How to choose between a website developer and an agency

When you’re trusting your website to a professional for the design and build, it can be overwhelming to choose the setup of what to look for. If you’ve been around business owners you’ll know that almost everyone will have a website nightmare and website success story and often the solutions that have worked for them, have been unique. That’s to say, individual to that person’s website.

I setup This Demanding Life a decade ago and in that time I’ve seen so brilliant practices by developers and agencies and some, not just questionable, but downright appalling ones. Here I’m going to share with you what questions to ask, what to look out for, and how to identify what may be the best setup for your website build.

Ok, I know this is a big question to start off with but it will determine whether you’re a better fit to an agency or a developer and what type of product you can expect from your budget.

If you haven’t given budget any thought at all, or you were hoping the agency/developer would tell you the budget, you’re leaving yourself wide open. That’s wide open to be ripped off or to be speaking to and spending time with developers or agencies whom you can’t afford. The upshot of this is that you’ll end up feeling dissatisfied with the options which are available to you.

How much are you comfortable investing in your website?

Up to £1000 - look to working with either independent developers or agencies who specialise in low-cost websites. This is a good budget for a start-up website.

Up to £3000 - this is a good budget for working with independent developers or a low cost agency website. You can use the budget to invest in custom branding, a copywriter and a brand photoshoot.

Up to £5000 - You should get great results working with an independent, experienced developer, also use the budget for branding, copywriting and branding photoshoot.

Up to £10,000 - This would be a great budget for one of the smaller agencies. It will also accommodate copywriting, branding and brand photo-shoot, just check the software the agency uses and whether you own/manage the website yourself once it goes live.

Each developer or agency will have their own setup for how they onboard clients, the workflow and communication process and how they off board when the website goes live.

How much you enjoy the website experience is going to depend on choosing a setup that’s suited to you. If you work with an independent developer then the chances, in 90% of the cases, is that you’ll be working directly with them. If they’re busy, they may have a white labeller build the website, but the project will still be overseen by the original developer.

It’s a lot of questions, I know, but a website build is no small undertaking and it’s much better to get it right the first time, than feel frustrated with the experience you had and the money you spent, further down the line.

You’re much more likely to get this when working with an independent designer/developer or a smaller agency. Make sure to ask them if you’ll be working with the same person throughout, (bigger agencies tend to have a sales team who sign you up then you don’t see them again and are left with a project manager/developer directly).

Ask what their workflow is, when you can expect to hear from them.

I like to work collaboratively with clients, to take on board their ideas and incorporate them into the design. With this in mind, this is what the process looks like:

And this is what the workflow looks like.

If you’re looking to hand everything over and be wow’d by the website at the end of it, then working with an agency could be the right call for you. A lot of agencies use templates for their work and you may even choose the website template with the sales person then sit back and wait for the magic to happen.

I’m going to try to keep this as jargon free as possible because I know it’s absolutely no fun reading a load of stuff you know nothing about and will only ever affect one part of your business.

The major website platforms are:

WordPress

Shopify

SquareSpace

Wix

Magento

Drupal

Joomla

In most cases you’ll have heard of the first 4. I won’t go into detail about the last 3 because they’re not very popular and for that reason I don’t recommend you use an agency or developer who builds with them as the support and resources will be limited.

This is the most popular software on the market with over 67% of websites being built using it. It’s robust, flexible, suits all skillsets and most developers and agencies will choose it. If you’d like to know more about WordPress you can read this blog post I wrote for our Simply Sites range: Why we choose WordPress for our websites.

This platform is particularly great for people who would like to make a lot of online sales of physical products. You can connect it to drop shipping if you’d like it to go straight from a warehouse without having to pack it yourself, or you can use it for stock you hold.

SquareSpace can be a good budget solution to getting your website found online. With relatively flexible templates and was of use, you can build a stylish website using SquareSpace tools.

Wix is template driven website aimed at beginners. They start with free options then offer different packages depending on what you want from your website.

If you’d like our thoughts on template websites, you can read them in this Simply Sites blog post: Why we don’t do template websites.

In my opinion, WordPress is almost always the right choice for a business website and if not, I would recommend Shopify.

Given that I’m a WordPress developer, most agencies use WordPress and, if you’re looking for a website for your business, you’ll most likely end up using WordPress, I’m going to concentrate the software info on WordPress solutions.

When having a website build it WordPress your website will also need a theme and plugins. The theme provides the tools and styling for your website and plugins allow for functionality. There are hundreds of thousands of themes and even more plugins.

