So you decided you need a website and you need to hire someone to make it. Well lookout! You need to be very careful. To stay with a reasonable budget and good service, please follow the following 6 steps to protect yourself.
1} Customer Service: This is the most important step. Make sure you can always talk to a real person. If you have to keep using a web support form and phone messages. Then move on. Web design needs real people to create it, and if you cannot talk anytime you want, then your doing business with the wrong company.
2} Domain Registration: Make sure the company you pick can buy and maintain your domain. Make sure they know how to set it up correctly for your new website and they make sure it gets renewed every year.
3} Web Hosting: Every website needs to be hosted. Does your design company have their own servers? Many do not. Its always nice to only call or contact one company to handle your web design needs and your hosting and Email needs.
4} Web Design: Websites do not need to cost you a second mortgage. Most of the time, a simple site is all you need. But many designers build sites as they see it. They normally do not think about how the site needs to perform for the search engines and clients with slow internet connections. A good designer will use basic technology and will be aware of the search engine needs.
5} Web Maintenance and Updates: This can be a killer. Make sure your design company includes updates and changes in their package, or you can be nickeled and dimed to death at 40 to 80 dollars an hour. Look out for gimmicks and games. Find a company that truly wants to be your full website provider, including changes.
6} Web Marketing: This is just as important as customer service. You can pay as much as you like for a website, but it is useless without traffic. Make sure your design company builds a good marketable website for you and provide you the services you need to get your site submitted to the search engines. They may also have programs to help with web pay advertising.
You need to ask every web design company about the 6 items above and how much they cost. A truly good web design company will have all 6 items to their package. If not, you will be facing a web design nightmare.
More Articles: – http://feeds.feedburner.com/PlrArticleCollecton-imtiaztips / Visit: ImtiazTips for more information about web design.[The Money making of a Niche ::Free Data Entry Work :: Imtiaztips Weblog :: Free Webmaster Articles :: More iPod Articles :: Download Freeware Software :: Updated Contents about Google AdSense for NEWBIES.]
Sunday, August 22, 2010
How To Choose A Web Designer That Won't Rip You Off
Choosing a web designer for your business is a minefield. The industry is unregulated, is fragmented, has a wide variety of pricing and is plagued by "cowboys". So how do you choose?
Prices vary tremendously, so first you need to shortlist companies that are clearly reliable and reputable. So how do you do this? Check how long they have been established as Web designers as the industry is known for it’s “here today, gone tomorrow” operations.
A company that has been around for a few years is much likely to be a safer bet than the one man start up that is offering discount prices. Who would you trust more - the car dealership there has been established 10 years or the new one that has just sprouted up last week? hile their website may tell you how long they have been established, this may not necessarily be the correct information. Of course, limited companies will file records at Companies House which you can check to see how long they had been established. However, a far easier and quicker option is to check how long their website domain name has been registered .
You can do this and typing in their Web address into the Whois lookup search box. This gives you information on the registrant, their address and the date the domain was first registered. While this is not entirely foolproof, it does give a good an indication and you should be wary of any company where a domain name is only a year or two old.
Look at their track record. They should have a good portfolio of the sites they have built available to see via their website, as well as customer testimonials. Their portfolio is a good indication of their design skill -- if you like the websites in their portfolio, then they are likely to satisfy you on the design side.
Check the company works from an office. Web design is an industry with a multitude of different operators -- from freelance work at home designers to large new media agencies. If the company works from an office, it is more likely to be still here next year than the guy who just does it from home.
Does the company have online marketing expertise? Look for a company that it is experienced in marketing websites online as they can give you lot of free information to help market your website. Not all designers know about online marketing.
While the above tips are not exhaustive, I hope they go some way to helping you choose a good web designer.
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Do Homemade Web Designs Look Too Homemade?
You have something to sell or a message to spread and you want a website. What should you do? Should you pay a lot of money to hire someone to do it for you? Or, should you learn the art of web design yourself. There are pros and cons to both sides of the fence.
