Looking For An Offshore PHP Development Company, Where Do I Begin?

Offshore PHP development is a favorite way for businesses of all sizes to develop top-of-the-line websites or applications to meet all the necessary criteria in terms of technical finesse and user friendliness. PHP is wildly popular as a development platform since it runs on all modern operating systems and works with all the web servers.

With the popularity of PHP, young professionals too have adopted PHP and it’s easy to find top quality PHP professionals in offshore development companies in places like India. Offshore PHP developers do a great job at very cost competitive rates making offshore PHP development an attractive proposition for business owners in the U.S., UK, Australia and Europe.

When you opt for offshore PHP development, you can either sign a contract with an offshore web development company or you can also opt for hiring dedicated PHP developers. When you hire a dedicated PHP developer through an offshore PHP development company, you have a lot of flexibility including inputs into their hiring.

With offshore PHP development, you can be sure of having developers who will work exclusively on your projects and you can opt for hourly rates or full-time rates. When you hire dedicated PHP developers at offshore PHP development companies, you do not have to worry about overheads such as health insurance, recruitment fees, HR expenses and so on. This makes hiring dedicated PHP developers through offshore PHP development companies a very attractive proposition.

Smart Way to Look For an Offshore PHP Development Company

There are things you should be aware of and be alert about when you work with an offshore PHP development company. Don’t focus exclusively on the cost factor alone as someone who offers to do a job for the cheapest rate may either fail to deliver on promises and/or project delivery schedules. If someone offers to execute a job for ridiculously low rates, then the result may be unsatisfactory from a technical or qualitative perspective. Here are a few pointers to keep in mind as you choose between offshore PHP development companies. Of course, a Google search for offshore PHP developers may be your starting point. Here are some points below to keep in mind:

✓ Responsive website design: We are in a “mobile first” world where more of your customers will be visiting your website from a mobile or tablet device than from a traditional desktop device. This has implication for website design. To stay in the game, you cannot afford to ignore smartphone users. Hence your website must be optimized to look great on small smartphone screens. Responsive web design elements ensure that the website is suited for all sorts of screen sizes and will be usable on different viewing formats. Top offshore web development companies ensure that the websites they develop have responsive elements in place. Make sure you look at what the stance of the offshore PHP development company is around this and how much work they have done in this area as its an important indicator.

✓ Work experience & portfolio: Nothing can compare with a proven track record of excellence. If a potential offshore PHP development company is able to show their portfolio of websites and many happy clients, then that should go a long way to prove the company’s competence. Nothing beats happy clients who are willing to provide testimonials on behalf of the offshore web development company. So, if a company is good on the ‘work experience’ count, then you can consider that as a strong positive in favor of that company.

✓ Pricing: Obviously, you should not opt for just a offshore PHP development company that offers to do the job for a ridiculously low price. Rather, you should consider how flexible their pricing is and how they are able to incorporate change requests into an ongoing project. You can never be sure that you can set your web development project in stone once it has begun. Hence, you need to find a flexible web development partner who will be willing and able to execute even if the project scope changes slightly during its implementation phase. Pricing is important but not the only thing you need to look at when you are looking for an offshore PHP development company.

✓ Long-term partnership: As offshore PHP development is not an one-time activity, you should probably opt for a web development partner that is in business for the long-term. The reason to look at the long-term is because of course some technical problems may crop up three or six months after the website goes live. You need to have plans ready to deal with such normal occurrences. The guys who developed your website are likely the best ones to offer technical support since they are more familiar with the code of the website than anyone else and will be able to debug any issues faster than a newcomer. You need a long term solution when you are looking for an offshore PHP development company.

✓ SEO & Digital Marketing. With the plethora of websites and numerous competitors, it’s tough to stand out when you are starting out a business. You need all the help you can to get ahead of the competition and SEO and Digital Marketing should be two critical weapons in your strategic battle plan. SEO is absolutely essential to beat the crowd of competitors and rank higher in search results in search engines like Google. The best traffic comes to a website from the organic search results and a high rank in Google is quite priceless. If you opt for an experienced web development company that has good quality SEO professionals and SEO expertise, you will gain a lot in the long-term. Opt for a company that embeds SEO into the design of the website so that SEO is in intrinsic part of the website rather than an afterthought. You cannot afford to ignore the Social Media battle for a business website. All your customers are on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other platforms; hence, you need to be out there as well. Finally, to get short term benefits, digital marketing is a powerful and effective tool and good value for money. Online marketing (search engine marketing, display advertising, mobile video ads) certainly offers more bang for the buck which is why advertisers are increasing opting for different targeted digital marketing campaigns rather than traditional TV or print advertising. Top quality offshore PHP development companies will offer help with SEO and digital marketing.

Summary
Offshore PHP development is a great resource and opportunity if you are able to find the right partner. Once you have the above essentials taken care of and evaluated these paramters, you will have shortlisted a set of very good potential offshore PHP development partners. After that, you can go ahead and opt for the company that you feel best suits your requirements. To learn more about the unique set of offshore PHP development options we offer, please feel free to reach out to the team at Mind Digital Group.