With today’s economy and countless businesses on the verge of failure, a business must do all it can to succeed. Reaching a wider audience and increasing traffic to your business is vital to this success. A well designed and easily accessible web site can offer you just that. The merit of your web site will depend greatly upon the merit of the one designing it. So the question becomes what do you look for in a web designer?

A true “designer” knows the value of a good website and what an asset it is to your company. Anyone else is just an artist.

 

How to separate the best from the rest

 

Give them a call.

You will be able to discover a lot about their experience by listening to what they can offer your business. Discover whether they have technical expertise. Do they refer to such things as search engine optimization, load time, usability, browser compatibility, etc.? In their conversation with you, did they address each of these vital points? Or did they only talk about how they have created award winning websites and how nice they will make your site look?

Listen for terms such as:

  • Business objectives
  • Return on investment (ROI)
  • Your revenue goals
  • Lead generation
  • Increase sales
  • SEO

 

A good designer will take the time to understand your project needs.

An experienced designer should provide a detailed pre-contract questionnaire to learn as many details as possible about your project. Only with the information that you provide, will they be able to determine the specific requirements of your project thus provide an accurate price quote.

 

Look at their portfolio.

Do you like the look of the web sites they have created? Is the navigation of the web site user friendly? Does the web site load within a reasonable time (this will not apply to the dial-up users)?

 

Find out how experienced they are.

Not how many years, but how many functional websites they have designed and if you can review the work in their portfolio.

 

Find out if others have been pleased with their work.

Do they have any Testimonials? Are they easy to work with? Can the web designer relate web site jargon in layman’s terms?

 

Find out if they can address any specialized needs your web site may have.

Perhaps you have an online store and want to make sure your website is accessible from mobile devices such as the iPhone or Android so that your customers can easily access your store and even shop from their hand held device. In this case, you need to know if the designer has the specialized skills for the job.

 

Find out if there is a guarantee on their work.

If the designer does not offer any kind of satisfaction guarantee then he or she is essentially saying, “I’m not too sure I can do this job.” And you do not want to hire them.

 

Pay for value.

Almost anyone can design a web site from their home for very little money but unless they are skilled in web design and search engine optimization, the web site will not offer any financial success for your company. A good designer will be able to offer you services such as search engine optimization, back-links building, article submissions, blogs, search engine submissions, directory submissions, content development, usability, browser compatibility, etc. Basically, place value over price.

 

Know what you are paying for.

Ensure that the designer provides you with a contract in writing and goes over it with you so that you understand the number of services that will be provided.

How you market yourself can make or break your business. Having a well designed and functioning web site that is easy to find on search engines has the power to increase your potential customer ten fold if not more. It is vital to choose the web designer that will be able to give you all the advantages a website has to offer your growing business.

 

 

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