The Do It Yourself Web Designer
If you do decide to learn building a website as a do it yourself project, you can save some money and gain some knowledge. Web design programs are out there that are boxed solutions that you can use to create your own brochure-ware type website or to even a robust online store. There are products that you can buy for cheap or on the higher end that can help you manage and create your website. You could even go with an open source platform like OS Commerce. Those with a bit of a technical aptitude might find the process interesting and fun.
The downside to this is that many of these web design software products either are too advanced for the novice user or are too simple and not advanced enough for the purpose you want it for. You could find that you are frustrated easily by the technical aspects of the software being above your comfort level or could find that the web design software doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that you were hoping for.
A word of caution: Don’t bother signing up for a free community website that’s hosted by someone else. The publishing on the website might be super simple but no one is going to take you seriously if you have a free website and are trying to promote a business on a professional level. A simple and hosted point and click website is ok for playing around but not for a professional business.
Hiring a Pro Web Designer
Hiring a web design company can be a great way to get a professional looking website and even your own online store. The downside here is that some of these sites charge a lot of money and when you’re a beginner web entrepreneur you might not have that kind of cash floating around. If you want professional results but don’t want to pay a fortune, you might choose to look for a freelancer. You can find them on webmaster forums and online bidding sites where you can create a service request and allow professional freelance web designers to bid on your business.
This can be a great option as you can control the pricing and see a professional web designer’s portfolio of work before you use their services. Some website owners do part of their web design. You choose the web designer that’s in your price range and that provides the quality you want. A word of caution here is that you don’t want to go based on price alone otherwise you might be unhappy with your results.
More Articles: – http://feeds.feedburner.com/PlrArticleCollecton-imtiaztips / Visit: ImtiazTips for more information about web design.[The Money making of a Niche ::Free Data Entry Work :: Imtiaztips Weblog :: Free Webmaster Articles :: More iPod Articles :: Download Freeware Software :: Updated Contents about Google AdSense for NEWBIES.]
The Do It Yourself Web Designer
If you do decide to learn building a website as a do it yourself project, you can save some money and gain some knowledge. Web design programs are out there that are boxed solutions that you can use to create your own brochure-ware type website or to even a robust online store. There are products that you can buy for cheap or on the higher end that can help you manage and create your website. You could even go with an open source platform like OS Commerce. Those with a bit of a technical aptitude might find the process interesting and fun.
The downside to this is that many of these web design software products either are too advanced for the novice user or are too simple and not advanced enough for the purpose you want it for. You could find that you are frustrated easily by the technical aspects of the software being above your comfort level or could find that the web design software doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that you were hoping for.
A word of caution: Don’t bother signing up for a free community website that’s hosted by someone else. The publishing on the website might be super simple but no one is going to take you seriously if you have a free website and are trying to promote a business on a professional level. A simple and hosted point and click website is ok for playing around but not for a professional business.
Hiring a Pro Web Designer
Hiring a web design company can be a great way to get a professional looking website and even your own online store. The downside here is that some of these sites charge a lot of money and when you’re a beginner web entrepreneur you might not have that kind of cash floating around. If you want professional results but don’t want to pay a fortune, you might choose to look for a freelancer. You can find them on webmaster forums and online bidding sites where you can create a service request and allow professional freelance web designers to bid on your business.
This can be a great option as you can control the pricing and see a professional web designer’s portfolio of work before you use their services. Some website owners do part of their web design. You choose the web designer that’s in your price range and that provides the quality you want. A word of caution here is that you don’t want to go based on price alone otherwise you might be unhappy with your results.
More Articles: – http://feeds.feedburner.com/PlrArticleCollecton-imtiaztips / Visit: ImtiazTips for more information about web design.[The Money making of a Niche ::Free Data Entry Work :: Imtiaztips Weblog :: Free Webmaster Articles :: More iPod Articles :: Download Freeware Software :: Updated Contents about Google AdSense for NEWBIES.]
Intend a web locate is a skill which creates an improved location among other sites.
