|
/pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> |
How To Choose A Website Designer
Now that you have decided that it is time to create a website for your business there are many questions you must answer. One of the most important questions is "Who should create my website?"
I like to use the analogy of playing music; in as little as a few hours, some people can strum a few chords on the guitar and play a song. But to really play the instrument and make your instrument sing requires experience and understanding. Likewise, although there are tools which are readily available to assist in the process, effective website design requires experience and understanding of many diverse areas including: marketing, Internet graphics options and limitations, effectively creating a site from the perspective of search engines, the differences and limitations of different browsers and computer platforms as well as knowledge of the software and coding required to move beyond simple static html pages.
It is also vitally important that your designer understand you and your business and know how to most effectively communicate you and your uniqueness to your Internet audience. To answer our question, we'll look at some important pieces of information that you'll need to find out before you choose your website designer.
What do you want in a website? What are your needs and intentions for having a website? Does the prospective designer listen to and understand your needs and intentions? Have you checked other similar businesses to see what they are doing on the Internet? Can a prospective designer offer any suggestions for improving upon what others have already accomplished? The more clarity you have about your intended results for having a website, the more accurately you can communicate your needs to your designer and the more likely it is that you will achieve these results.
Is the designer experienced in website design? How long has the designer been creating websites? What is their background? How long have they been using the Internet? Three years is a long time in Internet terms. More than four or five years is a seasoned veteran. Ideally, your site designer has a variety of experience.
What are the designer's strengths and weaknesses? The range of skills required for creating any type of website is more diverse than you can imagine. If a designer tells you they have done or can do any project, I'd suggest you take that statement with a grain of salt.
Is the designer easy to work with and talk to? Is she/he able to communicate technical information so that you can understand it? The process of creating a website can often be an overwhelming process for some people. Consider hiring a designer with whom you have a good rapport and find communicating with easy.
Look at some of their previous clients sites. Do they all look the same? Do they load quickly? Are they easy to navigate through? Do you like their previous work? Do they accurately reflect their clients' business? Does the designer custom create each site or would they have you select from a list of prepackaged sites?
What is your budget and what is the typical cost for the designer's projects? As a generalization, the larger the company, the more they charge for their services (and often the more elaborate the sites they create.) Companies which create sites from a prepackaged template often cost less but don't provide you with custom solutions which may more closely meet your needs. Site designers who are getting started will often create your site for a lower fee, essentially using your project to develop their skills.
Your decision should be based on many of these important questions. Also use any other questions you find useful when hiring any other service business for a project. Comparing website designers is sometimes like comparing bananas to bicycles instead of apples to apples. Don't be afraid to ask questions. You might consider writing pros and cons for each designer on a sheet of paper to develop a more objective point of view.
The selection of your website designer is an important step in the creation of a successful website. With time and patience, you too can join the thousands of businesses with successful websites.
About The Author
Steve Lillo author of Websites That Work! is the President of PlanetLink, a website design and consulting firm which specializes in creating websites which get results. They also provide their Web Rx Service for increasing the effectiveness of existing websites. PlanetLink can be reached at http://www.planetlink.com or by telephone at 415-884-2022.
What Happened to My Website when I Deleted the Home Page by Mistake?
There is a widespread confusion among lots of new website designer concerning the home page.
How to Get Your Visitors to Create Content for Your Website
An ongoing challenge for webmasters today is to provide fresh content that gives visitors a reason to return to their site. Unless you have a full-time staff dedicated to creating regular content, the time involved can be crippling.
Do-It-Yourself Web Design for Home-Based Businesses
Home-based businesses need a strong web presence to combat the inflated advertising and marketing budgets of their larger competitors, but establishing that presence through a professionally designed and developed web site may not be an affordable option. In many cases, the only cost-effective way to get the web site you want for your business is to do it yourself.
What to Avoid to Make Your Website Design Effective
The effective design is this one, which is maximum simplified, conformable to your users because they are your main purpose. This one, simply and clearly announcing what is your website about. This one, quickly offering the users exactly what they are expecting to see on your pages without being troubled with insignificant information. The big mistake made by lots of web designers is to project their activities from their own point of view, without thinking about user.
