The thing to keep in mind is that one of the main drivers behind the advent of the latest tools and technologies in web development has been the demand for more dynamic, interactive websites – which has near or at its apex complex ecommerce sites. So if the company you choose for web development in Tulsa has a reputation for building highly functional, well wrought ecommerce sites, you know you’re in good hands. Just make sure your developer has the ability to meet certain challenges.
1. User-Experience Expectations
A developer has to keep the end user constantly in mind at every step of the development cycle. The trick is to get all the power and features you want for your business purposes while still keeping usability high.
Making this challenge even tougher is the fact that user expectations have risen dramatically. Users today expect the same simplicity and ease of use they find in their mobile apps. If your web applications don’t meet users’ expectations, they will look for other options that do.
2. Saturation Complications
Overcoming the challenge of saturation complications is closely related to the issues surrounding user-experience expectations. Simply put, the web-application market is now over-saturated, and users have a dizzying array of options to choose from.
The challenge, then, becomes to stand out in some way. Now, you have to provide solutions/options that offer something new or do something the others do but better or provide easier ways to do things.
3. Acceptable Speed
Studies show that attention spans have decreased by four seconds in only the last decade or so – and patience has followed right along. Further, 40% of people click away if a website takes more than three seconds to load. Did you get that? That’s just three seconds.
They say that goldfish have an attention span of only nine seconds, and today people generally lose concentration after just eight seconds. Although this has been mostly debunked, it’s still swimming around, people still believe it, and it underscores our point.
So the challenge is having that dynamic, interactive site with all the features you need and that will still load fast. So, really, we’re back to user expectations. Users expect – no, demand – feature-rich sites and applications, and they don’t want to wait.
This puts both businesses and developers in a tough spot. Not only do you need fast page-load times to please and keep users, but to satisfy Google as well. Google has begun to factor page-load time into ranking results.
4. Security Concerns
Security is, of course, one of the top concerns in web development. Security breaches are increasing, but security measures haven’t been keeping up. It is estimated that 96% of web applications contain one serious vulnerability, at least. It’s the developer’s job to build security into the site and applications.
Web development includes a host of security tasks, including checking data-entry errors, filtering output, and ensuring encryption. In this age of widespread of online collection of personal data for business purposes, scripts that allow unauthorized access for malicious users become a major concern.
To further complicate the challenge here, security “holes” are often found in web applications after they have been thoroughly tested and launched. It falls to the developer, then, to keep up with security concerns as they come to light and to stay abreast of new releases in security patches.
Offering the Local Advantage
Web development for Tulsa should, well, be headquartered in Tulsa – yet with a global reach. A local developer offers several distinct advantages, but number one is having a leg up when it comes to local SEO. After your site is built and all the bells and whistles installed, then comes the work of ranking for local searches.
But how do you know which company to choose for web development? Experience is a good indicator. Redhead Labs has built 1,000+ ecommerce sites, and our nearest competitor, less than 20. To discover