The pace of business today is positively supersonic. There doesn’t seem to be enough time for anything anymore, and businesses of all sizes are working harder and faster all the time.

It’s important to work smarter, too. And that means when you have to choose an important vendor for an essential service, you need to slow down and make a deliberate, careful decision. This is particularly important when you are getting ready to put your company’s face on the World Wide Web in a new or newly-refurbished web site.

Before listing the ten key things to look for in a good web designer, let’s define a few terms. Even though you may encounter variants on the name – like web developer, web artist, webmaster and so forth – we’re talking about an individual who, alone or with some assistance, is going to "get you up and running." This means more than simple design.

You may need someone who can help you conceive and write copy. You may need someone who can plan smart site structure. You may need help getting a domain registered, files uploaded, e-mail accounts set up, and other technical details. You will definitely need someone who can do just about anything, or quickly find out how, or have an associate who can at the ready.

With these caveats, and serious encouragement to shop around for price and professionalism, here are the ten things to look for, in rough order of importance:

1) Experience You will need someone with all the techniques, tools and tricks that will help you prepare your web site and accomplish your online goals. You should confirm that the candidate knows the entire alphabet soup of protocols, web markup languages and coding utilities: HTML, XML, CSS, PHP and so on. Ask all prospects for a portfolio, ask if they can "hand code," find out how many years of experience each has, etc.

When you interview designers, on the phone and/or in person, you will get these answers swiftly enough. But take due time to get more important insights as to the individual’s character, level of expertise – and how well your personalities mesh. You will be working closely together, after all.

2) Customer service orientation As important as experience is a mindset and attitude of making customer service a priority. If a designer/developer is too busy to answer e-mails or phone calls, will they be able to keep the production schedule? Ask for references, and make a point of actually calling them. Ask the prospect’s previous clients if the web developer was responsive, on time and effective.

3) Original copy and graphics Creating professional and 100% original web graphics separates the adults from the kids every time. Most anyone can do some "quick and dirty" copy writing and slap it on a page with some pictures and hyperlinks. On the other hand, a talented and veteran designer will demonstrate knowledge of page layout, have a way with color and know how to place elements on a page for best appearance and web site performance. Take a good look at a number of the sites each prospect has built, and make sure no one is using "templates" or "starter pages" that come with some software programs or are available (even free) on the Internet.

Page 1 of 3 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 3 | Next