The market trends and customer’s demands in Dubai are always changing. The influence of digital channels is increasing day by day. Businesses need to improve all digital touchpoints. The customers in Dubai value digital interaction a lot and often judge a business on the bases of the experiences and interactions they have with them at various touchpoints through different channels. These days mostly the initial interaction between a customer and a brand is through a digital channel. That is why business have to focus a lot on their digital marketing and communication campaigns. A corporate or business website happens to be the center point of all digital efforts and it is one of the most important digital asset a business can have. The business websites are used to attract customers, provide them various services, and generate revenue for businesses and much more. In fact website and all the offering a business is making through its digital channels are extremely crucial for customer experience, customer journey and conversions.
The world have completely changed in the past decade, with the rise of smartphone and internet everyone is spending more time on their computers and smartphones. This has completely evolved the marketing and communication industry. In fact the digital marketing industry have already surpassed the traditional marketing industry and it is still growing at a very rapid pace. This made websites absolute necessity for success. All digital marketing channels whether social media, Google search, PPC/CPC ads, and other campaigns eventually converge at the corporate website. As much as a website is important so is having a good web development company for the gig. In Dubai and all around the UAE there are tons of web designing and development companies. Selecting a proper web development company to develop your website has become a very challenging task. In this blog we will discuss how a business can choose a best web development company in Dubai or any other part of UAE. Here are some key aspects that you should consider while selecting a web development company in Dubai.
Online Reviews and Social Proofs
Online reviews and ratings are one of the most honest opinions customer ever share. These platforms can provide completely unbiased opinion which can be used to evaluate the web development company in Dubai. Majorly the Google business pages and Google reviews are one of the most reliable source of honest customer opinion. Start checking Google and Facebook reviews, as these are usually unbiased and the good thing is that the business can’t even remove them. So, if there is a negative review it will stay visible. It is better to read the reviews thoroughly, sometimes the negative reviews can also highlight a good aspect of the business, so do not just count them but read them. Moreover sometimes businesses try to manipulate the reviews by creating their own review. It is easier to identify such reviews, and mostly these reviews are always at the website. However, it is a good initial step to check the reviews and ratings of the web development company before moving to the next phase.
Along with online reviews the social media presence also matters a lot. Since the web development company is a dealing with digital products and services, hence their digital presence should be good. These days the digital brand image is incomplete without the social media platforms. It is important to check their social media profiles and pages such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. Check how active they are, how responsive they are and how much follows and likes they have. This will provide you a glimpse of their social media popularity. A good web development company always establish good social media profiles and pages. Check for their postings too. What kind of content they are posting, whether they are responding to the fans and followers or not, etc. Such things will give you an idea of the professionalism of the web development company.
Portfolio and Clientele
It is easier to understand that the web development company you chose is a good company if they are proud to display their previous work and portfolio on their website. If a web development company is doing good quality work they will definitely display it at their portfolio page. The portfolio provide you enough samples to understand if the company can meet your needs or not. If their previous work is similar to what you desire or not. It is important to consider the similar work, for example, if you are a local restaurant, check how many websites they already developed for other restaurants. The experience in relevant projects is extremely important. Sometimes a web development company can be excellent in working with certain industries and certain types of businesses, that when it comes to a completely different industry or type of business they might not be able to deliver up to the mark. That is why relevant experience is also important. Portfolio will provide you a complete overview of the level of expertise, creativity and innovation you should expect from the web development company.
Evaluate Their Website
A good web development company always have a great website. It is must for them to display a good craftsmanship with their own corporate website. Evaluate their website in-depth. A website is not only about the design or aesthetics, in fact the content and information equally matters too. Check their content, design, features of the website and overall experience. Another most important thing is the navigational structure of the website. Try to navigate through different pages, categories and sections of the website and evaluate the company on the bases of this experience. If a web design company is offering an excellent experience at their own website, that mean they will be able to deliver good quality work and vice versa. Check their blogs too, see what kind of blogs they are publishing and how these blogs are adding value to user’s experience? Such things will help you finding out a good web development company. Another important aspect is the loading, check how their different web pages are loading. A good loading speed is absolutely essential for a good customer experience.
Check other Trust Markers at their Website
Trust markers are very important and they indicate how professional and strong a brand is. Obviously the trust markers for a web development company in Dubai would be different from the trust markers that we usually seek at the e-Commerce platforms. But the security badges and seals are a great way to evaluate a corporate website. Check for most obvious trust markers which will increase the value of the web development company. For example, their business partners, obviously if a company is offering you web development and web design services they must have been utilizing other services such as hosting or cloud, etc. Check if they are patterned with popular hosting companies such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Cloud, Google Cloud, and any other hosting service provider. These companies only partner with good businesses who also happen to have an adequate amount of customers.
