Web Development Company Risks: How To Avoid Common Ones

Now more than ever, it’s critical for businesses to have an online presence. Not having a website in 2022 will most likely jeopardize your company’s growth, no matter your industry.

Finding a web development company that understands your vision and can help bring it to life is not as easy as it may seem at first. This process takes some time and resources.

Often, clients aren’t familiar with the process and everything it involves, they don’t know if they should look for developers that work in a specific language such as Javascript, or PHP, or if they should let the vendor decide. All of this leads to frustration on both sides.

Before venturing into the unknown, you should be aware of possible risks you might encounter. In this guide, we’ll explore the most common ones and talk about how you can prevent them.

Missing a Deadline

Sometimes, web development agencies miss deadlines. It’s not fun when it happens but it does. There are a lot of reasons why this happens, including incorrect planning, miscommunication, and inadequate team management. More often than not, this is out of your control, but we understand how frustrating it can be.

To mitigate this risk and ensure the developers don’t miss project deadlines, you should set up a regular delivery schedule. This ensures your web development agency delivers a usable demo of working code for you to test out. Having a regular delivery schedule helps you see tangible progress on your project and helps you see in advance if the development is on the path to missing a deadline.

Going Over the Budget

Usually, web development projects are planned and budgeted to include all costs. However, almost any project involves some kind of unexpected challenge that the developers need to solve. Sometimes, the time and manpower required to overcome these challenges can also push the labor costs.

The best way to minimize this type of risk is to set the maximum cost limits for the web dev project. Both you as the client and the web development agency should come up with an agreement that includes proper specification and architecture.

Under-Delivering the Project

Probably one of the biggest website development company risks clients face is failing to meet the requirements and under-delivering the project. This can happen because of numerous reasons and it's not always the vendor's fault. Sometimes, the client has envisioned something completely different from what the vendor produces, while other times, the vendor isn’t able to deliver on their promise.

To mitigate this risk, you and the development team need to have a clear vision of the final web product, all of its features, and how it will function. All of this should be covered in detail by the scope of work that both sides agree on.

Poorly Skilled Developers

While this may be the last on our list, it’s not the least important website development company risk. Hiring a skilled web dev team for your project may be harder than it looks at first. You may not know what type of development you need, where and how to find them, and how much they cost.

To prevent this from happening, you first need to understand the business goals of your project and how the developers can help you achieve them. The more specific you are, the better the outcome will be. Next, you need to pick an engagement model that works for you. Finally, you should be prepared to devote some time to hire the right company.

Whether it’s searching online for companies that sound interesting or browsing a platform with pre-vetted companies, this will take a bit of effort.

Tips for Minimizing Risks In Your Website Development Project

As you've seen so far, a huge majority of web development projects carry some sort of risk. However, there are still general de-risking tips you can apply to your web development project to ensure things go as smoothly as possible.

Start With a Detailed Brief

Many successful web development projects have one thing in common: they all started with a detailed and properly defined brief. When writing the brief, it needs to cover everything you expect out of the web development agency you plan on hiring.

The brief needs to be clear, concise, and easy to read. It should include the description of the client, the project overview and goals, the website's target audience, any competitors, design specs, budget, schedule, and the project deliverables.

Pick the Right Vendor

Whether it’s a freelancer or a web dev team, the last thing you want is to end up with a vendor that has no experience in your market and doesn't understand what you need. Find an agency whose work you enjoy and that can be there for you in the long run.

Document Your Project Plan

After you’ve struck a deal with the agency, you need to come up with the project plan. The project plan documents all your ideas and objectives in detail and helps turn them into specific deliverables you both can agree on.

Get To Know the Project Team

Getting to know the web development team you will be working on your project will help you start developing great working relationships from the start. Make sure you agree on the best possible communication channels, to help avoid any misunderstandings down the line.

Also, try to come up with a preferred frequency and methods for delivering project updates. This will help you both with knowing exactly what to expect from each other.

Establish Internal Responsibilities

In addition to establishing working relationships and proper channels with the vendor, you also need to establish who in your team will be responsible for approvals and sign-offs. Not being proactive when it comes to giving feedback can harm the project.

Conclusion

In this day and age, it’s almost impossible to do a risk-free web development project. There are too many variables that can change at any time. Still, many of these risks can be significantly reduced or even eliminated by picking the right vendor, having realistic expectations, and taking all the necessary precautions.

Who knows, what started as a one-off web development project can quickly turn into a long-term partnership.

Website Development Company Risks FAQs:

Here are the answers to the most common questions about website development company risks.

Q1: What Are the Mistakes Web Development Companies Make?

The most prominent mistakes web development agencies make include:

• Not setting rules and boundaries — which can lead to long meetings and decision rounds about irrelevant details.
• Not having a contract — making things unclear and not being sure what each of the sides expects from the other one.
• Delivering a final design that isn't effective and systematic — ending up with a website that is not responsible and that has terrible UX
• Not being adaptable, — taking too long to respond and struggling with change, according to wiredelta.com.

Q2: What Are 10 Web Design Mistakes?

The ten web design mistakes are: websites that take too long to load, that aren't mobile-friendly, have poor design, don't have CTA buttons, SEO, and the right information. Other mistakes include issues with fonts, old content, too prominent links to social media, and insecure sites, according to hostpapa.com

Q3: What Are Five Critical Web Dev Issues?

Marutitech says the five critical web dev issues are:

• UI and UX — unresponsive websites that frustrate or confuse the visitors, or are otherwise difficult to navigate
• Scalability — not load balancing the websites between the servers, leading to bad performance
• Performance — generally, dealing with a slow website can be a huge issue for website visitors
• Security — any website that isn’t designed to be safe against security concerns can be a potentially huge problem for both the visitors and the business
• Not knowing platforms and frameworks — not understanding which platform or framework is best for each website can create all sorts of problems during the development and after the site is launched