These days, you don’t really exist unless you are on the internet. This especially applies to companies, which without a proper website cannot count on making it big in today’s world. Such a demand for web presentations caused an equally great demand for web designers but, as it usually goes when the quantity of something or someone increases, the quality of the service dropped drastically in average. This is partially because there is a lot of unskilled people who see web design as a great way to earn some money from their homes (those people often see web design as a side-job). Skilled designers who accept more jobs than they can manage to finish in a given amount of time without sacrificing quality are the other big reason why you need to be extremely careful when picking a person who will create the image of you or your brand on the internet.
Hiring a Web Designer…
Hiring a web designer is as simple as clicking a couple of times in your browser of choice. Hiring a good web designer is a much more difficult process, the one which requires that you consider a number of aspects and pick the person who covers them best. Here is a couple of useful pointers on how to get the best value for money in this field.
Experience
First thing you need to find out about your prospective web designer is what their experience is. Yes, there are for sure thousands upon thousands of hidden gems among the beginners in web design and if you tried really hard you could maybe find one of them, but take it from us – it takes a lot of time and nerves. You need someone who can show you they are good, so ask if you can see their portfolio. The lack of portfolio is a sign of a serious lack of professionalism, but if you still have patience for the person, go to their website and see how they designed their own web-home. Once you established that your prospective designer’s previous work satisfies your criteria, you can also ask them about their coding preference (hand coding is better than the use of a HTML editor) and their knowledge of Javascript and databases.
Customer Service
The next, almost equally relevant thing to consider is the quality of customer service. The process of creation and maintenance of a website is long and can critically depend on timely responses. A truly dedicated web designer will respond to your calls and emails on time. Don’t settle for less than that – you might regret it later.
Promotion
A very important part of every website is its promotion . Not all web designers will do it for you, but some offer such services. While not a crucial element (you can have a separate marketing expert deal with this aspect of your website), it is definitely something to pay attention to. It’s great if your web designer offers to submit your website and register it with important search engines, help you with creating meta tags and do similar optimization related things.
Price
And lastly, but by all means not leastly, you need to pay attention to the price. Prices for web design can go from really low to really high, depending on who you are and who your web designer is. This is why it is of utmost importance to ask the designer to produce a written estimate of the price before making a deal. This way you will be sure you stay in the limits of your budget. Furthermore, enquire about the way you will be charged for the work the designer does. If you are going to pay them by the hour, make sure the person seems honest enough. If they charge you a flat rate – beware the slackers who think everything can be done the last day before the deadline.
Conclusion
In the end, let us reiterate it once more: no matter what it seems like, finding a good web designer is not an easy task. However, it does pay to be patient and demanding because a great web designer will make your life easier and create a website which will do you or your company much good.