But you consider of website mean it is chief from production position of observation. Glowing intended website for all time draw clientele. The essential reason of a website is to offer helpful in sequence concerning your goods and services to clients. Create sure that clients obtain the correct communication the immediate he browses your website.
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Speak fine bye to normal website design. Construct your website’s design inspiring and nice-looking. The internet is flattering an immense market for trade. The internet marketplace is experience a report which was not at all untried previous to. For this reason, the Web Design Delhi masters and web owners are focusing more on web scheming.
Your website ought to be professional with spectacular designs. If you want your website to be impressive it must have a gorgeous outline. Nearly all of the websites are ranked according to the explanations. At a detachment from being beautiful they have to be consumer responsive. For this reason web designer Delhi are using abundant rudiments that are accessible on the internet. These essentials include text, coding language tags, descriptions etc.
In order to intend an eye-catching website different websites plug-ins such as twinkle, Java draft and QuickTime are worn. When designing a website use graphical basics that help the users to steer during pages simply. At the present time there are a variety of types of websites being intended. Web Design Delhi can consist of active pages and static pages.
In Web Design Delhi these WebPages are planned in a way that they can answer to enter given by the end abuser. These pages can be changed or customized depending on the changes done by the web master. Nowadays, you don’t have to depend on the web master to modify inside of your web pages. You can amend the content of your website using CMS.
More Articles: – http://feeds.feedburner.com/PlrArticleCollecton-imtiaztips / Visit: ImtiazTips for more information about web design.[The Money making of a Niche ::Free Data Entry Work :: Imtiaztips Weblog :: Free Webmaster Articles :: More iPod Articles :: Download Freeware Software :: Updated Contents about Google AdSense for NEWBIES.]
Comprehensive Web Design Checklist
Your Web site needs to do more than make your company look good. It has to support your overall business operations - customer service, sales and marketing and collaboration. Whether you're planning an intranet or Internet site, don't start before you check your strategy against this comprehensive checklist.
The following checklist and the associated answers will facilitate the analysis process ofr designing and building the website that allows your company to turn the corner.
1. Where did you hear about us?
2. Do you have a domain name? If not, do you have ideas on one? If so, what is it?
3. What is your company name? Do you want to use the entire name on the site, logo, and graphics?
4. Do you have special features in mind like ECommerce shopping cart, BLOG, RSS, Forms with emails, EZine, Newsletter signup, autoresponders, advertising landing/call-to-action pages, etc.?
5. Who is your intended audience? Are they regional, industry specific, company size specific, etc.?
6. Do you intend to provide a call to action - make a sale, call in to your office, fill out a form, etc?
7. Describe your ideal client and the specific attributes that we'll be targeting in the website.
8. What are your website expectations, main emphasis and primary goals - increased sales, increased leads, etc.?
9. What separates your company from your competition and what do you expect will draw clients to the website?
10. How do you plan to market the website?11. What company properties do you want to emphasize on the website?
12. Do you already have a logo and other graphics to be used? If not, do you want to have one created?
13. Have you identified a tagline? That would be something like "Just do it", "Reach out and touch someone", etc.
14. What keywords do you want to be found by in the search engines?
15.Please provide a list of websites that you like and don't like. Why do you or do you not like these sites?
16. Please provide a list of competitors websites.
17. Do you have ideas of the colors to be used, and colors you don't like? Please provide example sites.
18. Do you have an intended website screen size - 1024x768, 800x600, or stretch to the entire width of the screen?
19. If the site isn't the entire width of the screen do you have a preference for left or center alignment?
20. Do you have a horizontal or left-side vertical preference for the main navigation?
21. Please provide the main pages you need in the website.
22. Have you created the copy text for any of your pages?
23. Do you have existing business cards or other printed material we need to match?
24. Are you leaning towards custom drawn artwork or photographs?
Once we start designing the website we'll need the following (Note that this information will be kept in strict confidence):a. FTP access information - username and passwordb. Hosting company and their tech support phone number
More Articles: – http://feeds.feedburner.com/PlrArticleCollecton-imtiaztips / Visit: ImtiazTips for more information about web design.[The Money making of a Niche ::Free Data Entry Work :: Imtiaztips Weblog :: Free Webmaster Articles :: More iPod Articles :: Download Freeware Software :: Updated Contents about Google AdSense for NEWBIES.]
