It may be late, I may have been drinking, and yes it may have been a long day, but whether it’s the booze talking or a general dissatisfaction with the notion of imperfection, there are some basic ground rules we like to follow with any new client to ensure that their new website is as incredible and mind-blowing as it can be. Let us begin:

1. Money dictates (almost) everything

Whether you’ve enquired with fifty different agencies about creating you a new website or you’re comparing the subscription fees of Squarespace to Shopify, financials always come into play. And, from the design and development perspective, the golden piece of wisdom is not to expect and Audi when you have only budget for a Toyota.

But what’s the difference between an Audi and a Toyota when it comes to websites? The most direct answer is simply customisation. The less the website is customised, the less it will cost you. Using themes and pre-built templates is a sure-fire way to keep costs down while if you were hoping to incorporate animations and movement across your site, best start reaching into those pockets.

Another helpful piece of advice is this, web developers are not used car salespersons, they’re smart individuals that have the experience to know how long it will take to complete your requirements, so trust in the process and keep that in mind when they send their next invoice.

2. Testing is everything

Let us do the maths, with around 7 billion people in the world and over 1,000 differing electronic devices and browsers available to access the web, there is a ton of ways your website can appeared messed up. Consequently, if there is one thing we’ve learnt in the world of www’s and html’s, it’s that testing is by far the most basic yet effective method to ensuring a good night’s sleep. There are plenty of tools out there that offer a simple approach to testing a website across different platforms and browsers, such as Cross Browser Testing or Lemonce.

Alternatively, if you don’t fancy forking some cash for these, the good old Chrome developer tool is sure to do the trick, particularly when you can create your own device parameters to mimic the real thing. Just make sure you test on every device and browser and on every browser on every device, particularly if you’re not the one in charge.

3. Design versus development

It’s easy to be able to design an incredible website in Photoshop and most persons will fancy giving it a crack themselves, or at least they would have in the early 2000s. Nowadays though, web designers aren’t designing solely on aesthetics, they’re practical as well, asking if this is a good user experience? Will it respond well to iPad? Will it respond well to iPhone? And will Great Aunt May still have a good website experience viewing the site on her Nokia 2210? The point here is that the line between design and development is indeed longer than the Nile and more windy than Lombard street in San Francisco and just because the designer designed it that way does not mean the developer can develop it that way. So again, sure the developer could make it look like that and talk like that, but how deep are your pockets, really?

The cognac is about run dry and so too the comments. The world of new business and the creation of your first website is a much deeper pond than you may have ever anticipated, and being well-informed before entering the waters is much like swimming between the flags — it’s the smart thing to do.