
If you run a creative agency, design firm, or other creative company, then you are probably familiar with the difficulty of meeting your client’s demands for quality website development. Read this article to learn more about web development problems agencies face, and how you can overcome them.
Increasingly, your clients want robust websites with complex functionality, and they may not know exactly what they want or need. Each client demands different functions and features incorporated into their website. And every one of them wants all the bells and whistles!
While you and your team possess a wealth of experience creating and executing design and marketing strategies, website development is cumbersome to manage and time intensive to deliver.
Quite frankly, development is headache for many agencies like yours.
Computer Courage partners with many agencies, firms, and consultancies as a web development partner to solve this problem. We simplify the web development process for our partners by handling all the development headaches for them. As such, we get to hear about a lot of the key worries and frustrations that come along with each website build a client requests.
Below we list the top 6 problems agencies face when it comes to web development.

Web Development Problem #1: Development is complex and risky.
Historically, most companies just needed “brochure” style website. However, as web technology has matured, you’ve probably noticed that your clients are asking a LOT more from you than just web design.
Clients want increasingly sophisticated database-driven websites, e-commerce websites, third-party software integrations, and more. Plus, with increasing numbers of web hacks and security incidents, your clients need to have a guarantee that the websites your agency creates are secure and have the most up-to-date protection.
Taking on this level of complexity is a risk for your firm because 1) you may not be able to deliver. 2) you may not be able to make a profit from the project, and 3) you may frustrate and – even anger – your client if it isn’t done correctly.

Web Development Problem #2: Staffing programmers is difficult.
Many agencies consider – and often try – hiring a programmer in-house as a solution to their website development needs. And, of course, this makes sense at first. When your clients are increasingly asking for complex website features and functions, your first thought is to fill the need with an in-house person.
The advantage to hiring in-house is that your developer is fully integrated into your team. The downside is that programming today requires a broad range of skills and expertise, and one person cannot do them all very well. Trends shift, technologies evolve, as do your clients’ platforms and preferences.
When it comes to your developers’ coding growth and knowledge, you are now responsible for it. But because your in-house programmer is typically heads down, wrangling code for your clients, he or she rarely has the time to learn anything about new technology and security.
In addition, you have to figure out what software and equipment your programmer needs to stay on top of all of the evolving tech and to keep your websites secure from hacks. And, even when your web work is down, you still have to pay your in-house programmer. It’s hard to hire half a person.

Web Development Problem #3: Outsourcing to freelancers is exhausting.
While there are some professional, reliable freelancers available to help you with web development, a number of our agency clients have told us horror stories about coordinating freelancers. Challenges they have faced include projects not delivered on time, missed deadlines, stolen ideas, and disappearances for weeks at time. Perhaps most importantly, using a series of freelancers results in inconsistent code that is difficult to support and manage over time and can lead to additional web development problems.
While freelancers can give your organization the ability to scale to meet your clients’ web build needs; unfortunately, it typically also requires a ton of your staff’s time to manage the project. Additionally, it often mean finding multiple freelancers so that you have the skill sets you need as well as the availability since you never know when a freelancer will have another large project from a different client.

Web Development Problem #4: Using overseas resources has language, culture, and time barriers.
Another common option that agencies test to alleviate their web development headache is outsourcing it to an overseas company. At first, it seems like a perfect way to scale web services because it appears much less expensive. However, it becomes costly in the long run particularly in regard to details and customization.
Language, culture, and time zone barriers (12 hours between San Francisco and India) make precise and effective communication undependable. These factors also necessitate way more time for your team members to manage projects with overseas operations. As your website project becomes more complex, the barriers become increasingly difficult to overcome.
Add in all of the issues listed above that an agency faces when outsourcing to freelancers and – quite frankly – you’ve got the recipe for angry clients because your company wasn’t able to meet their website requirements.

Web Development Problem #5: Your core focus is on design/marketing.
In most cases, your core area of expertise is bringing your clients fantastic creative work and smart marketing strategies. It’s what you love to do and it’s what you do best.
While your team has the creative vision for your clients’ website, it can be difficult to accurately scope and budget the programming. Combined with gaps in correctly managing the development process, the result is scope creep, overages, and lost profits. Worst of all, your team gets bogged down in work that it doesn’t really want to do, which can cause frustration and lower morale.

Web Development Problem #6: You don’t want to deal with website maintenance.
You’ve just launched a new website and your client loves it. But don’t break out the champagne just yet. A website is a dynamic and evolving marketing resource, which makes it a fantastic tool for businesses. It means they can add a new service, remove out-of-stock discontinued products, and add new content on a regular basis. It also means that – in order to take great care of your client – you now have to figure out a way to make their requested updates, keep the website safe, and update it with the latest software and plug-in versions.
The Solutions to Your Web Development Headaches
Solution to complex web challenges
At Computer Courage, we live and breathe web development, which means we can help you overcome these web development problems. We continuously keep up to date with the latest web technology trends and technology and rise to even the most complex of development challenges (with a smile). Plus, we have innovative ideas to help you build unique and easy-to-manage websites for your clients. We believe in solving problems, not creating them.
Solution to your staffing woes
Agencies turn to Computer Courage because we allow them to plug into a team of experts, with a variety of skills. You don’t have to worry about payroll, missed deadlines, stolen ideas, language barriers, bad code, or any of the other horrors that result from outsourcing mishaps.
You get access to our entire company including developers, UX experts, coding practices, and project managers, as well as our well-honed processes for moving a website development project forward on time and on budget. We cost less than a dedicated employee and we are headache free, guaranteed.
Solution to the distraction from your core services
We work with agencies all the time and know what matters to you and your clients. Your staff can focus on what you do best while we bring your web project to life! In fact, we’ll actually help you impress your clients. We handle technology selection, project planning, bug fixing, security, code review, and more so that you can focus on your core services and your customers.
Solution to dealing with website maintenance
We have years of experience building unique, feature-rich websites, and understand how to implement the latest and greatest in ways that are fast, user-friendly, and secure. We provide quality maintenance and support to ensure all of your websites are secure with ongoing support for you or your client. Changes, updates, revisions, new features, and even training are all no problem!
Working with Computer Courage will not only alleviate your web development problems, we’ll actually save your agency time and money. You can improve the results you deliver to your clients.
We’ll work alongside you to fulfil your clients’ needs – either as a silent partner, (your clients don’t know we exist), or as a visible presence, helping you to field difficult technical questions at face-to-face meetings with your clients. We give you access to a scalable team that you can use as little or as much as you need.
Ready to end your web development headaches? Call us today at 510-525-2226 or send a message.