Web Designers
How to find the best Web Designer for you.
Search on the internet for a Web Designer or internet design and you literally find thousands, so how do you narrow it down to the one that's right for you?
If your in the market for a professionally designed website, then the chances are you are a business or other form of organisation that has allocated a budget. This is a key issue, setting yourself a realistic budget and understanding exactly what it is you want to achieve. No doubt you have a vision in your head what your new site will look like, but you now need to get that vision down onto paper and be able to explain it to a complete stranger.
You don't have to be artistically minded, that's why you are paying for a professional company, but you do need to have a clear idea of your aims. Is it an ecommerce site you want to create, and information site containing lots of data or a simple web presence for a single product or service. If you are creating a large information style site, then you are probably going to need some kind of database to power it, if it is ecommerce, then you are going to require some kind of secure payment gateway, such as Protx or a simpler mechanism such as Pay Pal.
Once you have your site planned out and your allocated budget, have a look at who your main competition is going to be. Does their site reflect your ideas, are they doing stuff you hadn't considered and would like to incorporate. Use this time to hone your research and tweak your plan until you are now ready to contact a design company. Extra planning now will save you potentially thousands in the future when your site has to be redesigned because of a key feature you forgot to include in your original brief.
Now its time to start window shopping. The beauty of the internet is that businesses dependant on it such as Web Designers can be easily viewed and browsed before you ever have to pick up the phone.
Make up a shortlist of potential companies. What does their site look like? A Web Designers website should be a shop window to show off their skills and tempt you inside. They should have a portfolio somewhere on their site so you can review their work for other clients. Looking at the client list may give you an idea if they have worked on the kind of site you have in mind. If the client list is full of household names, this may also give you a clue as the amount it is going to cost!! Unfortunately most sites aren't very quick to advertise their pricing structures, and to be fair, most work is very much individually priced depending on your project brief.
When you have your shortlist, it's time to make contact. As with all things in life, never make a snap decision, and don't be wowed by the first company you talk to. Get 3 or 4 different quotes. If possible, go and meet them face to face. Are they a one man band hiding behind an impressive website, or are there a team of professionals with different skills that can make your dream come to life. Talking to 3 or 4 companies and let them go through your brief may throw up questions you hadn't considered, and you are getting all this professional advice for free. If 3 companies tell you the same thing that an aspect of your proposed site is not technically possible, then listen to them! Chances are they will come up with a solution which will be a vast improvement over your own ideas.
Ask them plenty of questions. Have they worked on a site like your before? Can they show you an example? Can they show you some examples of different styling so you can get a feel for their creative styling, or do all the sites tend to look the same? Find out timescales, can they fit you in? How long do they think it will take to complete your project. Ask for a quote, can you get a fixed priced deal? Web Designers are expensive, if you are being charged a daily rate and they hit problems with your project, do you have enough contingency in your budget?
Be realistic with your budget. If you have found a skilled team and you are impressed with their work, don't expect them to get excited about your £500 budget to create the next Ebay!! You are hiring professionals, and you definitely get what you pay for. For basic static content websites, expect to be looking around £1000, for complicated database driven dynamic content sites, then you will be looking at £10,000 plus.
If you can agree a fixed price deal, then agree staged payments. The company will want to see some form of deposit before they commence work, maybe a third of the agreed amount. Then suggest the second third when the development work is complete and the site goes live, and the balance after a couple of weeks of use and your happy most glitches and issues have been resolved. Do you get any kind of warranty? Will they continue to assist you as part of the fixed price if bugs in their code come to light, weeks or months after the work has been completed?
Using sites such as My Local Services allows you to review comments left by previous customers.
I've heard using overseas designers works out a lot cheaper?
Using offshore companies such as in India or Eastern Europe can be considerably cheaper than using UK based companies. But this isn't for the faint hearted. There are a lot of talented and professional companies, but also an awful lot of less desirable ones. There are other factors to consider, what you save in actual design time, you can lose in international phonecalls. Communication can be a major issue, and talking to someone using MSN is no substitute for a face to face meeting. Also consider payment issues, how does the company want to be paid? How are you going to transfer funds?
If you do want to pursue offshore resource, then one of the safest ways is to utilise sites such as getafreelancer.com which rate designers for you by means of a community providing feedback, and for a small fee will take care of payments for you and intervene in disputes.
But there is never any substitute for finding a local company who you can go and visit, and more importantly go and talk to if and when problems arise!!!
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