Knowing that you need to have a beautiful and effective website to promote your business is all very well, but how do you go about choosing the right web designer to create it for you?
Get it right, and you’ll have a fantastic marketing tool that works day and night to increase your profits. But get it wrong and you could end up paying for an expensive white elephant that fails to do its job for you.
There’s no simple answer to finding a web designer that’s the perfect fit for your needs, but there are certainly steps that you can take to ensure the best possible match.
Define your budget
If your website only needs to be a placeholder, confirming your business name, address and contact details, or perhaps a small, brochure website, a one-man web designer may be your best bet. Lots of small web design businesses are run by freelancers operating out of their spare rooms with minimal overheads, and for the smallest of websites, these can be a great, cost-effective option.
But if you need a more complex website, with multiple pages and perhaps an e-commerce store, you need to source a larger operation with more employees. Graphic design, web development and web design all require very different skills that you’re unlikely to find in one person. Whether you’re looking for web design in West London or West Lothian, you’ll find design teams that fit your needs and your budget perfectly.
Identify websites that you like
It’s difficult to imagine your perfect business website when you have no real knowledge of the industry, but making a note of websites that catch your eye is a good starting point. When you meet up with your potential web design team, you can show them your examples so that they have an idea of what appeals to you.
Bear in mind, though, that what appeals to you may not necessarily appeal to your target audience, so allow yourself to be guided by the professionals who will almost certainly know what web visitors expect from their online experience.
Do the designers want to understand your business?
Whether you’re looking for web design in West London or Westward Ho! you need to have confidence that your design team is familiar with your industry. Understanding who your web visitors are is absolutely crucial to the design process, so if your web designer doesn’t seem interested in finding out as much as possible about your business, it’s time to head for the exit as fast as possible.
Any worthwhile web designer will want to spend time getting to grips with understanding your target audience and your competitors too before getting started on any web design plans. Failure to spend sufficient time on this stage means that your website will never fulfil its true potential, so if your design team is more concerned with getting started with coding before the research stage is completed, it’s time to look elsewhere.
