Part 2 of 6 :: The first meeting with the website contractor

At this meeting you can inspect their workplace and answer for yourself the following questions: Are they organised? Are they stressed? Do their colleagues/staff appear to be in control? Is their equipment neat and clean?
-If the contractor is going to help make your business a success it is important they are on top of things. Success breeds success.

The first meeting!

The first meeting is important for both parties to become acquainted and find out if there is a 'gel'. This relationship will be a long-term one with a lot of communication back and forth so a chemistry is important. Be realistic in this approach, it may take one or two meetings with different contractors to find that 'gel', not all websites are the same and neither are the people that build them.

What to discuss first

Talk the contractor through your business history and your future business goals. If you have a business plan present it to them at this time. From their experience with the internet they may see roadblocks you don't and offer advice and direction on bringing your business online. By now the contractor will more than likely be excited and may divert off into the land of 'php', 'mysql', 'xhtml' and other acronyms, this will be important later - but for now keep leading the conversation back to your business goals (your target market and financial targets for example).

What to discuss second

Pricing: A big mistake is to ask for a price straight away - this can cause problems as the contractor later sits down and works out figures. They may give a number off the top of their head and regret it later, causing regret and irritation on both sides.

For now, appeal to their experience and ask them what type of timeframe they have in mind and how many staff they think they may need on the project. From here you can gauge for yourself some idea of project costs.

Content: Ask them what thoughts they have in terms of photographers or copywriters you might need and if they are happy for you to type your own content. Using copywriters on a website can be costly (though definitely worth it).

Note: If you would like to write your own content, you will need to be organising your content rapidly. An excellent method is via 'card sorting', click here to download the pdf
Websites need a lot of images and the contractor will be asking for them quite soon after a project's commencement. Some questions for organising images:
- Do I need to scan photos for the website?
- Will these images need retouching once scnanned? Can the contractor provide this service?
- Do I need a photographer? Can the contractor recommend one?
- Do I need to buy professional-quality images? (www.dreamstime.com and www.bokelberg.com are excellent)

What to discuss third

Now there is a general project overview underway it is time to talk about website domain names, emails and hosting.
Some questions for your website domain name, emails etc:
- *Can the contractor provide website hosting?
- What are the general yearly website hosting prices for a website like yours?
- Can the contractor register a domain name for you? (If you have done this yourself be sure to have the registration information printed and nearby)
- If you are developing an e-commerce website can the contractor setup the SSL security packages for you?

* We recommend www.directenergynow.com website hosting.

The next step is the receival of quotation/proposal from your potential contractor and we will be covering what specifically needs to be in their quotation/proposal and some important questions to ask in Part 3: Website legalities and critical points to be covered before signing a website development contract.