Three things to know before choosing a web designer
By John Holleman

 

Getting a website designed for your business is a significant cost and you want to make sure you will get a return on your investment.  Here are three things you need to make sure your designer knows before you blow a few grand on a site that you find out later doesn’t do anything for you besides look pretty.

 

  1. Does your designer know to get to know your business before they do any design work?

 

Your designer will be crafting the online image of your business.  If they do not take the time to get to know what your company does, whom you are trying to reach, and what makes your company the best one to do business with in your niche, they will fall short of being worth their price.  Your website needs to communicate your business in every aspect of the design, and your designer can’t do this unless they take the time to get to know your business first.

 

  1. Does your designer know what to do with your content?

 

Ignoring the content is ignoring half the website.  It doesn’t matter how wonderful the site looks or how flashy it is if nobody bothers to read what you have to say.  It is rare to find a designer that will do any more than fix glaring grammatical and spelling errors.  Knowing the marketing message of the content on each page is necessary to determine how to craft many aspects of the design – as well as how the site will navigate. 

Your designer should understand how to help you communicate your company through the content in order to know enough to design your website.

 

  1.  Will your designer help you after they finish your site?

 

Your site going live is just the beginning of the story: the most important part of the process is how your site performs.  Many designers disappear once the last check clears and it is almost impossible to get them to make changes after your site is online.  Make sure going in that your designer will maintain their relationship with you and will be sure to see that your site is not only maintained properly, but also performs the marketing functions it is supposed to.

 

Making sure you can answer “yes” to all of these questions will keep you from wasting thousands of dollars on an ineffective website.  From start to finish, marketing your company must be the perspective your web designer works from.  You don’t have the money to waste finding out these three things the hard way.

 

To your success,

John Holleman

President, Innovative InSite

www.InnovativeInSite.com