What You Need To Know Before You Hire A Website Designer

What You Need To Know Before You Hire A Website Designer

If you're looking for a website designer it can be confusing trying to choose the right one. Go through the Yellow Pages in any town or city and you'll find a long list of web designers. Look on the Internet and you'll discover even more.

Perhaps you have a friend who knows a bit about web design and has offered to build you a site for free. Should you take up the offer? Or perhaps you are thinking about building your own website. Should you take the plunge and buy some web design software? Or should you use one of those do-it-yourself website builders that many web hosts are now offering?

Well, it depends what you want your website to look like and, more importantly, what you want your site to achieve. If you are developing a website for your business, the ultimate aim should be to sell more of your products or services. If your website doesn't help you sell more, why would you invest money in it? A website that doesn't sell is a liability for your business. But a website that brings in new inquiries and sales, is a valuable asset. As some businesses are discovering, the Internet can be a powerfully effective form of marketing.

For example, one of my clients, who sells steel-frame kitset homes, is getting 99% of his business off the website I built for him. Every morning he opens up his emails and sees 20 or 30 new inquiries from the website. They come like clockwork, every day. He Doesn't need to do any other form of advertising.

So how do you find a designer who can build you a site that sells?

There are two main types of website design - those who are primarily skilled in graphic design, and others whose main strength is in programming. Those with a graphic design focus will build you a nice-looking site, while the programming whizzes will build a site that works efficiently but may not have the same visual flair.

However, a third factor is needed in a business website. If this third factor is missing, your website will be like a two-legged stool. It will fall over. It won't work effectively to build your business. It will simply sit out there in cyberspace looking pretty but will get few visitors and make few sales.