3 posts tagged “choosing web designers”

For individuals and businesses just beginning to work online, the process of building a web site can be daunting. Here is a quick and dirty tutorial to help you better understand what it is you are doing, or what you are hiring someone to do for you.

1. First you will need a Domain Name. Example: www.your_business.com. Your domain name must be unique. It is registered with companies such as register.com or Network Solutions and the cost varies, anywhere from $9.95 to $25 per year. You may register your domain name for any number of years in advance. Sometimes your domain registration is included in your hosting costs (see #2). There are different extensions available. Some of the most popular are: com or biz for commercial type sites such as most businesses (com is more popular), org for organizations, and net for networks. When you register a domain name, the server you are hosting the pages on is registered with it. this enables other computers on the internet to know where your web site is located.
2. Hosting. Your web site must reside on a web server. There are many companies that offer hosting, including your local internet service providers. Costs on hosting can range from $9.95 to $50 or more per month.
3. Design. If you are not creating your own pages, you must employ a web site programmer/designer. Design and set up costs vary greatly, from $20 per page, $50 per hour, or even $1,000 or more per site.
4. Promotion. Once your web site is available, it is not automatically found through search engines. This is a 4th process to getting your site up and running. Your web site address and information must be provided to each of the major search engines. The quality of the design and the meta information provided by the designer will greatly determine your success here. In the beginning, the most effective way to get visitors to your web site is to include your web site address in all advertising, business cards, etc. Having your site return in online searches may take many months. Other methods that are very often employed to help promote the site and it’s ranking include having other sites link to you, participating in other forums related to the site to help establish you as a leader in your field, and ensuring that your content is always fresh and relevant.

You could be dealing with 3 different entities when setting up your web site: domain registrar, hosting company, and designer. To make the process easier, select companies that will take care of your domain registration, hosting services, and design for you in one place. Designers all have their own styles and personalities, and the ability to work closely with the designer to get what you want is very important.

Do you need a designer or a code-monkey?

It’s an important question. Consider the following:

• Do you need a professional to help you design a great web presence?
• Do you expect the person or company you hire to make the decisions regarding the best layout and presentation for your site?
• Are you willing to pay for their expertise regarding standards and accessibility?

or

• Do you have a specific design planned?
• Do you have your content exactly the way you want it, including all text?
• Are you wanting your plan implemented exactly with no deviation?

If you answer ‘yes’ to more of the first set of questions, you’re looking for a designer. If you answered ‘yes’ to more of the second set, you’re looking for a code-monkey. The difference? You hire a designer for their professional expertise regarding design, layout, and standards, you hire a code-monkey to make your idea work on the web in any way possible.

Before you start firing off a 3 page missive about my use of the term “code-monkey”, please let me explain: I have no problem being hired as a code-monkey. I’m in a small business, in a small community, and if that’s what my customer wants, that’s what I’ll deliver. I also make sure they know my opinion concerning their chosen design/content. Usually, they listen and I can work with them to deliver a better site.

Every now and then, I can spend hours straight with a client, and they will still insist on me implementing a site with bad layout, bad color, and even worse…bad grammar. I had this happen very recently. I couldn’t even convince the client to use correct grammar in their text. I tried for hours begging for simple changes to their content alone. In the end, nothing changed, and I wasted 4 hours that I can’t bill for because all this client wanted was a code-monkey to deliver their idea in an online format. In a perfect world, I would have walked away in the first 30 minutes after having told them that perhaps I was not the best company to work with them. But I feel more strongly about helping my clients, and my community, than I do about wasting non-billable hours, and fought for as long as the client would allow.

What can you learn from this? When you are working with your designer, please value their expertise and opinion. You hire your accountant and trust their knowledge in making decisions about your finances. You go to a physician and trust their knowledge concerning your health. You hire a plumber and trust he/she knows which pipe to replace and how to do it to make everything work right.

Trust your designer to help you deliver a great web site. And if you know right off that you want a code-monkey to implement your plan exactly as presented, then please, please tell your chosen design company this FIRST.

The newest addition to the westXdesign portfolio is Darwin Harrison Photography . To showcase his stunning photographs, Mr. Harrison knew exactly what he wanted. With the design already planned and a very clear idea of how the site should interact with visitors, he was well prepared to get his business on the web. Having a clear idea of what you want, or at least what you do not want, is very helpful when you work with a web designer. Working to make Mr. Harrison’s idea a working web site was an easy process, because he provided continual feedback during the entire process, and had the site tested and reviewed by his acquaintances, as well as the testing we were doing on the design end. The end result was closer to his conceptual design than I could imagined. And in no way is that credit to me as a designer. The credit goes to Mr. Harrison for his communication with me during the process, already knowing what he wanted, and working closely with me to reach the desired final product. I’m proud to have this gorgeous site part of my portfolio.
The lesson here for you? Before you decide to hire a designer, think about what it is you want your web site to accomplish, what goals do you have in mind? If you envision your business web site before you begin, not only will the site have a more tailored appearance, but you’ll save money on the design. When a designer starts with a concept of their own, then presents it to the client, that’s often when the client finally begins to visualize their site for themselves. And then they’ll like this part of the design, but not that, and keep this element, but get rid of that, and hate the whole color scheme and want something…brighter. You can imagine that this process can go for quite a while before the client is happy with the site. And the whole time, they are paying for designs and programming that the end up throwing out the window. Don’t let that happen to you!