How to choose a contractor for website development

Choosing a contractor determines not only how the site will look but its functionality, its conversion rate, and how much you'll end up paying over the following years of support. A mistake at this stage costs more than it appears to during negotiations, because it doesn't show up straight away.

Four types of studio

• Design studios — produce the look of a site quickly and cheaply, but usually don't handle deep technical work or SEO.

• Branding agencies — strong on identity and positioning; a website is often a side task for them rather than their main specialism.

• Specialist studios — build complete sites including the technical and SEO side.

• Full-service agencies — cover design, development and marketing in one place, which is convenient for coordination but doesn't always mean an equally high level in every discipline at once.

What to look at beyond the portfolio

• Whether the contractor asks about the business and the target audience, or moves straight to discussing design and deadlines.

• Whether analysis and a specification are part of the process, or development starts with no preliminary stage.

• How acceptance criteria are worded — specifically and measurably, or in generalities like "the site will be fast and convenient".

• What happens after launch — whether support exists, and on what terms it's provided.

• Who owns the code, the admin access and the data once the project is complete.

A portfolio matters, but doesn't decide everything

A portfolio shows aesthetics and general execution, but doesn't answer whether the process itself will be comfortable, how well the contractor keeps to deadlines, or how they behave when something in the project goes off plan. Reviews and case studies are worth reading not only on the contractor's own site but on independent platforms.

Red flags

• Willingness to name an exact price and deadline before the tasks and scope have been discussed.

• No written contract or specification.

• Reluctance to put acceptance criteria in measurable terms.

• Refusal to hand over the code and access once the work is paid for.

Why a contract and a specification protect both sides

A clear specification and a contract with defined stages protect the client from poor execution, and equally protect the contractor from a scope that keeps expanding without extra payment. A contractor who proposes formalising this at the start is usually planning for a long relationship rather than a one-off project.

If you're comparing several proposals and aren't sure what to look at first, we can go through the specific quotes with you and show what actually stands behind them.