The internet is full of web design companies pleading for your business. Not sure which company to select? By following these simple steps, you'll be able to select the perfect designer for your business.
1. The search for a web designer. Most people turn to search engines on the internet for their search.
2. The designer's portfolio. Once you stumble on a website that catches your interest, look for samples of their work. Freelancer or business, anyone who claims to be a web designer has design portfolio.
Are there designs clean and crisp?
Does the overall design have a professional appearance?
How Is their language, grammar and spelling usage?
3. Check references. If you think the designer can do a good job for you, check their references. You'll find contact information for past clients in the designer's portfolio. They can give you their real life experience with the design company.
4. Selecting a web designer. If your comfortable with the references and like the examples in the portfolio contact the design company to discuss the requirements of your project. By corresponding with the designer via email of telephone, you'll learn a lot about how responsive and flexible they are. Keep in mind that not every web design company has the capabilities to do what you need.
5. Getting pricing for your website. Request web design quotes from your favorite companies.
6. Partnership. Engaging with a web design company should be a partnership. We hope These steps will help you on your quest to find the perfect web design company.
A. That Don't Impress Me Much: Even Pretty Web Sites Have Abandonment Issues
There is a certain similarity between human relationship breakups and web site abandonment:
The good news is that making a good first impression with your web site visitors is much easier than preparing for a blind date. For starters, you can be surfing in your pajamas, no makeup or with "bed-head" and the web site won't laugh its head off at you.
For good web design, you should have a good idea ahead of time about who will be knocking on your web site door. Speaking on behalf of web sites only, not as a relationships counselor, one of the biggest turn offs web site visitors have is dishonesty. For example, any job search in Google will inevitably bring back employment sites, as well as work from home sites. Here's how one web site promoted itself:
"Earn up to $300/hr. Hot jobs. Apply in seconds." Really? I can earn that kind of money without any experience? When I arrived at the homepage, I discovered several images weren't loading. It did mention the product name itself, repeatedly. (Probably for the sake of search engines, not you.)
Nowhere on the homepage did it say why this company could pay that much money to anyone, regardless of their background, work history, age or location. Where does this money come from?
I finally located where to apply way down at the bottom of the page. Credibility? I never entered the rest of the site because their claim was the same one made by thousands of other web sites just like it on the Internet.
If you've read studies on the pros and cons of long content vs. short, then you know that long pages aren't so terribly awful. If you can manage to engage your visitor, they'll hang in there with you. Shania Twain walked through a blazing hot desert in her music video for "That Don't Impress Me Much", tossing aside all kinds of things that didn't impress her. My son wanted a certain popular kids book series on history. The search engine quickly took me to the publisher of the series. When I arrived at the publisher's web site, I was happy to find the following elements within the first few seconds of arriving:
1. Attractive, colorful web design
2. The web site name, and a reference to the book series I searched for. Therefore, I knew I was in the correct site.
3. A "Featured Book" was front and center, in clear view.
4. There were three types of navigation, indicating a large web site. The top was auxiliary stuff, such as "things to do on our site". The left side navigation was designed for first-time visitors and browsers who are "just looking". Sections for Parents, Teachers, Kids and Writers indicated they intended on meeting the needs of many different types of consumers. Every link described in descriptive terms destinations like "Discussion Guides" or "Mother/Daughter Book Club", rather than simply "Discussion" or "Clubs".
The central navigation filled the main body of the web site and was broken into sections. This is how I learned the book series had several categories. They briefly describe, with well-chosen words that provoke interest, each category and a drop down menu allows the visitor to scan and click directly to the corresponding section inside the web site.
5. I knew I could purchase from this site because of the "Shop" button at the top of the page. It wasn't a tiny shopping cart icon, which some kids and non-computer savvy folks may have missed.
No pricing information, sale items or discounted items were on the homepage.
Curious about pricing, I clicked from the central navigation scheme on a book title that sounded like one my son might like. Incredibly, when I clicked on the Featured Book link back on the homepage, I met another conversion dead end. This web site had convinced me their products and company were credible, but they forgot to show me how or where to make a purchase.
