We see that the task of building, maintaining and developing a website is not an easy task. So entrepreneurs depend on web developers. There is no doubt that the task of choosing the appropriate web developer is a task that frightens some people, as the project manager fears leaving his site in the hands of a novice or unreliable web developer who tampers with his data.
Therefore, building trust between the website owner and the private web developer he works with is crucial to ensuring that the goals of both parties are achieved.
It is worth noting that building trust between both parties, psychologically and technically, is achievable provided that certain standards and obligations are adhered to.
In today’s article, we will highlight the most important steps that must be followed before choosing the web developer you rely on for your project. In addition to the standards that must be set during dealing and agreeing on the project, and finally the most important steps that must be followed to build trust from a technical standpoint in order to avoid theft of your data.
How do you choose the right web developer?
If you are one of the entrepreneurs and website owners who find it difficult to choose a reliable web developer suitable for meeting their requirements, follow the following steps:
1- Study your site requirements
It is important that before thinking about hiring a web developer, you think and carefully study the requirements of your site. Knowing your site’s requirements will make it easier for you to choose the right developer to do the work in the best way. So be careful not to choose and hire a web developer before you even carefully study the requirements of your site.
2- Search for a professional and reliable web developer
Here you are free to choose your developer from many sources. Including hiring a web developer by using reliable freelance platforms, or contracting with a software company to implement your site’s requirements.
The idea here is that hiring a professional web developer can do the job with high efficiency and, on the other hand, be reliable so that he does not infringe on your private data.
Read also: How do you hire a professional freelancer to help you develop your WordPress site?
3- Hiring the right web developer
If you find several options for hiring a web developer here, we advise you to choose the appropriate freelancer by browsing his work gallery to see projects similar to yours, in addition to reviewing the reviews of previous clients so that you can know their opinion about this developer and whether he did his job successfully?
Did he violate the site’s privacy while working on it? Did he increase the budget set for the project? And other questions that will be answered automatically by browsing his gallery of work and the reviews of his previous clients.
Whether it is from a software company, a freelancer on a freelance website, or even a solo developer. The purpose of the review is to ensure the competence and credibility of the web developer before appointing him.
After presenting the important steps for choosing the appropriate developer, it is the role of effective communication with him to present the requirements. During communication, some important standards must be taken into account that build trust in the first interaction between you and leave a positive impression, which in turn affects the success of the project.
Effective communication with web developer
Before starting to deal with a web developer to work on your website, it is important to ask him the right questions, and effective communication based on these questions is a good component of building trust between you and the web developer.
In addition, choosing pricing and presenting requirements, as well as understanding the process before contracting, is worth the effort to achieve the desired results in the end.
At the beginning of communication between you and the web developer, the following criteria must be taken into account:
Requirements
You must well define all the requirements for your website, and it is preferable for this step to be done before hiring a web developer. So be prepared to clearly present your requirements with the first contact between you and your web developer.
the cost
After specifying the requirements, you must present them to the web developer and specify your expectations from his work on your site in order to build a good vision for it. Then you agree with him on the cost of the project and try as much as possible to reconcile your own budget for the project with the wage that the web developer wants by reaching a compromise that is satisfactory to both parties.
communication
There must be continuous communication between you and your web developer to be aware of the developments, the rate of progress he is making in his work, and the most important changes and modifications that have been made.
Therefore, this standard must be agreed upon before starting work because it increases the production rate in addition to its importance in building trust through continuous communication between you.
specific time
It is important to agree on a time limit for the project from the beginning until the completion of all requirements, and ask him to adhere as much as possible to this time.
The time specified for the project will increase the production rate and will also add a touch of seriousness in your dealings, thus reducing the rate of procrastination.
Avoid surprises
This is one of the most important criteria that must be taken into account from the beginning. Therefore, we emphasized the cost standard in order to avoid any unjustified and unexpected increases in the project cost.
It is always important for an entrepreneur to be clear from the beginning about his requirements and budget. Because, as we said, this clarity will add a touch of seriousness to the deal and prevent any manipulation by the web developer.
If every entrepreneur takes into account these standards at the beginning of dealing with a web developer, he will build confidence in dealing with them and thus achieve the desired results.
Build trust between you and the web developer
One of the problems that business owners face is building trust between the web developer, as he fears that the developer will steal his data, tamper with it, or steal the site or site code, and other things. As we said at the beginning, trust must be built in choosing an honest, professional developer (the best person to hire is a strong and honest one).
