The global market is becoming more and more competitive every day and it is estimated that there will be almost a billion global digital buyers by the end of 2019. What this means is that if you own a business and don’t have a website, you should probably consider getting one.
If you don’t have the knowledge to do it, don’t worry, because there are millions of web developers out there waiting to work with you. But how do you go about hiring a web developer?
Today, we are bringing you the easiest ways of hiring the right web developer, so let’s get started.
What should you do before hiring a web developer?
Before you start roaming the internet looking for a web developer, it is important that you first know exactly what you need them to do. This is an important step because it will help you in the process of hiring.
If you need a whole website built, it’s good to know what you want it to look like. It’s okay if you can’t come up with all the details, having a rough draft is useful, it will immensely help the web developer you hire and it will save you a ton of time and money you would have used trying to come up with a design with them. Make a mockup using Photoshop or one of the many online tools like Balsamiq, Adobe XD, Mockplus and many more.
If you already have a website and need some changes done, make a list of them. Similarly, if you want to add some new things to your website, make a list of them, as well. If you don’t know exactly what you want them to look like, remember, the web designer can always give you suggestions.
Where to go to find web developers for hire?
There are multiple ways to go about hiring a web developer, and some are more reliable than others, so let’s look at them:
How to hire a web developer over Social media
If you go to Facebook and search ‘web developer’, you will get a variety of groups, people, and links that will take you to websites where you can hire web developers. If you click on the groups, you will see web developers posting about themselves, their skills and rates.
This is not a great way to hire someone, because there are often no reviews (and if there are, they’re likely not reliable), so I would advise against using it.
Websites where you can find freelancers
There are dozens of websites where you can go and search for freelancers. Most of them are very detailed and contain freelancers’ portfolios, skill sets, rates, reviews, but also different kinds of administrations to make sure that whoever you hired is working during the time you’re paying them for and milestones that they need to complete in order for you to pay them for it. These are especially useful because they enable you to rest easy so you don’t have to be worried about getting scammed.
Sites that are free to use
There are always local websites and forums, where freelancers from your area can post about their skills and experience. It is great that they’re completely free to use, but they lack in a multitude of departments: they don’t have any kinds of administration, any information that the freelancers might post is not guaranteed to be correct, also they can easily fake reviews and get friends to vouch for them.
Literally, anyone could write anything, fool you into thinking they’re an expert, demand money in advance and run away with said money. They could charge you hourly and spend most hours doing nothing because these websites don’t have a way to show you their screens.
I warmly suggest caution when using these, unless someone you know has already worked with a freelancer who marketed themselves on a local website and they tell you that they had a great experience.
Freelancer websites where you pay for certain features – places to hire a web developer
The thing with these websites is that they will charge you a certain amount once you find a freelancer using their service. Searching for people to hire and posting about the job is completely free, but the fee you will be charged for hiring someone ranges from 5% – 15%.
This might seem like a lot and like an extra thing to pay for, but these websites also have great features that help you a ton: they grant you access to freelancers all around the globe, they have reviews and ratings for freelancers that their previous employers gave them so you can see how good their work is, they have tools that can help you organize the messages you receive and files that you send, and maybe most importantly, payment management.
How to hire a web developer? – Two best ways to do it!
In our opinion, the two best ways of hiring a web developer are either by using websites such as UpWork, Fiverr, Toptal, and others and by hiring a digital agency. This, of course, depends on the size of your project, so for smaller projects, it is better to hire a freelancer, but if you need a website built from scratch, a digital agency would probably be a better option.
Websites such as UpWork, Fiverr, Toptal and others
1. How to hire a web developer on UpWork?
According to many websites, this is the best site for hiring a freelance web developer. UpWork is a huge job portal with good and easy to use the system. They save all your documents and messages and have a feature where the freelancers activate a time tracker, so the website can track for how long they’re working on a project.
Another great thing UpWork has is that it takes screenshots of their monitors every few minutes, to make sure they’re actually working on their projects.
You won’t have to worry about paying them for nothing. They also have a milestone manager, where the freelancer will get paid after they complete certain tasks, depending on the agreement you have.
UpWork also has tests, so the web developers can take them and get their HTML, JavaScript and CSS skills evaluated. Their scores can help you decide if you want to hire them. Depending on whether you need HTML or CSS coding, you can search for people who have scored high on these tests.
2. Hiring web developer using Toptal
This website is an exclusive network and has the top 3% of freelance talent. They allow only the biggest experts to apply as freelancers in a 5-step screening process, where only 26.4% pass the first step and only 3% remain after the last, hence the name.
They make sure that anyone who is on their website is capable of completing any task, so hiring someone through them is guaranteed to be someone highly capable. I imagine the rate of those designers is pretty high, which is probably why most large companies use Toptal.
3. Hire a website developer over Fiverr
This is another website where you can hire freelance web developers. They don’t have a traditional approach though: here, the freelancers post about what kind of jobs they want to do, and you can look at these jobs and contact them in case they match with what you need to be done.
Fiverr has a search engine, has freelancers from the whole world, features ratings and reviews, and has secure payment.
Digital agencies – places to find professional web developers
Looking up digital agencies on Google is the second-best way of finding a web developer. They are reliable, feature reviews and portfolios on their websites and are what you need if you want someone to make you a website from scratch and then continue to manage it and make necessary changes.
They have not only web developer experts, but also web designers, SEO experts, they specialize in search engine and pay-per-click marketing, as well as social media marketing and a dozen more services.
A digital agency can create a website from scratch, write content for your website, and run ad campaigns for you. If you need a website with a full package, a digital agency is a right choice.
Conclusion
The ways of hiring a web developer are numerous, there are unreliable solutions like social media and local websites, but also the better ones, such as paid freelancer websites and digital agencies. Before you hire anyone, we recommend you first decide what changes you need to be done on your website, and if you need a whole website, make a mockup of what you would want your website to look like.
Hopefully, this article has helped you in your web developer hiring journey and we hope you find what you’re looking for!
