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.
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. ::ImtiazTips Online Business
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.]
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