Introduction
If you are the first-timer in the world of web development there is a big chance from the very beginning you will be lost in the variety of pathways and options. There are thousands of web developers across the globe. Each of them has its own approach and set of values. Their solutions will differ like day and night and so will their prices.
We’ve tried to extract quintessence of the web development world and bring to light types of customers and suppliers.
This guide will help you to build up the right expectations and make the right decisions and choices while overcoming your new digital challenge.
World of customer’s problems
So first things first and customer’s problem or tasks is what we are going to talk about at the very beginning.
To keep it simple here are the three types of problems a customer is facing.
Zero generation website
Here we all started one day being inspired by the possibilities of the Internet or pushed by a necessity to reach new customers. You have never done that before and it is absolutely new challenge for your business. Chances are that your experience level is close to zero – you’ve seen hundreds of websites in your life and know which websites you like and which you don’t. And now it is time to create the first website for your business.
1st generation website
Almost instantly after your 1st generation website is ready you will know what you want to change. These changes are so tiny but still are so desirable. And here starts a 1000-step way of finding the right “freelancer”. Sometimes it succeeds but more often your version 1.x website looks even worse than 1.0.
2nd generation website
You’ve overcome all the difficulties of starting your business on the Internet and are running your 1st generation website for quite a few years already. Due to your efforts, it looks and works fine but a feeling of dissatisfaction and incompleteness torments you all the time. You now clearly understand what could be done better from the very beginning and your experience level is enough to write a short manual for dummies on how not to make websites.
It is time to move forward and invest into a better website and put all of your experience in it.
Digital marketing
You’ve seen it all. CTR, conversion, and retention are the gods you pray to in the pantheon of digital marketing. You can sell anything to anyone on the Internet and know everything about your target audience. Honestly, you are overwhelmed with the diversity of digital marketing tools and ways of reaching out to your audience. The feeling of dissatisfaction and incompleteness comes again. You know you can be everywhere on the Internet but it will take an eternity.
It is time for a total revision of digital marketing strategy including platform creation, subscription model, video marketing, mobile applications, and offline-digital experience.
Other problem?
Do you face absolutely different type of problem? Help us improve this guide and write your story in the comments bellow. This will make life easier for future readers.
World of web developers
Freelancers
The world of web developers starts with freelancers and it is not bad at all. There are thousands of people making beautiful and outstanding things selling their talent to anyone who is in need – designers, web-programmers, typesetters, and many more other specialists including project managers. These are the ones who will offer web-developing services on a freelance platform.
The variety of solutions provided by freelancers is unlimited – everything depends on the freelancer’s experiences and favors. This can be anything from a web-constructor to a naked CMSless HTML-coded website. Working with a freelancer will definitely take some additional effort and knowledge from you as a customer.
The most difficult part of working with freelancers is the search. There are millions of freelancers out there. Now divide thousands (those who do beautiful and outstanding) by millions and you will get 1 to 1000 chance to find a good one. This is the real challenge.
Novice web-studio
There is a moment when after several years of freelancing one brave man unites a simple team of two other freelancers and opens up as a brand new web-studio. In fact, it will not differ a lot from an experienced freelancer in terms of what will happen during the development process. What will differ is the willingness of a new web-studio to provide the highest service level possible and to get a positive review from every customer. The web-studio career heavily depends on its reputation.
But here is the trick. There are two scenarios of studio life each leading to a completely different state. The first one is negative – the quality of work is low and reviews are modest. Thus the quantity of new customers stagnates and the team motivation decreases over time. This will eventually lead to further quality drop and the studio will end up soon after. Avoid working with a demotivated team.
A positive scenario is the opposite one. Quality is fantastic and word of mouth brings waves of new customers. The price tag rises very fast and the studio makes a very quick one to three years shift to the next type of web-developers.
Jara Studio is here!
Award-winning web-studios and digital marketing agencies
They are the Olympus habitats. Having several awards from international awards websites like awwwards.com or cssdesignawards.com makes these companies exposed to the whole world of web-development demand. Everyone wants them and everyone dreams about having a website from them. This raises the bar of quality and thus sky-rockets project costs to the level of a Tesla price.
Be sure to work with one of such a studio as their work is itself a very strong competitive advantage worth every dollar you will pay.
From here starts a very distinctive specialization as some of the studios drive towards digital production as a whole and some stick to true UI/UX design and work mostly for the first ones as well as there are dozens of other specialties. The level of problems these guys are solving becomes very high and affordable only to serious businesses with a substantial marketing department.
Conclusion
No doubt that the variety of problems and problem solvers is much bigger then the one we’ve wrote above. But to a certain extent every problem can be classified with these types.
If you are still confused with the decision on what should you do here is our recipe.
For the problems of 1st and 2nd generation websites as well as everything in between better to be working with an experienced and worked out team from a raising novice web-studio. For serious challenges search no compromises – go for an award-winning companies for the best results.
Leave your thoughts and ideas in the comments below to make this guide perfect!