The Monster Garage of eLearning
The Next Marketing Tool: Deisgn
Design sells. It's something that all of us know, but few of us consciously acknowledge. There is an age old adage that warns people not to "judge books by their cover." In other words, we shouldn't judge people or products by their appearance. But this isn't true in America. We do judge books by their cover ? in fact we spend billions of dollars on products that have prettier "covers."
10 Reasons Why You Need A Multilingual Website
The internet continues to grow and has become the default point of call for businesses and individuals searching for goods, services or information. For businesses wishing to get that competitive advantage, a multilingual website now presents one of the most high impact means of expanding a client base and securing greater sales volumes.
Mini Site or Content-based Web Site?
Are you in a dilemma whether to create a mini site or a content-based web site for your new product or service? The purpose of creating a web site should be to attract visitors and convert them to paying customers. Is a mini site with a few pages enough to do this or should you spend more time and create a content-based web site which contains many pages?
14 Ways to Add Content to Your Web Site - Part 2
7. Create high quality content - make clear points with each paragraph you write. Each paragraph should build on the previous one, so that you are pulling your visitor through your page naturally. You are trying to pre sell the product or service to your visitor. This puts them in a natural frame of mind to buy (unlike many sites which may just have pictures of the products and a shopping cart).
Owning Your Own Web Site Is A Must
Owning your own website is a must if you are doing business on the Internet.
Other Ways to Look at Things
Many people today are tired of the Microsoft software that came pre-packaged with their operating system. Some have switched over to Apple's Macintosh line, but for the most part we just put up with what we have. Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) has come under a lot of fire as of late for several reasons. Hackers find IE easy to exploit.
Be Friendly to Search Engines
The object of search engines is to give their visitors a list of web pages relevant to the search words, in the order of relevance to the search words. So what do they want from websites?
Your Graphics- Are They Really Working For You?
(Making Your Graphics Work For You)
Web Page Building for Beginners 4
Page ranking by search engines such as Google are not only overrated but unusually explained by "experts" in the SEO field. SEO stands for search engine optimization and is needed to get your website placed at the top of a web search. I have no truck with someone wanting to get their pages placed in the number one or two spot from a search, but page ranking has nothing to do with that whatsoever and I can assure the reader that I can prove this to anyone with a computer. In fact, if you will just do a search for "writing critic" you will find www.homewriters.com near the top and since I own that site, I can explain to everyone how it got there and why. But at one time, I had four out of the top five spots on Google for this very same search. And by the way, my pages had no rank at all when they were first placed in the top positions by Google and Yahoo!
Do Your Website Yourself - 4 Simple Steps to Get Your Dreams on the Web
Many people hire professional web site designers for as much as a thousand plus USD! You can, and very easily, make a web site for almost one hundredth of that price, and probably in half the time. Here are 4 easy steps to get you started.
How Do We Know When Its Time To Redesign Our Web Site?
A question we frequently get asked is, "how do we know when it is time to redesign our Web site?" The answer undoubtedly varies.
Why Hire a Professional to Design Your Web Site?
Creating an appealing, functional, and effective Web site is much harder than it looks. It's not simply a matter of taking a company brochure or catalog, converting the text to HTML, and throwing in a few pictures (although many sites seem to have been created using this technique!).
Why Not To Use Web Design Templates For Your Website
In today's age of fast food and high-speed Internet, a business may be tempted to take the "more convenient" route in launching a website ? buying a template and customising it.
When Your Graphic Designer Costs You Money
So how do you know when your graphic designer costs you financially and emotionally?
Using Server Side Includes to Simplify Your Web Design
An "include" file is a piece of code that can be put into a seperate file -- for example -- your navigation bar -- and then "included" in a number of other pages. This has the very useful advantage of allowing you to retain consistency over a very large number of pages, and then make changes to all of those pages by just changing the include file.