Having a professional website for your business means that your online priorities have now become:
- Develop its brand image
- Develop its credibility in your field of expertise
- Promote its products and services
- To increase visibility
Anyone can build a website, but building it to a certain technical level will require a professional. However, it is tempting to do it yourself, or to entrust a family member or a student, for the simple reason that it is more economical. But is it profitable for you and your business?
How to find good professional web designer
The questions you need to ask are:
- Have I enough technical knowledge?
- Does the person who I entrust to do this task have enough technical knowledge?
- Have I enough technical knowledge to correctly assess the professionals end result?
- Will my website reflect my professionalism or my niche?
- Will I have time to maintain and develop my website?
- What will be the cost between the time to take care of my website, against the price of a builder and web maintenance service?
- What sort of web quality do I require?
- What credibility do I require via my website? (trust, dignity, fun-loving, caring, etc)
- How will my website be optimized for referencing on the search engines?
- How long will it take to make my website?
These are all questions that you need to ask yourself and to put towards your potential web designer. A website is an investment in money or time (one or the other).
Choosing a web designer is extremely difficult due to the large number of designers on the web. Consider each on their broad qualities, but also consider their availability date, attractive services, and extra charge tariffs.
Before starting the search for a web service, you must consider the price of their services. For this you must determine the conditions and limitations of your web project. The list below will help you decide upon the conditions and limitations. If your potential new web designer is making any of these points more difficult for you then do not hire them.
- Set the maximum budget for the maintenance and evolution of the website
- Set the maximum budget for the design of the website
- Learn about the quality criteria of a website, (web standards) so as not to be distracted by the beautiful advert of a potential web designer. Remember that some companies will try to sell bells and whistles to the deaf, so keep your own priorities in mind.
- Get the Intellectual Property Code, or cleverly mention in the contract.
- Ensure in the contract that the domain name belongs to you, and it is by no means the web designer’s web property. At best they should only be an “agent” when booking the domain name.
- Do not hesitate to add heavy penalties for delays in the contract.
- Determine the start date and end date of the web design project to synchronize with your marketing strategy.
- Demand a guarantee in case of failure. The web designer must be held responsible for any mistakes they make that are not clearly evident from the very start.
- Consider a broad time limit for website design, so that if there are unforeseen circumstances it gives you time to react and deal with the inconvenience.
After defining the limits of the web project and requirements, we must seek the proper web designer that can meet all of these conditions. To reduce the search field into a more targeted scope you must list all the important criteria that promote the smooth design of the website:
- Choose a designer with a more than one dominant skill, such as those found with a web design company. For example it is very rare for an independent to be both a graphic artist and a talented developer, as the design and development are two different professions.
- Pick a designer or company with a minimum amount of experience, but don’t be fooled by a long service record. A designer may become set in their ways and create works that are all (pretty much) the same, over and over again.
- Select the type of service according to the importance of the web project. For example, a seven-page brochure site does not require a team of developers. An agency should probably take a big web project, over a smaller web developer–especially if time is an issue.
- Take into account the location (or not) of the web designer. If you absolutely need a face-to-face meeting through the course of the design of the website, then you must choose a provider who is nearby.
Silex fills the gap between setting defined expectations from a website and actually developing a functional website. Our services include credible, W3C compliant, responsive websites and user-friendly, business-focused apps that follow all the guidelines of ethical design and development.