Many marketing agencies design web sites, but designing is not the same as programming a fully-functioning site. See “Web Designer vs. Web Developer.” Agencies often turn to web developers for help with the programming portion. That’s where companies, such as Optimum Systems Online (OSO), come in. Once a marketing firm creates the look, layout, and flow it wants for a site, the web developer is able to create, input, sync and program the site to make it fully functional. In essence, the developer can do all the behind-the-scenes programming to support the marketing agency’s creative design.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A DEVELOPER
Let’s say you work for a marketing agency and you’ve created an awesome layout for your client’s new website. You don’t want to hand it over to just anybody. How do you figure out which is the best website company to partner with? What should marketing agencies look for in a web developer?
When choosing a web developer, look for the following characteristics:
- Experience
- Availability
- Fast turnaround time
- Content management
- Problem handling
- Cost-savings
MUST HAVE EXPERIENCE
Experience, by far, is the most important attribute on this list. Our Danbury, Connecticut-based team at OSO, for example, has decades of experience in website creation, marketing strategy and web programming. When interviewing different web development companies, agencies should ask questions about their technical expertise. It would be wise to choose a developer who has several years of experience working with programming languages such as PHP, MySQL, CSS, Flash and JavaScript.
THE BACKEND
You definitely want to make sure to ask questions about the web developer’s content management ability. This area, often referred to as the “backend,” can be easily overlooked and underrated. We’re in a market where websites need to be built faster and easier. The coding should not be overcomplicated so you can make changes when you need to, and the processing system must be fast. For example, at OSO Web Studio, we had a client for whom we ran a major sweepstakes. Out of thousands of online visitors hitting the site at a single designated time, only the first 10 could receive the instant online image telling them they were winners. The 11th visitor, and on, received a different pop up image. Speed was of the utmost importance in this case and the timing needed to be spot on – down to a matter of milliseconds.
A well-seasoned web programmer should be a master of the most important CMS systems in today’s market. Those include: WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, as well as e-commerce programs Magento and Opencart. When interviewing web developers you should get the feeling they love what they do. At OSO Web Studio, we love custom programming – it’s our passion.
CUT COSTS
Contrary to what most people might think, hiring a web developer is actually a cost-saving move. A few marketing agencies have in-house teams that can code, develop and maintain the backend of their clients’ web sites. However, using an outside web developer provides marketing agencies with more flexibility with their budget because they aren’t tied down to paying in-house salaries. When projects are plentiful, it’s easy to outsource some of these jobs to experts.
Another important note here is that if your marketing agency is balancing some extra work, you don’t want to end up getting overwhelmed and behind on your projects. If you choose to get outside help from a web programmer, one of the first questions you have to ask is “What is your turnaround time?” Most web developers average 2 to 4 weeks to complete a project, but sometimes there are other projects in line ahead of yours. Our team is generally able to start work by the next business day so the total turnaround time is shorter than others’.
We know marketing agencies don’t want to turn potential clients away because they don’t have the expertise or the time to develop web sites. Optimum Systems Online can provide all the backend web work to make your agency look good.
If you live in the Fairfield County and Greater New York area, come meet us in person.
Optimum Systems Online
36 Mill Plain Rd, Suite #302, Danbury, CT
Phone: (203) 942-2883
