Anyone taking on a web development project should ultimately be as educated as possible regarding what they are buying. The problem with software is that it is so intangible that consumers have a hard time understanding how and why it works. Most consumers simply care about the superficial appearance of there project with no consideration with what’s under the hood. This is a short list of some crucial items to look for when shopping for a web development firm.

Customer Reviews
Everyone touts customer reviews on there sites or sales processes…  Usually these are taken out of context or when the client is asked… but how genuine are these reviews?  We recommend looking at a couple criteria to evaluate these statements.

1. Look through the companies portfolio and randomly call a few companies and ask for there opinions
2. Most web development companies will place a link to there site in the bottom of the sites they create. Use Google to search for the tag line (in quotations) to find companies not in there portfolio and give them a call.
3. Ask out right for companies that wont give a glowing review and why they wont give a positive review.
4. Ask the employees. In a corporate structure fear is a determent to honest feedback. Try to contact employees out side of work, look on places like linked in to get into contact with employees past and present to ask your hard questions about the company.  You are likely to find these employees by doing a simple company search on LinkedIn.

Purpose and goals outside of revenue
What does the company do besides just make money? Does the company you want to partner with have any other goals or proposes? Do they actively support the improvement of there employees? Do they give back to the community? Do they support any charities?  How do they better the world around them? While we don’t often think of these questions it is important to know the full extent of how our money is used. Remember we vote with our dollar.

Transparency
Most people who start a project implicitly trust there development partner and don’t have the technical know how to evaluate the and product and services they receive. There are several questions that you can ask to evaluate the transparency of your development partner. Ask out right if they use overseas outsourcing partners for there services.  Can you see the progress of your site? Can you gain access to the source control logs showing how much work was done on your project and when? What priority is your project given? How many developers are on your project? And finally post development do you have access to your source code? Are you able to host on a hosting company of your choice or are you hostage on there proprietary environment? Can you get direct access to server log files to audit the applications performance and stability? Will they allow a third party audit of your project and take corrective measures.

Support of your Independence
Does the company you are utilizing for development support your independence? Do they sell you additional services beyond development or recommend companies with better capabilities for services they don’t excel at? Hosting, SEO, marketing, graphic design and ongoing support are all areas of focus you need to have direct control over and a clear understanding of your partners abilities. Any development firm should support and encourage your independence outside of there services. Anything less is a hostage situation from which that may be very painful to gain independence.

Measurements for success
How does your development partner measure success? Most companies measure success simply by dumping a website on the web and how much money they made in the process. Any company you chose to use should have your ultimate success in mind as there only  metric for there success. If they produce a website for you does it fill your needs or simply just provide a web presence? If they produce an ecommerce solution for you do they care about your profitability and conversion rates or do they just want a monthly retainer for ongoing maintenance. Anyone you partner with should see that your success is there number one concern and should stand behind what they produce.

Ongoing support
Often the bane of any web project. Web development firms have slippery contracts regarding ongoing support, warranties and maintenance. If your web development company truly care about you as a customer they will stand behind there work and provide you the best of ongoing support and prioritization. Just because the project has been delivered doesn’t mean that the needs have ended. You want to find a web development partner that will actively make suggestions on how to improve the project they have produced. If technology changes they should actively provide ample warning of how it will impact your project.

Education and consulting
Most web companies will take any project they get and more over the money of there prospective customers as well with out regard of requests and project feasibility. This is a dangerous situation for any company and especially startup projects. Knowing when to consult, say no, warn a client of concerns or the likelihood of success of there project is the most basic symbol of integrity with any development firm. Often this is the first value thrown out the window when sales are slow for a company and fiscal desperation supersedes honest consulting. A web firm should evaluate the projects they take on for success likelihood and educate the customer of additional costs beyond development to make a project successful. I have seen many time a development company take the full budget of a customer with out ever mentioning that they will need to invest in SEO, SEM, marketing, social media and more to make there project successful. Ask questions beyond your website needs to how the company will make your project successful. If you get superficial answers run away from that company as fast as you can!

How they treat their employees
One of the most telling and hardest facts to find. Most companies wont allow there employees to speak the truth about company culture and how there customers are treated. Most of the time you will need to find employees that have moved on (again . . . use LinkedIn.com). Any company with any integrity should treat there employees like they are an important asset to the company. Incapable or disgruntled employees are a risk to your project and you need to understand the internal company culture to that ultimately you are investing in.

What are they hiding?  Why are they hiding it?
When we shop for a car we will read consumer report, search through customer reviews and forums online until we are ready to buy. Often with web development consumers are totally blind to what they are buying from whom. Things to look for that are indicators of the companies honesty or stability are as follows.

1. Do a business entity search, check out there business license standing
2. Check the BBB for the rating of the company. Don’t look at the grade, but the number of complaints filed.
3. Verify claims on there site to awards or certifications. Often outdated information is used to make the company look more capable but awards can be purchased and certifications require renewal.
4. Look for reviews. Microsoft provides open feedback required by all submitted reviews on partners. Look for complaints online.

Genuine capabilities
The hardest thing to qualify is the actual technical capability of the team working on your project. Meet your team! Get to know them face to face. Call and talk to them directly, they are what you are paying for and you should have direct access to them. If you are developing on a Microsoft platform developers should be Microsoft certified. If it is a php environment you have a much harder time to evaluate this as there are no certifications. Development is a highly subjective and personal preference driven art form.  Developers often have computer science degrees but little to no science goes into the actual implementation and standards for development. Seek out capable and skilled technical consultants. If you will spending $20,000 (for example) on a web project, spend a few hundred dollars to bring in a outside consultant to validate the provider.  They will insure the  quality of the product, implementation methodologies and project management skill set  is inline with your business needs.  In the end, they will verify that the team you are using is up to snuff to get the job done with a high degree of quality.

Technical Environment – Bonus*
You wouldn’t buy a new car from a dealership with 20 year old tools and a shop, why would you buy a web application from a development firm with outdated tools and practices?  Questions you should get detailed answers from before you sign the contract for are: What source control solution do you use to manage my project? how are backups done of my project during development? Are the development systems your programmers use modern multi monitor high performance systems? What development tools are you using for my project, what version of those tools? What database platform is being used? What are the hosting requirements for my project? These last 2 questions can be very telling as to the ability to have freedom from your developer after the project is completed. If they develop on a enterprise database for instance do you have the ability to acquire a license priced often over 1000.00 to host it independently? Is there a less costly method that can be utilized for your project? Are multiple ip addresses required to host your project? How are updates applied to your project?  Insure your development firm is current and modern in its processes, practices and environment.