Take care of your business & let a website development company handle the technical stuff
Why hire a website development company when you could watch a few tutorials and do it yourself? What if we told you that relying on a website development company actually benefits your business more?
We come across a number of clients who believed they could build their own website – only to find out that by the end of the process they have wasted so much time and the end result was not what they were expecting.
A similar situation resonates between clients that have contracted a website development company that was not able to make good on their promises, nor the great quality they were offering for a deal price.
It can happen to anyone, but it can be avoided! Correct, a website always requires a substantial investment but with the right webite development company guiding you, it doesn't need to cost you more than it should (whether in time or money). This, to provide your customers with an improved online experience in a timely manner without suffering the consequences.
It’s worth noting that hiring a website development company also provides access to a range of ancillary services/products that tutorials cannot provide. Such as tools that improve the effectiveness of your website’s functionality, as well as website hosting, plus support and maintenance packages which are crucial to your website’s lifespan.
In this article, we’ll explain what you need to keep in mind to get the most out of your website AND what to look out for when choosing a website development company.
Here’s a list of 5 things to keep in mind when investing in a website:
1. Pay attention to the level of your service provider's experience & portfolio
Many projects, even the ones with a promising start, often fail due to lack of resources or the skill set to complete. A professional website development company, on the other hand, should have the expertise to know what works best as well as employ the right talents and tools to develop your project effectively and efficiently.
Though with a big number of website development companies to choose from, how do you choose the right one?
You can estimate the experience level of a website development company by viewing their recent portfolio. Most of them will have an individual page with references on their site, so you can easily see examples of their work.
While browsing through their portfolio, ask yourself a few questions. Are the websites they created professional and easy to use? Are any of their clients comparable to you and your company? What ideas can I take from their portfolio? If you don’t feel inspired by the end of this exercise, it’s a bad signal. Trust your guts.
At NIU, we’re very proud of our award-winning website design and development portfolio and the long-standing relationships with our clients. From empowering start-ups, to helping established local and international companies take the next step, we can build, support and scale digital products which impact and drive results.
Our team of experts in website design and development, information technology, digital marketing and databases have an extremely high success rate of translating our customers' ideas into a winning strategy.
2. It is important to perform regular website quality checks
In order to avoid unpleasant surprises, there are a few simple but vital actions to perform before and after launching your website.
Mobile responsiveness, cross-browser compatibility, checks for bugs, and plugin conflicts are just some of the points we check to ensure your website's performance. But there are also things you should be doing to help in making your website successful.
For instance, test the user experience and performance for yourself. Not only will it give you a good idea of how your website works, but it can also help you understand the user flow and detect problems that went unnoticed before.
Many think that all website quality checks are over once the website is up and running, however, that's just the start.
Financial losses and bad reputation are just two of the possible outcomes of an unattended website. You can avoid this with timely, professional maintenance and monitoring of your website.
For instance, the websites in our portfolio are monitored every 1 minute, meaning that if your site is down, you will be alerted whilst our agile team will be making sure that your website is up and running again in no time. In addition to this, we also provide: daily backups, 24/7 server troubleshooting, WordPress, theme and plugin updates, ongoing browser compatibility checks and much more as part of our hosting and support package.
3. Consider custom theme development for your website
Each WordPress theme can typically be used for a specific industry/market, so the one you choose should be the most suitable for your particular business type and it should complement the brand as well as the content you have planned for your site.
At NIU, we fully customise any chosen WordPress design theme to suit your business' aims and objectives. We've even developed some of our own!
Why do we recommend custom themes development? With a custom theme, what you see is what you get! At NIU we ensure that from both a front-end and back-end perspective, you are provided with an extremely user-friendly CMS that allows you to include content, videos, photos, and more within any theme. The NIU team also ensures your website is not slowed down by unnecessary theme functions, add-ons and plugins which you may not even be aware of. All this is done whilst ensuring that the website remains secure, unique, optimised, responsive and fast over the long-run - making it easy for you to maintain and manage it for years to come.
4. Use WordPress premium plugins for better support
WordPress plugins are used to expand and improve the functionality of your WordPress website. There are thousands of easy to set up WordPress plugins, and that means you’ll never outgrow your website. But this comes at a price - as the more plugins you make use of, the more maintenance is required - so balance is key! Remember, you can also always count on our sound advice.
Throughout NIU’s exclusive development process, we don’t only use premium plugins to ensure effective support throughout, but we also build websites in a modular manner to allow flexibility. This way we can add or remove plugins that might create conflicts over time or exchange out-dated
plugins with better ones being launched.
5. Support your website with the best maintenance & hosting available
Safety comes first, or at least it should! Website support and maintenance is essential to protect it from malicious attacks. If your WordPress website is not regularly updated, your investment might be at risk, as well as your brand and reputation.
WordPress, themes and plug-ins require constant updating (sometimes as often as weekly/monthly). Without the necessary updates, your website functionality might be severely affected, and more importantly security is at risk. This is because outdated plugins are well-known vulnerabilities and typically the first part of a website to be exploited by hackers/attacks.
At NIU, we are proud of our effective support and maintenance service.
Our support team are always readily available to answer your urgent requests and our 24/7 critical support guarantees that in the case of an emergency, you can count on us too. All this for your peace of mind - especially because in case of small or fatal errors, your website's ranking in Google may be effected too.
The most successful websites are run by people/companies who never stop learning and who are always looking for better, more effective solutions.
From helping you choose the best WordPress theme and customising it's design to match your brand perfectly, to making sure your website is up and running and remains healthy and performing well throughout, a website development company like ours will offer you a worry-free digital experience.
Leave your website in the hands of our expert team, relieve yourself of unnecessary worries about the security, performance, and maintenance of your website and focus on your business. Impress your customers with a professional and unforgettable website experience thanks to our guidance and ongoing support.
Has this inspired you? Get in touch with us and book a free consultation with no obligation!
