So I have covered most of the main development paths for domains but what if you do not have the skills or time to develop a domain yourself? How do you choose a developer?
Development options
There are three main outsourced development paths
1. Contract to develop a domain
You hire someone to develop a website and their obligation ends when they turn it over to you. You are responsible for maintenance.
- It is important that you have a clear idea of the functionality you need up front
- Be very clear to put all your requirements in your contract
- Approve mock ups and test sites before the final roll out.
- The administration should be simple enough that you can do it yourself e.g. Content management system (CMS)
- The code should be generic enough and clearly labelled so other coders can work on the site at a later date if needed.
- The site should be optimized for the search engines.
- The domain name should remain in your possession
- All userids/passwords should be changed upon delivery
2. Contract to develop a domain and maintain it
You hire someone to develop a website and they will also be responsible for maintenance as laid out in the contract.
- All the requirements as laid out in 1. above
- Be clear in your contract as to what maintenance means
- Be clear about what statistics and reports should be delivered
- Agree to common measures of standard of maintenance or milestones
- Specify all charges/fees in the contract
3. Contract to develop a domain and share revenue
A company will develop your domain and take a split of the revenue it generates.
- Not all domains will be accepted by these companies – only those they think they will make significant revenue from
- Be clear about ownership of both the domain and the website
- Be clear about terms for termination of the contract
- Be aware that custom code etc may be used and you may not be able to maintain the website upon termination of contract
- Be clear about what advertising is being used, whose ad accounts are used and agree on common measures of performance and revenue.
Selection process
Choose a good company who will show you live websites they have designed and will provide you with contacts for those sites. Contact the owners of those live websites and ask them about the company.
Suggested Questions
- Delivered in time?
- Open to suggestions?
- Satisfied with product?
- Time spent to educate you and manage expectations?
- SEO (search engine optimization) included?
- Any subcontracting of work?
It is best to choose a company who has experience in the sector you are interested in e.g. e-commerce. Be aware that good work will cost you and that you will get what you pay for in most cases.
KISS ( keep it simple, stupid)
Many people has got into difficulties when they try to sell their website or pass it along to another person in their family because the maintenance and administration is complicated or proprietary.
Simple generic code works best for this reason. Java and Flash do not work well with the search engines so it is usually best to avoid them or provide simple alternatives in addition to that code.
Link development
One of the major factors in the ranking of websites is the number and quality of links into that website. Companies may provide a service to get links from other websites either as part of the maintenance process or in addition. Some companies specialize in this services.
This one process has been the cause of many headaches for developers and owners alike. I will cover this in my next post. I will probably post intermittently on other basic topics but also add back in some predictive domaining posts also.