You can also check their about us page and see how impressive their story is, whether they are posting their teams bio on their website or not and similar kind of things. Moreover check for the client testimonials, rewards and accomplishments and such things. These trust markers could be a great indicator of professionalism and high-standards of a web development company in Dubai.
Check their Other Relevant Services
If a company is offering web development services they must be offering several other relevant services such as domain name search engine and registration, hosting and cloud solutions, digital marketing and SEO services, etc. It is important to look up for all the relevant services. Most of the time when a business acquire a web development company to build a brand new website for them they also expect to sign an AMC and SLA with them. The AMC further provide you website maintenance services and the SLA could be taken as a guarantee for good quality work and service. The SLA stands for service level agreement, which means the service provider will be bound to keep your site up for 99% or even 99.99% of uptime. Such services could be very beneficial for the businesses in the long term. You can also require SEO or search engine optimization service in future or you might need to run a digital advertisement campaign in future.
It is important to have a single vendor for all alike needs rather dealing with so many different vendors and service providers. As many relevant services a web development company will be offering as much it could be beneficial for you in future.
Check Their Different Solutions
These days a website is not just an online brochure, in fact it transformed into a very powerful marketing and communication tool which can funnel a huge amount of leads and sales into your marketing funnel. Thus a website requires to be mobile friendly or responsive and completely dynamic. The dynamic websites are the websites which are built on a back office software, commonly known as CMS or content management system. The CMS or the content management system is a very powerful software tool which allow the businesses to regularly update their website, add new pages, edit existing pages, upload new images, videos and content and perform several other website management tasks. In addition to that there are several other tasks that are now a day moved to online and are done through websites. For example, the HR department might need to integrate a job portal within the website which will also require integration with ATS (applicant tracking system) and so on.
Businesses also provide customer portals as well, and some businesses also link several internal processes with the websites and provide their employee online access through employee portals and much more. That is why web development companies offer a variety of solution such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Shopify, etc. and customized CMS. All these services can help businesses integrate more features in their websites and make it more effective and useful. It is important to check which solution they can provide and whether it is compatible with your existing internal digital eco-system or not. A good web development company in Dubai always offer a variety of solutions which can help businesses integrate their websites with other tools and help them achieve greater competitive advantage.
Pricing, Contracts and Agreements
The above criteria can help you short list some of the best web development companies in Dubai, UAE. However, you will have to finalize one, if all companies in your list satisfy above all concerns now is the time for final test. A good web development company in Dubai will never charge you unrealistically. Their price will never too high nor too low. But you still have to negotiate to get the best price. Make sure the cost is just under your designated budget. It is better to keep the cost as low as possible this will provide you extra room for additional features that you might get introduced with during the web development process. Anyway, pricing is a very strong factor. Some companies also make bundle offers, if it suits you opt for it as it is usually very cost effective. However, apart from the pricing the agreements and contracts are also very important. Go through them carefully and highlight any clause that could harm your interest in future. Ask them to provide clear course of action in case of dispute and also financial protection in case of contract termination. These things are very important to consider while selecting a web development company for your website project.
Things to Avoid
Here in Dubai and all around the UAE there are tons of off-shore companies who are very active in the market too. However, it is important to understand that when you are dealing with an off-shore company they are not bound to the local laws and you can never get the protection that local consumer laws provides you. So, avoid off-shore companies at all cost. There are some companies who are not exactly off-shore as they have a registered business in Dubai or somewhere else in UAE however, their entire technical department is situated outside of the UAE. Such companies are not completely off-shore but they are not as that reliable too and above all the project execution and web development could become very hectic due to lag of communication and different time-zones, etc. That is why it is important to avoid them too.
There is another kind of service provider who are freelancers. A freelancer is sometimes a single individual or in some cases a small team who is running a freelance business on popular freelancing website. They will most likely offer you the cheapest price, however the quality of work would be sub-standard and the experience would be unsatisfactory. That is why only a locally established business is the best choice to work with for your web development project.
Conclusion
The continuous change in demand and market trends require a very flexible web development solution which can not only be scaled easily but it can also allow the businesses to keep the information up-to-date without any delay. That is why a dynamic website has become an industry standard these days. When a business decides to develop their corporate website or even if they are revamping an existing website, selecting a good and reliable web development company could be a challenging and quit frustrating task for the managers. The biggest problem in Dubai, UAE is that there are tons of web development and designing companies in Dubai and all around the UAE. Which makes it even more difficult to pick only the best web development company for your needs. In this blog we have highlighted all the important aspects which will help our audience to easily select a best web development company in Dubai. If you still need more information about the subject or if you are interested in our web development services, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.
Check out this: 6 Ways to Make Your Website Look More Trustworthy
