How to choose a web development company

Most owners choose a web company the wrong way. They collect three quotes, line up the numbers, and pick whoever sits in the middle. A few months later the site loads slow, emails go unanswered, and they're paying a second company to clean up the first one's work.

You can skip that whole mess. A shiny homepage means very little. What matters is whether you can stand working with these people for the next couple of years, and whether they'll still answer the phone after the invoice clears.

Look at real work, not just the highlight reel

Every company shows off its best projects. Of course they do. Your job is to figure out whether they've built something close to what you need. A restaurant menu site and a booking system for a clinic are not the same animal.

Ask to see a few live sites you can actually click through. Load them on your phone. Check how fast they open. If a firm only shows flat mockups and never a working link, that tells you something. Look through our work across different industries and you'll get a feel for what a finished project should be.

Ask how they actually run a project

A good company can explain its process in plain words. Who writes the content? What happens when you want a change halfway through? Vague answers now mean a vague project later.

Watch who ends up owning the work. You should own the domain and the code, and hold every login yourself. Some shops keep all of it so you can never leave them. Read the contract before you sign, not after.

Fit the tech to your business

You don't need to know how to code. But you should ask why they picked a particular platform for you. The right answer connects to your situation: your budget, and who's going to update the site after launch. A company that drops every client onto the same template, no matter the business, is doing what's easy for them. If you also run point-of-sale or inventory tools, ask how the site connects to those.

Communication tells you almost everything

Pay attention to how they treat you before any money changes hands. Do they reply within a day? Do they ask about your customers, or mostly talk about themselves? Slow, confusing answers now turn into slow, confusing answers forever. People ignore this part and regret it.

SEO and life after launch

A site nobody can find is an expensive business card. Ask whether the pages are built so Google can read them, and whether it opens fast on a phone. You don't need a full campaign on launch day. You do need a foundation that won't fight you a year from now.

And ask the boring question. What happens after we go live? Sites need updates and the occasional security patch. Find out whether support is included in the price or billed by the hour. Our services page spells out how that ongoing part works.

Red flags worth walking away from

• A price far below everyone else. Someone is cutting a corner you can't see yet.
• No contract, or one that never says who owns the finished site.
• They can't point to a single live site they've built.
• Every timeline question comes back fuzzy.
• A promise that you'll rank first on Google by a set date. Nobody can promise that.

Questions to ask before you sign

• What do I own when we're done, and what do you keep?
• Who will I actually talk to while the project runs?
• How long will this take, and what usually makes it slip?
• Is hosting and maintenance on me or on you?
• What does a change cost after launch?

Take your time with this. A website runs for years, and switching companies halfway through hurts and costs real money. Talk to a few and go with whoever answered your questions straight. When you want a second opinion, get in touch and we'll tell you honestly whether we're a good fit.