The decision about which website development agency to choose is difficult. It’s frightening to realize that the wrong choice may get you fired. But before you start panicking, you should read our freaky reasons why choosing bad website development agency could get you fired. They’ll serve as a warning and will help you by giving some clues at what to do before hiring a website development agency. So let’s start!
1. Your company's data were sold. You hired the agency with good pricing, nice portfolio, and a professional-looking website. You trusted them and gave away confidential information… and bam! When the website is up and running, you suddenly realize that your company’s data were sold. Worse still, they were sold to spammers (so spam is overflowing your and your colleagues’ inboxes), porn and gambling sites (so you cannot enter the company’s website without stumbling across some suspicious pop-ups) or online scams (so your boss suddenly learn that he has an uncle in Rwanda who wants to send him a considerable amount money). Result? You’re fired!
2. The agency has unexpectedly moved to the Philippines. The same story: you decide to hire that nice agency with good pricing, you exchange email, everything seems fine, so you send them the deposit. And that’s it. You never hear from them again. As if they suddenly moved to the Philippines or some other country. You lose your time, money, and, of course, the website. This can also have a different scenario in which you pay the agency for the nearly finished work and you never ever receive the complete website design. In both cases the result is the same: you’re fired!
3. Agency’s Secret SEO Strategies. Everybody wants to be the first in Google search results. No wonder, it brings so many benefits, after all. But remember that some people may use this against you. When you hear from a website development agency that they have some secret SEO strategies which guarantee best rankings run for your life. Or ask what kind of „secret strategies” they mean (magic wand or crystal ball perhaps?). If you won’t, you’ll learn the hard way that these secret strategies were nothing more but so-called blackhat SEO techniques that will get your company’s website banned by Google at some point. Result? With your website banned by Google there can only be one: you’re fired!
4. There are some „goodies” hidden in your website’s code. Well, you received the finished website, you have paid your agency and everything seems to have worked out just fine. And then, sometime later, your boss discovers that there are some… unusual things hidden in the website’s code. Like spam links, malware, malicious code, sex chat sites, or links to other sites you don’t know about (which equals blackout SEO). You’re fired!
5. Your website is held hostage. Improbable as it may sound, when you get into a conflict, the agency may hack your site and make it unusable. Or, worse still, load it with malware and change the password so that you’re not able to enter it until you pay them a ransom. Even if you manage to get the site back somehow, you’ll probably get… fired!
6. Your content hijacked. Ooops, it seems you were a little bit too enthusiastic while signing the contract with your new website development agency and you didn’t notice that you gave the ownership of the content to the agency you’re about to start working with. And now you are not the owner of your content. The agency may demand additional fee for the content or even sell it to your competition. Result? You’re fired immediately!
7. Stolen information about your company’s secret bank account on Bermuda. Well, actually it doesn’t have to be Bermuda. It may be perfectly respectable but secret information, such as the detailed design of a new product that will beat the competition once and for all. Now when these information are stolen, the company stands on the brink of bankruptcy. Your boss is furious, and you’re fired before you even realized what had happened.
However weird these points sound, things like that actually happen. So we hope that now you know what to pay attention to while choosing a web development agency and you won’t get fired for it! And if you will then, well, you can share your story in comments section to warn others!
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Szymon Binek