The following checklist and the associated answers will facilitate the analysis process ofr designing and building the website that allows your company to turn the corner.
1. Where did you hear about us?
2. Do you have a domain name? If not, do you have ideas on one? If so, what is it?
3. What is your company name? Do you want to use the entire name on the site, logo, and graphics?
4. Do you have special features in mind like ECommerce shopping cart, BLOG, RSS, Forms with emails, EZine, Newsletter signup, autoresponders, advertising landing/call-to-action pages, etc.?
5. Who is your intended audience? Are they regional, industry specific, company size specific, etc.?
6. Do you intend to provide a call to action - make a sale, call in to your office, fill out a form, etc?
7. Describe your ideal client and the specific attributes that we'll be targeting in the website.
8. What are your website expectations, main emphasis and primary goals - increased sales, increased leads, etc.?
9. What separates your company from your competition and what do you expect will draw clients to the website?
10. How do you plan to market the website?11. What company properties do you want to emphasize on the website?
12. Do you already have a logo and other graphics to be used? If not, do you want to have one created?
13. Have you identified a tagline? That would be something like "Just do it", "Reach out and touch someone", etc.
14. What keywords do you want to be found by in the search engines?
15.Please provide a list of websites that you like and don't like. Why do you or do you not like these sites?
16. Please provide a list of competitors websites.
17. Do you have ideas of the colors to be used, and colors you don't like? Please provide example sites.
18. Do you have an intended website screen size - 1024x768, 800x600, or stretch to the entire width of the screen?
19. If the site isn't the entire width of the screen do you have a preference for left or center alignment?
20. Do you have a horizontal or left-side vertical preference for the main navigation?
21. Please provide the main pages you need in the website.
22. Have you created the copy text for any of your pages?
23. Do you have existing business cards or other printed material we need to match?
24. Are you leaning towards custom drawn artwork or photographs?
Once we start designing the website we'll need the following (Note that this information will be kept in strict confidence):a. FTP access information - username and passwordb. Hosting company and their tech support phone number
More Articles: – http://feeds.feedburner.com/PlrArticleCollecton-imtiaztips / Visit: ImtiazTips for more information about web design.[The Money making of a Niche ::Free Data Entry Work :: Imtiaztips Weblog :: Free Webmaster Articles :: More iPod Articles :: Download Freeware Software :: Updated Contents about Google AdSense for NEWBIES.]
Choosing Your Website Design, a "Need To Know" Sketch
You have a company and want to establish an online presence? Then you'll need to learn what to look for when working on probably the most important aspect, the website design.
When considering a website design there is one rule of thumb that you have to have in mind, simple is better. You don't want to get you visitors lost with a too complex layout, or with a too complex website design. It's also very important to understand the market and how you want your company to be perceived. The design of your website will leave an impression to your visitors, make sure it's the right one.
Your company and website will have to have a logo. As many colors as you wish can be used in the logo design but a maximum of four are recommended to make the printing on business cards easier and inexpensive.
Think if entertaining the website visitors improve the success of your website, by entertaining I mean moving objects or pictures, floating text etc. This decision depends on your audience and on the purpose of the website. There are a lot of tools that can be used on your website, the hard part is choosing the ones that fit with the audience and goal of your website. Flash is one example of a commonly misused tool, while a flash website design or layout might be cool, it might not be best for your website goals.
You'll have to be careful when choosing the person that will design your website, you might get along a lot of designers that claim to be qualified but with no real experience, you should ask to see some examples of previous work. You should also ask your website designer about the following: possibility to manually write HTML code, if he can work with JavaScript or such languages, create and optimize META-tags for search engines, create forms and other interactive content and if he can work with websites in a secure environment. Your website might not need all these features, but any decent website designer should have these skills. Lacking any of those skills might mean that they are not sufficiently qualified.
