What to Watch Out For When Having a Website Built
Most problems with a new website come from the process, not the price. We explain what to prepare before you start, what to look for when choosing a company and what to check when the site is handed over.
Most of the problems that come up when having a website built are caused by the process, not the price. The businesses that contact us have often had a site built before and were not happy with it. In this article we explain what to prepare before you start, what to look for when choosing a company and what to check when the site is handed over.
The Situation We See Most Often: A Company You Cannot Reach
The problem businesses describe to us most often is that they can no longer reach the person or company that built their site. When the work depends on a single person and nothing is written down, the business may not even be able to log in to its own site once that person stops working on it. This route is usually chosen for a lower price; however, when the site later has to be rebuilt from scratch, the total cost goes up.
Other problems tend to follow: depending on the company for every change because there is no admin panel or it is too complicated, a site that loads slowly and breaks on phones, and a site that does not appear on Google because basic search engine settings were never made. Most of the advice in this article is meant to prevent these problems from the start.
What to Prepare Before You Start
The better the preparation, the shorter the process. At Bordoat, we ask for the four items below when a project starts, and we plan together when and from whom any missing items will come.
- Logo and brand colours: Prepare a vector or high-resolution file of your logo, if possible, along with the colours you use.
- Text and photos: Information about your company, services and products, together with real photos of your work, makes up the content of the site.
- Sites you like and your competitors: Noting a few sites you like, and what you like about them, speeds up the design stage.
- Access details for the old site: If you have an existing site, find the login details for the site, the domain name and the hosting. If you cannot reach the old company, the first step is to find out through which company and in whose name the domain is registered.
What to Look For When Choosing a Company
Are the References Live?
Visit every site in the reference list. Does each one open, look right on a phone and load quickly? The company's own site is a reference too; it is hard to expect a company whose own site is slow or broken on phones to build yours differently.
Can You Reach the Company?
Check that the company's address, phone number and email address are clearly published. The work should live in written records rather than in one person's memory, so that years later it is still clear what was done on your site and how.
Have You Been Shown the Admin Panel?
At the quote stage, ask to see an admin panel the company has delivered before. How many steps it takes to add text, an image or a product, and whether the screens are easy to understand, decide whether you will be able to update the site yourself later. A complicated panel means you will need the company again for every small change.
Is the Scope in Writing?
Which pages will be built, what you will be able to change from the panel, how many languages there will be and what will be handed over should all be in writing. At Bordoat, the scope of the work is set out item by item in an annex to the written contract.
Who Will Hold the Access?
Find out at the start who will hold the domain name, hosting, admin panel and source code, and how you will reach them. We cover the items that set the price, and the questions to ask when you get a quote, in our article What Determines the Cost of a Website?
How Should the Process Work?
In a healthy process, design comes before code. Design changes made after the code is written take time and increase the cost, while decisions made at the design stage are easy to change.
At Bordoat, we prepare three to five different designs for the home page and ask you to choose one of them. We do not move on to the other pages until the home page is approved. Before the site goes live, it opens at a test address, where you browse it on your own phone and computer and share your feedback. You can find the details on our Corporate Website page.
Checklist for Taking Delivery of the Site
You can carry out the checks below yourself on the day of delivery. None of them requires technical knowledge.
| Check | How to Check It |
|---|---|
| Does it work properly on a phone? | Open the site on your own phone; the text should be readable, the menu should work and the page should not scroll sideways. |
| Is it fast? | Look at the site's mobile result in Google's free PageSpeed Insights tool. |
| Is the connection secure? | The address should start with "https", and the browser should not show a "not secure" warning. |
| Can you use the panel? | Change a piece of text and an image yourself in the panel and save them. |
| Do the forms work? | Send a test message through the contact form and check that it reaches you. |
| Has Google been notified? | Ask whether the site has been added to Search Console and the sitemap submitted. |
| Are old addresses redirected? | Open a few addresses you know from your old site; the new page should open instead of "page not found". |
| Are backups being taken? | Ask how often the site is backed up and how it would be restored if something goes wrong. |
At Bordoat, on the day of delivery we show you how to use the panel by video call or in person. We add the site to Search Console, submit the sitemap and take regular backups of the site.
After Launch
It can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks for a new site to appear on Google; it is normal if the site does not show up in search results on the day it goes live. The way to shorten this period is to build the site's technical foundations correctly from the start. We cover this on our SEO page.
To appear in the business results on the map, a Google Business Profile also has to be created. Writing the business name, address and phone number in the profile exactly as they appear on the site helps both customers and search engines trust the information.
At Bordoat, revision requests are handled without limit during the first month after delivery, and any bugs that appear in the software are fixed free of charge for one year. To tell us about your project, you can reach us through our contact page.
