Attempting to turn your bright idea or shop fronted business into an online, virtual success certainly has it’s challenges, and one of the first walls you’ll need to climb will involve trying to source the most suitable web designer for your business. Type ‘web designers’ into Google and you’ll be faced with about 90 million results (seriously), so it can become a tiring pursuit. However, this blog post has been designed help you know how to sift through the dirt and find the gold.
Know what you want and let what you want be known! Before approaching any web design agency, make sure that you have a pretty rounded idea of what you want. By this we mean both aesthetically and practically. For example, you may have accumulated some strong branding or lay out ideas, and you should want to know whether and how they can help make the website a revenue generating portal. The more descriptive you can be, and the more you can communicate your wishes with your developer, the better your website will turn out to be.
Testimonials, testimonials, and more testimonials. There are no fixed prices in this game and because of it, testimonials are key! There are numerous platforms where web designers can showcase their work and reviews. First and foremost, it’s always good to ask friends and family members who have been through the same process for advice and recommendations! Especially if their sites look super professional, are easy to navigate, fit for all browsers and are working successfully. After which, every web designer should have a portfolio of clients, including themselves. Explore their work in detail, making sure to check that the designer has experience specifically in your business arena. You should also be able to link through to their clients websites and don’t fear to ask a couple of them how their experience was/ is working with the developer.
Budget It can be difficult to determine exactly how much is appropriate to spend on having a website developed. As mentioned above, there are no fixed prices and no fixed model! After discussing your aims and ideas with a potential developer, they’ll be able to give you an indication of what it may cost you for them to carry out the said work. Definitely acquire a few quotes and remember to think of the long term gain. You may have numerous designers offering “exactly the same work” for varying prices, but long term the cheapest option may not result in generating the most conversions, nor may choosing the most expensive provide a quick enough ROI. Your decision has to based on other factors aside from the initial cost. Your site is a business asset and itneeds to generate conversions, but it will only do so if it is built and carefully designed to.
Bespoke or template? Rolling on from the budget discussion, it would be useful for us to suggest a couple of cost controlling but suitable options. A lot of websites don’t need to be bespoke built so if the website you would like to have developed is of a relatively simple structure, using a template could be a great option. There are a number of popular template websites available on sites such as www.templatemonster.com, www.webeden.com and www.wordpress.com. You can then employ a copywriter and/ or web designer to help you tailor it to your business model.
If you would like to put your ideas in front of a multitude of web designers then sites such as 99designs.co.uk are perfect. On this site you fill in a web design brief and submit it to dozens of designers who will compete for your work by displaying their ideas. You can then pick your favourite and proceed!
More than a pretty face. Most people are attracted to items that look good, so having a website that looks pretty is crucial, but even more crucial is that it generates you more business, and that doesn’t just happen by looking ‘modern, fresh and clean’; a few mundane words we have heard used too often. Enquire about the web designers copywriting skills, or whether they have an inhouse, qualified copywriter who has experience creating compelling headlines, subtle calls to action and would be able to supply a content strategy. Discuss with the web designer potential lead generation strategies and importantly, SEO.
SEO friendly. In this day and age, where search engines can return millions of results (as displayed above) and where Google dominate, it’s imperative to make sure that your website is designed to be SEO friendly so that the ‘spiders’, whose job it is to find and index your website, can do so easily. SEO can be a really daunting practice, with lots of companies charging extortionate amounts to assist with it, so make sure you discuss whether you developer can help with your SEO, and how s/he will make the site optimized for the search engines. Here at Click Submit we specialize in SEO and believe it is the foundation of any website marketing strategy.
Are they marriage material? Finally, it’s really important to remember that your relationship with the web designer probably won’t end as soon as the website haslaunched. There will be a long teething process, lots of site testing and alterations that are likely to need to be made. And more so, a few years down the line and if all progresses well, you may want to relaunch a more content heavy site. In the web design world, not many designers like taking on websites that were created by another. This is mainly due to every designer having their own coding pattern and it can be difficult to read someone elses, almost like trying to read a foreign language. Therefore, it’s vital that you have a good rapport with the web designer/ web design agency and feel confident that support post development will be provided.
We hope that this blog has been insightful and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!
Until next time!
Annabelle
