A Guide on Hiring the Perfect Freelance Web Developer for Your Project

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(Newswire.net — July 2, 2021) — Every day, the global online market is becoming more competitive, which makes it more imperative for businesses to stand out from the crowd. 

75% of people believe that they assess the authenticity of any business through its website. This implies that if you run a business and don’t have a website, you should think about having one.

Your website offers the online presence your business needs in a world that is primarily focused on digital media, and it is much more cost-efficient than many conventional means of marketing.

Gone are the days when potential customers waited by the phone for information about your business or walked in and had a chat about your offering. 

Having a digital presence gives exposure to your brand and offers an amazing amount of possibilities for growth.  A great resource is hiring an android app developer, a remote android programmer for your project.

In this guide, we’ll go over everything you need to know about hiring a professional web developer for your website. 

What is a Freelance Web Developer?

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Before we go into detail about how to choose the best developer for your project, it’s critical that you understand what developers do.

A freelance web developer is a professional programmer who, as the name implies, creates, assembles, and codes a website, makes it live, optimizes its performance, and maintains it.

Working with client-side programming languages like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, JQuery, and others, as well as server-side languages like ASP.NET, C, Java, PHP, and Python, are just a few of the technical responsibilities that web developers perform.

How to Find a Good Freelance Developer?

Know What You Want

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Before you look for a freelance web developer to work with, you should have a clear idea of what you’re looking for. 

This should always be the first step. Do you need to change the pictures on a website? Do you need a whole new website? Is there a problem with your analytics? Do you need the creation of a new tool?

The answers to any of these questions will influence how you begin your search and who you employ in the end.

If you need a whole website created, it’s better to have a rough idea of what you want it to look like. It’s OK if you can’t think of all the specifics; having a rough draft will greatly assist the web developer and will save you a lot of time.

Create a mockup using Photoshop or one of the numerous online tools available, such as Balsamiq, Adobe XD, Mockplus, and others.

If you already have a website and need modifications, make a list. For example, if you wish to add new features to your website, create a list of what you’d want to include. 

Remember that if you don’t know precisely how you want them to appear, the website designer may always provide ideas.

Look for Specific Technical Skills

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To begin, you must first choose the skills your developer must have.  

These are some examples of essential coding skills for every competent freelance web developer, particularly in front-end development:

  • HTML/HTML5
  • CSS/CSS3
  • JavaScript 
  • Common CSS/JS libraries: jQuery, Bootstrap

It’s good if your freelance web developer has command over one of the frameworks listed below, as well as an understanding of the distinctions between them:

  • React
  • Angular
  • Vue.js

In a back-end developer, look for the following skills:

  • Python (Flask/Django)
  • Ruby (Ruby on Rails)
  • PHP (Laravel/Symfony)
  • JavaScript (Node.js / Express)

You’ll need at least some technical knowledge of what you want to be created, as well as a clear vision of the features you want in your website. 

It’s also crucial to know the languages and frameworks your developer will require for your project. 

For example, if you need to create an e-commerce website, a PHP programmer is your best option. On the other hand, if you want to create an interactive online application, you’ll need someone who knows JavaScript and Node.js.

Don’t Forget to Look for These Soft Skills

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While technical skills are key, soft skills are important too. 

Making a list of qualities or characteristics for your ideal freelance web developer is a smart approach to narrow down your search for the right freelancer for your project.

Qualities to look for in a freelance web developer include:

Ability to work to a brief: Because you and your freelance web developer are seldom in the same room, let alone the same country, being able to work to a brief and autonomously without supervision is critical.

Awareness of the emerging online trends: No one wants an outdated website. It’s good to hire a freelance web developer that is passionate about the current online trends is critical since it enables you to build an original and forward-thinking website.

Willingness to study and update their skills: Having a freelance web developer who is continuously upgrading their skills and eager to learn is essential since it gives you access to someone who is on top of their game and capable of doing cutting-edge and progressive jobs. 

Knowledge of SEO: Your freelance web developer should be an SEO king and have a strong emphasis on SEO in web creation. For websites, ranking high in search engines is the Holy Grail, and your developer should be familiar with SEO’s latest trends.

Best Place to Find Freelancer Web Developers

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The two best ways to hire a freelance web developer are to use freelance marketplaces like TaskShift, UpWork, Toptal, and others, or to hire a digital firm. 

Of course, this is dependent on the scope of your project. Hiring a freelancer is preferable for small projects with a limited budget but, if you have a handsome budget and require a website created from the ground up, a digital agency might be a better choice.

1. TaskShift

TaskShift is an affordable and trustworthy site where you can hire a freelance web developer. On this platform, the freelancers make their professional profiles, post their skills and portfolio, and you can look at these offers and approach them if you think their skills match your needs.

The platform has a search engine and freelancers from all around the world have an option for ratings and reviews and offers secure payment features.

2. Upwork

UpWork is a good site for hiring a freelance web developer. It is a big job portal with an easy-to-use interface.

This saves all your documents and messages, and freelancers may use a time tracker to let the website know how long they’ve been working on a project.

UpWork also offers tests for web developers to take in order to have their HTML, JavaScript, and CSS abilities assessed. 

Their ratings may assist you in deciding whether or not to employ them. You may look for individuals who have done well in these skill tests.

3. Toptal

Toptal is another site where you can hunt for freelance web developers. It offers an exclusive network with just the best 3% of freelancing talent. 

Only the most experienced specialists are allowed to apply as freelancers following a 5-step screening procedure, with just 26.4% passing the first stage and only 3% remaining after the final.

Hence, hiring via them ensures that you will be working with someone who is competent.

However, such sites offer limited talent and fail to offer the services of beginner to expert level freelancers. 

4. Crossover

Crossover is yet another hiring platform for individuals seeking long-term or full-time employment (40 hr. per week). The client will be charged 10% by Crossover and will be provided with teams of 4-5 developers.

From technical assistance to chief architects, there is a great pool of technical talent.

To guarantee that only the finest talent is hired, the recruiting process is complicated: successful application via hiring events, testing, interviews, background checks, and so on.

A development team typically costs about $125 per hour. The rates for various developers vary from $10 per hour to $400 per hour.

Digital Agencies 

The second method to hire a web developer is to search for digital firms on Google. They are dependable, have ratings and portfolios on their websites, and may offer a resource you want to build you a website from the ground up, maintain it, and make constant modifications.

They have web developers, web designers, and SEO specialists on staff, and they specialize in search engine and pay-per-click marketing, as well as social media marketing and a variety of other services.

A digital firm may build your website from the ground up, develop content for it, and manage your marketing campaigns. However, going for a digital company might be very expensive, especially if you’re just a startup.

Conclusion

Hence, we learned that there are many options for hiring a web developer from unreliable solutions like social media and local websites to better options, such as freelance websites and digital agencies. 

Before you employ anybody, we suggest that you first determine what modifications need to be made to your website and, if you need a complete website, create a prototype of how you want it to appear.

We hope this post has been helpful in your search for a web developer, and that you have discovered what you’re searching for!