I had a choice of clicking around the site looking for prices, or leaving and ordering elsewhere. Armed with all the information they provided me, I could easily find the book at Amazon. You're totally co-dependent on the needs, whims, wishes, desires, dreams, financial status, location, age, gender, and personality of the person who clicks into your web site.
Your web design mission is to meet needs, answer questions, and point the way to productive activity such as purchases or registration.
B. Choosing The Right Web Design Company For Your Website
Choosing the right web design company to create your website presence is like finding a good plumber or electrician. Some charge an obscene amount yet don’t get the job done properly, some charge a lot and do the job great.
Things to look out for when choosing a design company:
Does this company’s website look clean, professional? A good web designer / developer is someone who is not afraid of telling you what is good and what is bad for your website, if when you contact your chosen website design company and they don’t dispute anything that you have asked for or don’t offer constructive and helpful advice on what would be better, more suited to your business and they don’t discuss with you the pro’s and con’s of this, then chances are they are just another design company who is after dishing websites out one after the other with absolutely no concern what so ever of them wanting to push your business forward, driving it out to your customers and creating your business identity.
The pitfalls of using the wrong web design company
• Designed correctly, promoting your company’s image and identity
• Coded properly using CSS and standards compliancy (W3 Standards)
• Loads fast, is hosted on a high speed backbone.
• If your selling products, sell in context to the page its contained within
• Don’t overwhelm your visitors with banners, advisements etc
• Ensure it’s designed without any frames, and the layout is done through CSS and not tables
Most of the above things you will most likely not understand, but don’t worry, just asking these questions is the biggest step towards getting the right website created for you, picking the right company, forming a relationship with your designer to meet your business needs and not asking these questions is the biggest pitiful that most businesses make.
Ask Questions
Ask these questions, if your designer / developer stutter’s or seems confused with these questions or you don’t feel confident when discussing this with him/her, then find another web design company that understands why the above is so important to the success of your business. Good luck in finding the right web design company, and I hope this article has been helpful!
1. The search for a web designer. Most people turn to search engines on the internet for their search.
2. The designer's portfolio. Once you stumble on a website that catches your interest, look for samples of their work. Freelancer or business, anyone who claims to be a web designer has design portfolio.
Are there designs clean and crisp?
Does the overall design have a professional appearance?
How Is their language, grammar and spelling usage?
3. Check references. If you think the designer can do a good job for you, check their references. You'll find contact information for past clients in the designer's portfolio. They can give you their real life experience with the design company.
4. Selecting a web designer. If your comfortable with the references and like the examples in the portfolio contact the design company to discuss the requirements of your project. By corresponding with the designer via email of telephone, you'll learn a lot about how responsive and flexible they are. Keep in mind that not every web design company has the capabilities to do what you need.
5. Getting pricing for your website. Request web design quotes from your favorite companies.
6. Partnership. Engaging with a web design company should be a partnership. We hope These steps will help you on your quest to find the perfect web design company.
A. That Don't Impress Me Much: Even Pretty Web Sites Have Abandonment Issues
There is a certain similarity between human relationship breakups and web site abandonment:
The good news is that making a good first impression with your web site visitors is much easier than preparing for a blind date. For starters, you can be surfing in your pajamas, no makeup or with "bed-head" and the web site won't laugh its head off at you.
For good web design, you should have a good idea ahead of time about who will be knocking on your web site door. Speaking on behalf of web sites only, not as a relationships counselor, one of the biggest turn offs web site visitors have is dishonesty. For example, any job search in Google will inevitably bring back employment sites, as well as work from home sites. Here's how one web site promoted itself:
"Earn up to $300/hr. Hot jobs. Apply in seconds." Really? I can earn that kind of money without any experience? When I arrived at the homepage, I discovered several images weren't loading. It did mention the product name itself, repeatedly. (Probably for the sake of search engines, not you.)
Nowhere on the homepage did it say why this company could pay that much money to anyone, regardless of their background, work history, age or location. Where does this money come from?
