@DuneSurfer
I'm sure you'll get a lot of responses on this to your email.
For anyone out there looking for a developer for your website, here are some suggestions:
- Don't rush to hire the first person that gives you a low-price. Remember that you get what you pay for and that's absolutely true when it comes to web design.
- Do your research on the developer. Ask them questions. PRO-TIP: A good developer will ask you a bunch of questions before ever asking for any money or agreeing to the job because they must develop a scope of work for the project in order to give your a real price for the service.
- Always manage the developer's access to your accounts. Make sure you have backups of your site daily while they're working on it. Don't give them your payment information. If they don't have a payment portal of some sort where you can securely give them their payment, don't do it! Find someone else.
- Never let the developer build on the live site. They should always build on a staging site. If they don't know what a staging site is, find someone else. (Note: if you're having a site built from scratch, you don't have a live site yet.)
- Give them a deadline. If they can't do it, a real developer will tell you so and they will tell you why.
- Stay in contact. You're not being annoying. You're a customer who's paid for a service. If they give excuses why they can't give you updates on a schedule you define, then they're both unprofessional and/or lazy.
Just a few tips. I hope you find someone. Good luck!
