Your website is crucial to the success of your business! Everyone wants to be on the web, but the layout, design, navigation and graphic design can either attract new clients or push them away.    

Here are some important things you should look for in a designer/developer:

1.  What does their website look like?

• Is it clean and well put together, easy to find the information you are looking for?
• Does it look like it was created from a template of other websites you have seen?
• Do they have a portfolio with different style and functioning websites or are all the websites pretty much identical?
• Are they a hosting company? Do they offer hosting? Do you have to set-up your own hosting?
• What does their client base look like?
• What do they offer and what don't they offer?

2.  In talking to your potential designer, do they use a lot of technical jargon or are they able to break the website terminology down, into layman's terms - making it a much more pleasurable and informative consultation for you?

3.  How interested are they in your business? If the designer doesn't seem to be prying and asking a lot of questions about your business or organization, your website may be a disappointment.  Most designers who ask you lots of questions are really interested in making a great web presence for your company/organization.

4.  If they have a casual or lazy tone about your project - reject them. (it's really not worth it)

5.  IMPORTANT: Ask them if your domain name and hosting will be registered under your name and how will you have proof of that.  ALWAYS HAVE YOUR DOMAIN NAME REGISTERED UNDER YOUR NAME OR COMPANY NAME AND MAKE SURE THAT ALL FTP AND LOGIN CODES FOR YOUR WEB HOSTING COMPANY ARE PROVIDED TO YOU! IT IS YOUR RIGHT!

6.  Does the designer have a list of clients for references?  

7.  Call some of the numbers on the portfolio pages, just to make sure they are actually real clients, make sure the sites are not mock sites that give you the impression that they have more clients than they really do.

8.  Ask lots of questions about what they offer: The base price, additional pricing, Search engine optimization...will you be able to maintain the site, or will they and if so what is the cost, time frame in which they site can be built, Does your designer offer logo design, flash, multi-media services, graphic design, etc. ASK LOTS OF QUESTIONS.

9. Last but not least...do you like the designer, how was your over all feeling about the consultation?

10.  Make a decision.

I'm sure there are many other decisions to think about in choosing a web designer, but these were some important things that came to mind. Hope this article helped.

Linette Mitchell, CEO/CCD


www.mbkbusiness.com
 

---

Thank you for visiting our site. This is the first of our blogs. Our company has been so busy that we are just getting around to re-designing our own site. We look forward to posting articles that will inform you of the latest technological devices, social media networking, tips on SEO and much, much more. Our goal is not just to get paid for building your website, but to keep you connected to the world!