I finally located where to apply way down at the bottom of the page. Credibility? I never entered the rest of the site because their claim was the same one made by thousands of other web sites just like it on the Internet.
If you've read studies on the pros and cons of long content vs. short, then you know that long pages aren't so terribly awful. If you can manage to engage your visitor, they'll hang in there with you. Shania Twain walked through a blazing hot desert in her music video for "That Don't Impress Me Much", tossing aside all kinds of things that didn't impress her. My son wanted a certain popular kids book series on history. The search engine quickly took me to the publisher of the series. When I arrived at the publisher's web site, I was happy to find the following elements within the first few seconds of arriving:
1. Attractive, colorful web design
2. The web site name, and a reference to the book series I searched for. Therefore, I knew I was in the correct site.
3. A "Featured Book" was front and center, in clear view.
4. There were three types of navigation, indicating a large web site. The top was auxiliary stuff, such as "things to do on our site". The left side navigation was designed for first-time visitors and browsers who are "just looking". Sections for Parents, Teachers, Kids and Writers indicated they intended on meeting the needs of many different types of consumers. Every link described in descriptive terms destinations like "Discussion Guides" or "Mother/Daughter Book Club", rather than simply "Discussion" or "Clubs".
The central navigation filled the main body of the web site and was broken into sections. This is how I learned the book series had several categories. They briefly describe, with well-chosen words that provoke interest, each category and a drop down menu allows the visitor to scan and click directly to the corresponding section inside the web site.
5. I knew I could purchase from this site because of the "Shop" button at the top of the page. It wasn't a tiny shopping cart icon, which some kids and non-computer savvy folks may have missed.
No pricing information, sale items or discounted items were on the homepage.
Curious about pricing, I clicked from the central navigation scheme on a book title that sounded like one my son might like. Incredibly, when I clicked on the Featured Book link back on the homepage, I met another conversion dead end. This web site had convinced me their products and company were credible, but they forgot to show me how or where to make a purchase.
I had a choice of clicking around the site looking for prices, or leaving and ordering elsewhere. Armed with all the information they provided me, I could easily find the book at Amazon. You're totally co-dependent on the needs, whims, wishes, desires, dreams, financial status, location, age, gender, and personality of the person who clicks into your web site.
Your web design mission is to meet needs, answer questions, and point the way to productive activity such as purchases or registration.
B. Choosing The Right Web Design Company For Your Website
Choosing the right web design company to create your website presence is like finding a good plumber or electrician. Some charge an obscene amount yet don’t get the job done properly, some charge a lot and do the job great.
Things to look out for when choosing a design company:
Does this company’s website look clean, professional? A good web designer / developer is someone who is not afraid of telling you what is good and what is bad for your website, if when you contact your chosen website design company and they don’t dispute anything that you have asked for or don’t offer constructive and helpful advice on what would be better, more suited to your business and they don’t discuss with you the pro’s and con’s of this, then chances are they are just another design company who is after dishing websites out one after the other with absolutely no concern what so ever of them wanting to push your business forward, driving it out to your customers and creating your business identity.
The pitfalls of using the wrong web design company
• Designed correctly, promoting your company’s image and identity
• Coded properly using CSS and standards compliancy (W3 Standards)
• Loads fast, is hosted on a high speed backbone.
• If your selling products, sell in context to the page its contained within
• Don’t overwhelm your visitors with banners, advisements etc
• Ensure it’s designed without any frames, and the layout is done through CSS and not tables
Most of the above things you will most likely not understand, but don’t worry, just asking these questions is the biggest step towards getting the right website created for you, picking the right company, forming a relationship with your designer to meet your business needs and not asking these questions is the biggest pitiful that most businesses make.
Ask Questions
Ask these questions, if your designer / developer stutter’s or seems confused with these questions or you don’t feel confident when discussing this with him/her, then find another web design company that understands why the above is so important to the success of your business. Good luck in finding the right web design company, and I hope this article has been helpful!
