This Week's Question: What should I look for when hiring a website designer?
Transcription:
What should I look for when I'm hiring a web designer? Unfortunately, I hear horror stories from small business owners of website designers who don't complete projects on time, who are difficult to work with, and don't get back to them.
How do you find one you can trust to deliver a great website design for your business? Keep watching for the top 10 questions you should ask before hiring a website developer.
Hi, I'm Tom Malesic, founder and President, of EZMarketing, a website designer and SEO company in Lancaster, PA, and you're watching Ask EZ. This is where small business owners go to get real answers to their marketing questions.
#1: What experience do you have?
You want to know if you're talking to a freelancer, who's maybe only done one or two projects, or a company who's been in business for a long time, who has the experience that you need.
With over twenty-four years of experience building website designs for small business owners, we've seen the damage that an inexperienced website designer can do to your website design.
#2: Who will be performing the work?
While we do all of our work in-house, many website design companies outsource part or all of the project. Which can lead to problems and quality issues. This question will also tell you if you're dealing with a one-person operation or a large team.
#3: do you have a portfolio of work similar to my project?
Look, any good website design company ought to be able to show you examples of clients they've already helped that had similar challenges to what you have for your website.
If they hesitate for a second to show you examples, run away because they're probably not a good fit for your business.
#4: how long will my project take?
Some website design projects are really small and they're really fast to complete, while others are really long and complicated, it might take months on end to complete.
What's important is that you and your web developer understand what the expectations are, and how long it's going to take to deliver your final product.
#5: what will my project cost?
This is a big one for small business owners because there's such a wide range of prices with web designers in the nearby area, and it's hard to compare apples to apples.
So whether your project is quoted as a fixed rate or an hourly rate, it's important to understand exactly what's included in the project and what's not.
#6: what does the website design process look like?
You're asking this for two reasons:
- First, you want to understand what the major milestones of the project are going to be.
- Second, you want to make sure that they at least have a process. So you can feel comfortable that they're going to complete your project on time.
#7: how involved do i need to be in the web design process?
We find that there are two types of customers:
- One type that you really don't want to be involved in the process and please take care of everything, write all the copy, design it, show me when it's done.
- And then we have customers on the other extreme that they want to be involved in every single detail. And you want to make sure that regardless of which customer you are, that your website designer is going to work with you effectively so that you get the result that you're looking for.
#8: what happens if i don't like the web design?
Does your website designer work with you until you're happy, or do they limit the number of revisions that you can make? I feel so strongly that you should love your website design, that if at any point during the design process, you're unhappy with the site or working with us, we will refund all of your money. You won't find many web designers near you willing to do that.
#9: how do i make changes to my website design?
Website designs shouldn't be just a set it and forget it, regular updates and maintenance are part of a healthy and effective website design. Look for a web design company that makes it easy for you to make changes or for you to send changes to them, and they make them quickly.
#10: will my site be optimized for google?
Many website designers, including us, offer separate SEO services, but you want to make sure your site is built with SEO marketing best practices from the very beginning. It's nearly impossible to get your site to rank on Google if it's poorly designed right from the start.
Your homework
Okay, so here's your homework:
This top ten list is really 10 of our 28 questions that you should ask before hiring a website designer. You can download our 28 questions, with our answers, so that you're best prepared when you're making that buying decision to get a new website design. And if you need help, just contact our website design company in Lancaster, PA. We also offer internet marketing services including email marketing, SEO services, PPC marketing, and geofencing marketing, as well as traditional marketing services.
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