In addition, we will highlight the most important steps that must be taken to protect your data from being stolen by a web developer, which are summarized as follows:
Domain name
Reserving a domain name can be part of the project between you and the web developer. Here we advise that the domain be registered in your name and email in addition to your data and contact information as the owner.
This ensures that you have full control over the site’s domain in terms of renewal or change, far from the web developer’s control over it if he registered it for your own account.
Note: In this case, we recommend that you reserve the domain for your website before hiring a web developer. This is to ensure your ownership of the domain and prevent any unwanted control from the web developer if he is the one who reserved it.
Read also: What is a domain (domain name)? A comprehensive explanation for beginners.
Read also: The best sites to buy a domain at an affordable cost
2. Hosting
After completing the process of reserving your domain, you will need to set up hosting for your site. Here we also advise that you set it up yourself in a good hosting company that you trust.
There are many hosting companies that give you the ability to appoint a web developer to access the hosting with a specific authority, and this feature enables you to allow the developer to access the hosting in addition to maintaining your ownership of it.
Thus the web developer can do his work without any control over the domain name and hosting of your website.
Note: If you want to delegate this task to the developer, we recommend here the same behavior as in the domain name, which is to ask the web developer to register the hosting using your email and contact information to prove your ownership and control of both the hosting and the domain.
Read also: What is web hosting and its use for website owners
Read also: The best reliable hosting company and 12 criteria for choosing the best hosting
3. Choose the appropriate rank
One of the most important steps that builds trust between you and prevents the web developer from stealing your data is choosing the appropriate rank for the web developer compared to the task he performs while distributing the powers, whether in the powers of the WordPress ranks or other powers in the powers of the tools that you manage.
For example, if the developer’s task is to edit pages and review some basic information about the site, it is enough to grant him the editor rank.
However, if the developer’s task requires accessing WordPress settings and performing some tasks such as installing plugins, changing and modifying the template, or modifying the website’s code, here he must be granted the rank of Administrator, knowing that this rank has many powers, so you must make sure The credibility and trust of the web developer before appointing him to protect your site and data.
Important note: You must have the highest rank on the site, which is the rank of Administrator in single-site WordPress or Super Admin in multi-site WordPress. Because the highest rank will give you full powers for your site and thus you can appoint the developer according to his task.
Accessing site data or stealing data threatens the security of your site, so you must be careful and take precautions to maintain the site. In this paragraph we will highlight some important questions that will help you maintain your site.
The importance of owning the site’s source code
Your website is like your private home. You need a key to be able to enter the home and make any modifications or improvements to it. Here is an indication that the home key here is the source code of the site.
So it’s important to have a discussion with your web developer about ownership of the site’s source code. And make sure that you fully own the rights to the code, whether the site was built using special programming or even open source programming.
Owning the site’s source code enables you to make any modifications or improvements to your website in the future and without seeking help from this web developer. Or even appoint another web developer to develop the site. So it is important to make sure you have the source code for the site.
Note: Here we recommend that it be agreed that the website owner owns the source code from the beginning in the agreement with his web developer. This is in order to avoid being manipulated by the web developer if he requests it after the project is finished, or even asking for a special fee in exchange for the rights to the source code. Therefore, it must be agreed from the beginning to own the source code for the site.
The role of backup in maintaining the security and ownership of the site
A website backup is a complete copy of your website data. Therefore, the more detailed the copy contains of your site data, the better it is in terms of the degree of security in addition to your own ownership of the site data.
Here we recommend that you make a backup copy of your site in order to protect its data from violation or theft by any hacker. Because it will help you recover the site in the event of a loss or infringement of the site’s data.
Note: Backup management plays an effective role in maintaining the security and ownership of your website’s data. You get an updated copy of all website data.
Therefore, it is preferable to back up your site’s settings and data in order to address any problem in the event of theft or data infringement by untrusted people.
Conclusion
In the end, the digital world today is fraught with risks that threaten entrepreneurs and website owners. Because hiring the wrong web developer can cause major problems like stealing your data, causing website issues and errors, or other disasters that are likely to happen.
So the task of choosing the right web developer is worth it in the beginning. Most importantly, it is important to build trust between you and your web developer.
We hope that we have shed sufficient light on the topic and that presenting the practical experience that website owners go through while hiring web developers has clarified for you the practical steps to be on the safe side.