If you want a professional looking website design you'll have to hire a good designer that will work with you on the website from start to finish and will also be available if you'll need changes or updates to your site in the future.
More Articles: – http://feeds.feedburner.com/PlrArticleCollecton-imtiaztips / Visit: ImtiazTips for more information about web design.[The Money making of a Niche ::Free Data Entry Work :: Imtiaztips Weblog :: Free Webmaster Articles :: More iPod Articles :: Download Freeware Software :: Updated Contents about Google AdSense for NEWBIES.]
When considering a website design there is one rule of thumb that you have to have in mind, simple is better. You don't want to get you visitors lost with a too complex layout, or with a too complex website design. It's also very important to understand the market and how you want your company to be perceived. The design of your website will leave an impression to your visitors, make sure it's the right one.
Your company and website will have to have a logo. As many colors as you wish can be used in the logo design but a maximum of four are recommended to make the printing on business cards easier and inexpensive.
Think if entertaining the website visitors improve the success of your website, by entertaining I mean moving objects or pictures, floating text etc. This decision depends on your audience and on the purpose of the website. There are a lot of tools that can be used on your website, the hard part is choosing the ones that fit with the audience and goal of your website. Flash is one example of a commonly misused tool, while a flash website design or layout might be cool, it might not be best for your website goals.
You'll have to be careful when choosing the person that will design your website, you might get along a lot of designers that claim to be qualified but with no real experience, you should ask to see some examples of previous work. You should also ask your website designer about the following: possibility to manually write HTML code, if he can work with JavaScript or such languages, create and optimize META-tags for search engines, create forms and other interactive content and if he can work with websites in a secure environment. Your website might not need all these features, but any decent website designer should have these skills. Lacking any of those skills might mean that they are not sufficiently qualified.
If you want a professional looking website design you'll have to hire a good designer that will work with you on the website from start to finish and will also be available if you'll need changes or updates to your site in the future.
More Articles: – http://feeds.feedburner.com/PlrArticleCollecton-imtiaztips / Visit: ImtiazTips for more information about web design.[The Money making of a Niche ::Free Data Entry Work :: Imtiaztips Weblog :: Free Webmaster Articles :: More iPod Articles :: Download Freeware Software :: Updated Contents about Google AdSense for NEWBIES.]
Choosing And Communicating With Your Web Designer
During the process of developing a web site to represent your company, you should communicate thoroughly with whoever is doing the designing for you. This is the best way to ensure that your web site and its content will thoroughly reflect what your company stands for. But oftentimes when companies are working with web design agencies, they end up having poor communication or misunderstandings.
Therefore, you should follow certain guidelines to make sure that the communication is always easy and clear. You’ll be glad that you made the effort. First you need to figure out specific terms for your project.
Non-designers can be frustratingly vague when talking about the projects they need done. Decide what the goal of your project is. Do you want to provide information about your company, or do you want to convince people to buy your products? Are you trying to be helpful for your established clients? Are you going to actively seek out new clients? All of these things are important when designing the site, so be sure to make them clear to the agency. Discuss the budget of your project, so that if necessary, any unneeded extravagances can be avoided.
Therefore, you should follow certain guidelines to make sure that the communication is always easy and clear. You’ll be glad that you made the effort. First you need to figure out specific terms for your project.
Non-designers can be frustratingly vague when talking about the projects they need done. Decide what the goal of your project is. Do you want to provide information about your company, or do you want to convince people to buy your products? Are you trying to be helpful for your established clients? Are you going to actively seek out new clients? All of these things are important when designing the site, so be sure to make them clear to the agency. Discuss the budget of your project, so that if necessary, any unneeded extravagances can be avoided.
Once you have decided on all of these things, you can compile them into a single document that will help you choose which design agency’s services you want to use. Always be sure to present this document to anyone that you talk to about the web site, so that they know what you are expecting them to do.
When a buyer-seller relationship develops without these pretenses, it can often lead to misunderstandings, and therefore a finished web site that is not on par with what you expected. So start laying out your goals today, and make sure that you get exactly what you need for your site.
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