If you are hiring a web designer, don’t just look for the cheapest because a bad design will cost you in the long run. If it doesn’t look good or doesn’t work properly you will soon lose your customers.
There are two main reasons that you may be looking for a web designer. You may be looking for a brand new website which a designer can start from scratch or you may just be looking to overhaul an existing site. Either way, the way you go about finding a web designer will should be the same.
Although it is possible to have a site designed without ever going to the designer’s office, it isn’t advisable. Referrals are great because there’s already an element of trust but if you don’t have recommendations from others, an initial look on the internet using a search engine such as Google will throw up local companies. Try searching for something like ‘web design Wiltshire’ or ‘web design company Wiltshire’ or if you need something very close by, narrow down from a county search to a city or town search such as ‘web design Salisbury’. Just because a company turns up in the number 1 slot, it doesn’t mean it is the best though. Take the details of a few and check out their websites.
From their websites, you should start to get a feel of whether they are a company that you want to do business with. The factors that sway you will probably be very personal such as whether you like the designs in their portfolio or whether they sound friendly.
When you have a shortlist of companies, find out more about them by checking testimonials and asking about their reputation in the local business community. If their reputation is good, arrange to see them for a preliminary meeting to see if they understand your needs and can create the look you want with the functionality that you need.
When visiting the design company you will need to be clear about what you want your website to achieve and have examples of designs you like and designs you don’t like. A new site will not have any statistics associated with it but if you already have a site there’s a good chance you have a statistics package such as Google Analytics on it giving you data about how many people visit your site and what pages they look at. If you are redesigning, make sure that you retain your tracking code so that you can see if the new design is improving the amount of pages viewed or the amount of time spent on the site or your conversions.
You will need to be in fairly close contact with your designer so make sure that you get along well with them and that they are easily contactable.
Price is obviously important but spending more for a better website with a company you can work well with is better than going with the first company to give you a cheap quote.
Once you have made the decision to work with a design company, make sure that you keep on top of all the things that you are expected to do such as providing copy, photos and testing the site and make sure that the design company meet their target dates too.
Remember, the best web designs come out of a partnership between the web designer and client and if you have a good relationship, the web design company can go on to become a useful business ally, often these days able to help in areas such as social media marketing, app creation, print design and search engine optimisation.
By Giant Peach Web Design Wiltshire – quality web design and marketing. Call us on 0844 880 0370.
Twitter: @giantpeach
One of the best ways to choose the best web design company is through referrals from friends and relatives who have hired the company before. The previous work experience of the company is also an important factor to consider while choosing a web designer company.
Author
Very true most of the people I use come though recommendation.