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You have been planning forever to get a website designer to work on your site. Your plans are clear and you have prepared your content. What next? How do you go about choosing the best web designer or web design company?
Step 1. Ask around.
Ask friends, or similar companies who have hired a web designer in the past. Besides getting the contact numbers of the web designers, ask how it is to work with that person. Find out what happened during the design process and what they think of the designs submitted.
Step 2. Do your research for contact information.
Use the internet or your phonebook to get the names and contact information of web design companies in your area. If you use the internet, have a peek of their past work. Then contact each and ask for a quotation.
You can also use freelance sites such as eLance.com. Beware of going straight to the lowest priced quotation — lowest doesn’t always mean the best or the right web designer for you.
Step 3. Look through the portfolio of the web design company you are choosing from.
Most web designers have portfolio pages that showcase the past designs they have created. See if the designs are professional-looking, clean and easy to use. Look if the style suits the one you envision for your own website.
Step 4. Look at the experience of the web designer or web design company.
How long has the person or company been in business? How many companies have they designed for? What are the types of web sites have they created (ecommerce, blog, information, etc.) and using what platforms (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc.)?
Step 5. See if the designer or web design company is up to date with the newest trends in web marketing.
Useful, profitable websites attract the correct traffic with search engine optimization and usability and by employing web 2.0 strategies such as social media marketing. Effective web sites take SEO and usability into serious consideration.
See if your web designer has at least a basic knowledge of both. You don’t want to hire a web designer who will create a website for you that the search engines will not even crawl or read. In order for your website to be successful you need to be able to implement a successful internet marketing campaign.
Step 6. Look at the designer or web design company proposed turnaround time.
Can the web designer work on your site immediately, or is the designer booked for the next few months? Does it match the schedule of your company’s plans?
Step 7. Examine the web designer or web design company terms of service and website files ownership.
See if you agree with the conditions set by the designer to work with you. See also the rights as to who owns the final output and what sizes. If this is not clear from the start, you just may be surprised to find that the work you commissioned is not yours and you may have to pay extra to get it. Read the article Do You Own the Copyrights of Your Website Design?
Step 8. See what the web designer offers for after-design services.
Will the designer help maintain your site or is the designer only expected to do the initial design? How long is the turnaround to make changes to your website? Also check on the charge for maintenance of after-design services. Be aware that you may be charged for 1 hour of service for something that will take only 5 minutes for the web designer to do.
Step 9. Talk to the designer.
Is s/he easy to communicate with? You should be able to communicate with your web designer easily. You should be comfortable presenting problems that you want solved. Your web designer should be respectful and prompt. You should both be able to compromise on what will work best for the viewers, not necessarily your personal taste.
Step 10. Look for previous, happy clients.
You may look through the designer’s website or blog and see if there are client testimonials. Note what they have to say about the designer. You may also try to call them (you may ask the contact number from the web designer) and ask for comments regarding the design process and final output.
Recommended Books on Creating Your Business Website:
- The Web Designer’s 101 Most Important Decisions: Professional Secrets for a Winning Website
- The Web Designer’s Idea Book, Volume 3: Inspiration from Today’s Best Web Design Trends, Themes and Styles
- Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (3rd Edition) (Voices That Matter)
- The Designer’s Web Handbook: What You Need to Know to Create for the Web
- Web Design for Dummies
- The Web Designer’s 101 Most Important Decisions: Professional Secrets for a Winning Website
- Like
- Digg
- Del
- Tumblr
- VKontakte
- Buffer
- Love This
- Odnoklassniki
- Meneame
- Blogger
- Amazon
- Yahoo Mail
- Gmail
- AOL
- Newsvine
- HackerNews
- Evernote
- MySpace
- Mail.ru
- Viadeo
- Line
- Comments
- Yummly
- SMS
- Viber
- Telegram
- Subscribe
- Skype
- Facebook Messenger
- Kakao
- LiveJournal
- Yammer
- Edgar
- Fintel
- Mix
- Instapaper
- Copy Link