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So_Youre_Hiring_a_Web_Designer You_Have_the_Right_to_Demand_these_7_Perks
| So Youre Hiring a Web Designer--You Have the Right to Demand these 7 Perks
Whether you’re hiring a designer who has created 10 sites or
1000 sites for other businesses, there are 10 things every
website should do for you.
1. Be wary of companies who charge by the hour and don’t put on
a cap! There isn’t a regulated industry standard in fees. So
websites can easily end up costing you a small fortune. Ask for
a flat fee if possible—you’ll know exactly what you’re paying up
front. It’s common to pay for 50% down, and in certain cases,
when working with businesses online; you may need to pay the
whole flat fee down. This is perfectly acceptable. You wouldn’t
order books from Amazon and wait to pay for them when they got
there!
2. Try to get a turnaround time in writing. It is up to you to
bring as much information as possible to your designer. This
will make the design process go much faster. You can’t just go
and say “make a website for me” and expect your designer to know
what to put on your website! The more you bring to the table,
the faster your designer can work. And the faster you respond to
proofs, the faster your site will be active and live! Depending
on your designer’s workload, it could take anywhere from 1 week
to 3 weeks to finish the design of your site.
3. Original custom designs are always best for branding your
image. If your designer works exclusively from pre-designed
templates, with no customization at all, you will not have as
professional a site as if you received 100% customized work.
Make sure you understand how your website designer creates
websites.
4. How much flexibility will you have in the future? The best
aspect of websites is that they are dynamic—or should be. Print
advertising is static. But you can constantly update your
website as your company grows. How fast and easy can your
designer make changes to your site? Is she building in functions
to make these future changes possible?
5. Does your designer optimize your pages and submit them to
search engines? If they don’t then you will end up having to pay
for this service, or figure out how to do it yourself. A web
designer may not have 100% of the SEO tools out there, but at
the very least, your website designer should create your meta
tags, make sure your keywords are sprinkled throughout your
content and at least submit your site to the basic directories
and engines.
6. Is your web designer just designing your pages and leaving
the domain name and hosting up to you? Beware of this. Sometimes
their quotes only include the design itself. If you don’t
understand domain names and hosting, you need to make sure your
webmaster purchases your domain for you and sets up your
hosting—and then manages this year after year. Websites with top
level domain names (.com, .net, .org) are taken more seriously.
So it wouldn’t make much sense to have a professionally designed
site hosted on a free site like Geocities.
7. Does your webmaster offer a guarantee? If you can’t get your
designer to create a look that you like, will you be able to get
your money back? Find out if this is in your contract before you
fork over your cash.
About the author:
Flat fee, custom, fast, flexible, submitted, domain & hosting
included, refund available. Mitoné Griffith has designed
websites since 1999. Her streamlined 24 Hour Website Wizard
assists you in creating your website in less time than it takes
to get a book on HTML to ship from Amazon. Complete and custom
websites overnight. Visit http://24hourwebsitewizard.com to
learn more, or email to 24hourwiz@getresponse.com.
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