Tips for finding a good Web Designer

There are a lot of firms out there, from one-man-bands to enormous global agencies. Some of them are awesome, and some of them can’t spell. You get what you pay for.

Once you’ve decided you need a website, you’re going to start asking your friends if they know anyone, you’ll probably search online and you’ll start talking to other business owners who already have websites. The third discussion is where you want to prick your ears up because everyone else, including the internet, is going to give you biased advice. Listen to other business owner’s experiences. Take notes, if they’re telling you about a bad experience, you’ll know what to avoid.

While you’re searching for the right partner, consider what it is you’re looking for. You need a website, but that constitutes a lot of moving parts. What is it you want your site to do? Some of the common purposes we come across are:

Brochure sites to present services – generally as a matter of necessity if the business is walking the streets handing out business cards in sales meetings. Branding is important
Tuned sites for generating traffic via digital marketing – more complex than above, these sites need keyword research and an understanding of the various methods for generating traffic. Performance and purposeful content are important
Ecommerce sites – for selling products or services online, usually in conjunction with digital marketing strategies. Security and performance are important
Member sites – websites built for publishing private content and forums to closed communities. Security and User Experience (UX) are important
All of the above – some sites need to be branded, tuned, secured, equipped for ecommerce and membership – everything is important

If you’re starting from scratch, working out what you need, and who you should work with can be daunting. These are some of the questions you should be considering (and your prospective designer should be asking):

What do I want the site for? (see above)
Who is my intended audience?
What am I selling? Do I have my business mechanics, service offerings and identity ready for a website?
Is the investment in a website going to pay for itself?
What’s involved in a Website project? Who do I need on my team?
Who’s going produce the text (the copy) for my site? Does it need to be written for Search Engines?
Where’s my imagery going to come from? graphic designer, photographer, stock image libraries.
Where’s my traffic going to come from? What are my digital marketing options?
What do I need to consider for hosting? Is it important? (yes is the answer to this one, and something very dear to our hearts, ask us about our managed hosting plans)
What features do I need? newsletters? social media integration? payments?
What happens after the site is launched? What’s required to maintain it? Who’s going to look after it? What happens if something breaks?

There are many more questions to ask, better asked now than when you’v parted with your cash.

Webworks provides more than conventional web design & development. Our methodology for delivering projects is based on a four stage approach: Plan, Design, Build, Deploy. Each of these stages is intended to educate, guide and ensure the right tasks happen at the right time. We have delivered many projects around the world and across numerous industries using this methodology, from small feature changes to large scale ecommerce platforms.

Over 90% of our projects have come from referrals and almost all our website project customers continue to work with our managed hosting and intelligence services.