nowadays, there are many software tools for monitoring remote employees' work, which allows complex work to be done remotely.
7. The Cost
One web studio charges a hundred dollars for a landing page, another charges a thousand. What's the difference? In fact, you should not consider any average rates when choosing a web studio at all. After all, you actually need to compare the cost of implementing a specific project with a certain set of technical parameters, and not clarify the price of some mythical landing page or company website development.
We have written a separate article about project estimation and what it consists of, and we will write more because the topic is very deep and it is always difficult to convey to clients. The main thing to know is that the more non-standard the solution, the harder it is to give a specific estimate, which is why developers are increasingly switching to the Time & Materials format and working with a rough estimate of the project, without fixing it in the contract.
8. Technical Specification (TOR)
When it comes to standard solutions, the absence of a preliminary brief for the client to fill out is the first sign of a company's unprofessionalism. Beware of web studios that are willing to take on work without discussing the TOR and main working points (choice of CMS, available set of functions, etc.). Most likely, they will offer you to purchase a template solution that you could easily create yourself in a couple of hours, even without programming and web design skills.
Exception – custom development of non-standard solutions. It is difficult to create a brief that could satisfy all areas of online business and the development of web services for them. Sometimes these are business automation services, sometimes browser games, and sometimes statistics or parsing services. It is impossible to make a brief for such complex areas, and the person who will sell you such solutions needs a completely different set of competencies and experience.
9. Diverse Specialists
A web studio implies having a staff of specialists from different fields. If in your case the entire work is to be done by some 'one-man band' who can write code, do layout, and create design, then most likely you will end up with something that does not even reach an average level. Of course, miracles happen. But it's better not to take the risk.
10. Contractual Relations
The only guarantee that you will get a product of the required quality for your money is a service contract concluded with the company. Study this document in as much detail as possible. Make sure that revisions and elimination of defects are included in the list of services provided. Check the availability of a warranty period during which the contractor is ready to accept claims from clients.
Of course, when choosing a web studio, it is important to rely not only on objective but also on subjective factors. Namely, on such aspects as the professionalism of the company's managers, the overall atmosphere, and the style of communication with clients. After all, sometimes such little things speak about professionalism much more than any beautiful promises and tempting showcases.