If you are a business owner who has recently spent a considerable amount to develop a new website for your business, chances are that you may have settled for something that was below par to your expectations. Else, you may have got oranges instead of grapes. To not increase your marketing spend for the time being you would have settled for oranges for the day.

If you are a web development company, haven’t you often reached a stage where you observe that actual is quite different from the plan? You reach a stage of no retreat and altering the plans to your convenience is found to be a more viable solution rather than coming up with a renewed work order.

This is a perfect scenario of poor decision making. Could this be avoided?

Let us try to answer the question from the point of view of a web development company. The answer to the question lies not during the development stage, rather at the very beginning of a project. But there comes another question. Where is the beginning? That’s where the first mistake pops up.

The 5 mistakes no web developer should make

Let’s start the project with the team meeting

Many marketers and web development firms often confuse the team meeting or even the client brief as the starting point of a new project. In fact, the question of a team meeting should not even come up, before you as a marketer has ample information about the company you are dealing with, the project in question, the expectations of the client and confidence that your organization has enough resources to meet those expectations. The beginning of the project is before you sit with the client for a one to one meeting. Have you learnt enough about the client you may be serving in the near future? What are the solutions the company provides? Is there an opportunity for your firm to fill a gap in the clients’ offering with respect to the service you render? Can your organization adapt to the plethora of new information related to the clients’ business? The client meeting and the client brief bring more clarity to these questions, but the client meeting itself becomes comprehensive with the preparedness you have shown.

‘What’ of website before ‘What’ of business

What many web development teams fail to understand is that the need of the business drives the need of the website. Web agencies more often than not are concerned about what is to be displayed on the page rather than why it needs to be showcased. The purpose of the business, if understood well can on many occasions help the developers and designers to suggest an alternative and sometimes better course of action. Understanding the need and purpose of the client can often help the agency to chart out a plan that could help the businesses in the long run.

See you at the end

Many web agencies especially who are in the early stages of their business growth are content with just being the service providers. They often forget to become an associate of their client. If you are the agency whose objective is “obtain-make-deliver-collect”, then you are treading in the wrong path. Successful web agencies around the world are concerned about not just the core design, development and marketing team within their organization but give equal importance to a team in the clients business who understands the project at hand. They make a point to share information regarding the development of the project, ask questions and initiate healthy discussions to make the web development project a success.

Cubicled corners

Isn’t it a great sense of relief to venture out into remoteness and work without any distractions? It is indeed; but not always. Modern creative agencies, be it advertising, digital marketing or web development, are like a typical factory where the single connecting factor between people on the work floor is the assembly line. Each preceding function is connected to the next by means of the common thread of work. Similarly, in a web development organization the departments of designing, developing, testing, marketing are all connected like an assembly line. One cannot be separated from the other. These functions will have to work in unison to achieve the desired result. To avoid delay in completing any specified task and to minimize errors at crucial stages of the project, it is all the more essential to work as a team.

Labeled bottles for all

Nowadays, web solutions come in labeled bottles ready to use. Often it is easier for a web agency to market the services as pre-designed packages. For eg., Basic plan comes with a domain name, hosting services and design and development only, Intermediate pack offers Basic with 1 year free maintenance and an Enterprise plan is offered with Intermediate plus SEO, CMS and marketing promotion for 6 months. Another bottled labeling is done for Small businesses, Midsize businesses and Large business. Various permutations of the services offered are bundled to the liking of the agency and offered to the client. What the agency does not understand, is that clients and their businesses are not products coming out of a factory that can be poured into bottles of different sizes and labeled to the liking of anyone. More often than not most solutions have to be customized and offerings need to be changed from business to business.Web technology is changing every day at a fast pace, so are the needs and expectations of companies and individuals around the world. The ‘What’ of web development is important and at most times it becomes the single distinguishing factor for agencies to stay afloat. But equally important is the ‘How’ of it. The approach, the readiness, the eagerness and the response of the agencies to the needs of businesses are becoming the driving force for client retention, repeat business and referral business.