Planning to launch your business website in the UAE? You need a web development partner that understands the nature of your business, your short and long-term goals and is ready to invest time and energy in your vision for your website. And in UAE, there are hundreds and thousands of web developers who work on super generic to specific and niched down business websites. So, how do you choose the one that’s right for your business? To help you team up with the best web development company in Dubai, here is a quick guide that navigates you through assessing the technical expertise to monitoring the KPIs of development.
How to hire the best web development company in Dubai
Here is everything you need to ensure and assess when signing the development contract with a website development company.
● Technical expertise
Before you get to evaluate the technical expertise of a web developer in Dubai, you need to gather your website requirements including:
- the platform you wish to use for web development e.g. HTML CSS or ready-made website builders
- the goals of your website, for example, lead generation, content distribution, portfolio showcase, event booking and appointments, online sales and digital payment etc.
- the timeline of website development, e.g. your plans to launch within 3 months or 6 months or so.
Based on your requirements, look for technical experts in either WordPress and WooCommerce, or custom website development with Shopify integrations, etc.
● Niche experience
Seek a company with experience in your industry. Their familiarity with your audience and market challenges will be invaluable in crafting a website that speaks directly to your target customers. Niche knowledge is all the more relevant and important if you are building a website in healthcare, real estate, legal, auto or organic skincare niches.
● Portfolio
A portfolio is your window into their expertise. Prioritize projects showcasing similar complexity and functionality to your desired website. Look for positive client testimonials and industry recognition as indicators of past success.
● Testimonials
Word-of-mouth recommendations carry weight. Seek firsthand accounts from past clients to understand their experience, communication level, and project outcomes. Trust in their experience can build your own confidence in choosing the right partner.
The best way to research for their social proof is to go to their LinkedIn pages and search for endorsements of the team. You can also check their ratings on independent review platforms like Clutch, GoodFirms, Design Rush, Crunchbase and TrustPilot.
● Project management
Some of the best web development companies in Dubai follow agile approaches and methodologies. This means they build a feature, then test it rigorously before moving to the next. While this approach is most modern and suitable, this will require you to stay on top of your development KPIs by testing, sharing feedback and ensuring communication timely.
● Hiring arrangements
There are typically three hiring arrangements that you’ll find in Dubai. First in in-house recruitment – but it will not be ideal in your case if you are planning a small-scale web development process to begin with.
The second two hiring arrangements are staff augmentation and project outsourcing. In both of these models you pay an hourly rate according to development hours decided beforehand.
In project outsourcing, the company’s technical lead oversees the development progress and the project manager coordinates the same with you.
In staff augmentation, you have to act as the technical lead and project manager – unless you handpick individuals for these roles too.
Once you have assessed all these factors and shortlisted companies based on your preferences, compare the quotes – and strike a fine balance between pricing, quality of design and development services and timelines for completion.
How to work with a web development company in Dubai
After signing the web development contract that comes with a non-disclosure agreement, it’s time to monitor the development process.
● Project communication
The project process starts from discovery where the team decides a website’s features and creates wireframes to understand the journey within the app. Then the wireframes go for branding and design, front and backend development, testing and launch.
Throughout this time, stay connected about new changes and project updates. Especially in case of changes in scope of work, coordinate with your team if such changes affect the budget and timelines.
● KPIs
Web development companies typically create level of effort documents before starting work on a website. Project managers create KPI schedules and exhibits in these documents to stay on track. You too can use those exhibits to stay updated about KPI completion.
● Testing
Once all the KPIs are complete, test the complete website for leading time, performance, traffic handling and data privacy. Make sure the website is mobile responsive and adjusts to different screens in real-time to provide optimum user experience.
You can also use free tools like GTMetrix and Google Page Speed Insights to audit the loading time and technical performance of your website.
● Launching
In addition, the technical specifications, smooth loading and high-end performance of each feature and functionality on the website, three more actions are required before a website goes live.
Firstly, you need to create social media pages of your business, so the same can be added on your website. Think about Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn handles of your business.
Secondly, recheck if all the content on your website – textual and visual – is optimized for search engines. Make sure to add relevant keywords for your region in the content. Add at least 2 pieces of blog articles in the content section of your website. Also, optimize the images by decreasing their overall file size and adding alt text as captions.
Third action is to ensure that all the pages on your website have metadata: meta tags and descriptions. Ask your developer to add them through the schema. Also recheck if there is any dummy text on your website. Once all of these checks are done, your website is ready to go live.
Conclusion
So, this detailed guide on hiring and working with the best web development company in Dubai for your business project concludes here. Make sure to hire and work with an alpha team that gives you return on your investment, stays committed throughout and meets the deadlines.