Elementor

Divi
Avada

Breakdance

Beaver Builder

As these are premium themes and builders they’ll need to be licensed. Avada offers lifetime licensing of 1 license per website. The others all offer different pricing models allowing agencies to build multiple websites with their software for an annual, or one-off fee.

It’s important to know why the developer has chosen their specific software, for example, many developers choose Elementor because the basic version is free. Some developers use it because it’s open source software meaning they can build code on top of it. Many agencies or developers will use Divi because it has a lifetime license for $249 for unlimited websites, making the cost-per use low. I personally use Avada, it’s a lot more expensive having to license it per site, but, in my opinion, it has the best tools without the need for a lot of additional plugins.

I’m all for developers, whether working individually, or for an agency, to work in the software which suits their skillset best, but it’s important you know how the website will be licensed. Will the agency be paying the licensing fees? Will it be included in the cost of the build? Will there be ongoing fees for you to pay once the site is built, or if you move the website away from the agency hosting?

Once you’ve determined the theme your website is likely to be built in, and why, it’s important to know what plugins the developer or agency is likely to use.

Advanced Custom Fields is one of the most popular plugins because it allows us to create fields and groups and simplify the website process for clients. For example, want to add an event or a team member? ACF is your friend here. While the basic version is free, the pro version has ongoing, annual costs.

There are plugins to optimise (speed up) the website, plugins to extend the functionality of contact forms, plugins for booking classes or creating directories. You name it, there’s a plugin for it. On the one hand, this is great. It means you can do anything you like with a website, want to make it into the next Amazon? No problem. Looking for a high end real estate design? Plugins have got you. However, and it’s a big one, plugins can be expensive, with annual costs leading into the £100s, they’re also coded by teams who are separate to the WordPress theme developers so you can have plugin conflicts, and clashes, breaking websites and making them vulnerable to hackers and malware.

Independent developers are much more likely to streamline the plugins they use on a website, only using what’s completely necessary and ditching the rest.

Larger agencies are known for layering plugins, sometimes purely because they have an agency/unlimited websites pricing model, onto websites, without really accounting for what the plugin does and the value it brings to the website. Often larger agencies will over complicate a website so it daunts the client and they feel they can never move away from their support because the setup is so complicated. Smaller agencies don’t tend to do this so much.

Often it comes down to values and to volume. Smaller agencies are often born out of a developer or designer becoming brilliant at what they do and having more demand than they can cope with, so they bring in associates and train others to give a fully rounded service. Larger agencies often focus on volume, They’ll most likely have a sales team to win the projects then a team of developers who may be quite new to the industry or just focus on coding without necessarily paying attention to the needs of the client. This is often where websites can become quite tangled up. They also have a reputation for restricting admin access to a client’s website forcing them to use the agency every time they want to make a change to the site.

Larger agencies can be a great solution for bigger companies who have a sizeable budget and don’t want to have the day to day hassle of managing the website. Instead they’d rather send off any updates and leave it with the agency to do them.

If you’re a small or micro business, you’re unlikely to have a brilliant experience using one of the larger agencies and, depending on budget, either a solo developer or a small agency is a better option for you.

If you’re just starting out then either a solo developer or a micro agency (of less than 5 people) could be a great option for your budget and having the time to walk you through the steps you need to help your website to be successful.

Of course, it also comes down to personal choice and who you feel you have a good rapport with.

Whether you’re planning on engaging an agency or a solo developer there are other things you need to look out for.

As well as having a good working relationship, you want to know that the website is going to perform well. There are 2 ways you want it to do this:

1. Meet Google and other search engines requirements to be fast, search engine optimised, accessible and mobile responsive.
2. Bring in enquiries/sell products and services.

Meeting search engine requirements is a basic skill all developers need to have, but not many do. When asking about their experience and portfolio you can ask to see the results of websites they've built. I run a website test and share it with clients when the website goes live, but I also test the website repeatedly during the build to make sure it’s hitting the goals search engines require. A developer should be able to give you the stats on their website, or you can put the URL into: https://pagespeed.web.dev/ and see for yourself. You’re not looking for scores to necessarily be 100 in every category, but you are looking for it to be in the 90s.

With the second expectation of bringing in enquiries and making sales, this will depend on the material you give the website developer to work with. Professionally written copy, professionally created branding, and photography taken by a brand photographer (don’t be tempted to use your wedding/newborn/product photographer here) will go a long way to engaging your potential clients and convincing them that you’re the person to work with/buy from.

Sometimes you’ll only know how well something suits you once you’re in it. This post will help you choose what kind of setup; individual developer, small agency or large agency is right for you and your website. If you’d like to talk about whether we would be a good fit working together on your website, you can book a free, no obligation call with me, using the button below.