Choosing a Web Designer

In today's business climate, it is crucial for a customer to have 24 hr. access to information about your particular brand or service. But where do you start? Should you try to create a website yourself? Maybe you should call your computer geek cousin? Should you hire a professional to create your website? Of course we recommend you hire a web professional to complete your website or web project. We feel this way simply because your business or informational website is way too important to take unnecessary risks! Get a professional to do it and get it done right the first time.

These are the issues that you should consider before work on your website begins. This is information your web designer will need from you.

What do I want the website to do?

You may want to be able to accept payment for your products or services. You may want to allow your customers to "login" to their account and view or update information 24/7. You must have a sense of exactly what you want your site to accomplish and choose a web designer who can do what you want your site to do.

What is your target audience?

Is you audience local or national? Young people, older people or everyone. The answer to this question is generally your product or service target market.

The designer's portfolio?

Every serious web designer has a portfolio of site or web projects previously completed. Some may have a couple of web projects completed, others more than 30 projects completed. This may not mean that one designer is better than the other. Use your best judgement and notice the quality of the completed web project, ask questions via email or phone and certainly find out how experienced the web designer is in doing what you need done specifically.

What is your budget?

This is usually the most important factor for many small businesses. Generally speaking, if you have complex needs for your website (multimedia, database application, e-commerce development with many products, etc) your design costs are going to be slightly higher. Be open and honest with your website designer about how much you can afford to spend. This honesty allows the website designer to have a clear understanding of your situation, and simply put, it is good business. Plus many times the website designer will be willing to take the design project for a price within your budget or he/she may be willing to work out a payment plan with you.

For a basic quality brochure type website that contains several pages, you can usually expect to pay between $200 and $1000 depending on how many pages your site will contain, functionality features and how much website maintenance you will need. (Remember: Normally, the most important work on a project is usually maintaining and updating a website consistently, not the initial design.)

For a complex website that involves many features (advanced programming, ecommerce, video, music, etc.) expect to pay anywhere between $500 and $2000. It varies depending on many circumstances, such as deadlines, project specifics and amount of future website maintenance needed, etc.

Get everything in writing!

Website design and development is a service. As in any other service, make sure you get everything in writing. This could even be via an email, not necessarily hand written. If the designer gives you a price quote via email, make sure you keep it and refer to it for the specs on your web project.