Selecting The Right Web Designer

A July, 2007 article in Business Week talked about the horrors some have experienced in hiring unscrupulous or inexperienced companies to design their web site.

To help prevent this type of event happening to other small business owners, here are some tips on selecting the right web designer.

1. Work with a local web designer - Instead of just hiring the first company you fond on the web that touts inexpensive web design, do your homework. It's much better to work with someone who is local. We've done web design work for clients around the country, but those projects came to us through a referral from one of our existing clients. We were in constant communication with these distant clients and made them feel at ease with the web design process.
2. Make sure you know what you want before you talk to a web designer. Look at sites before you meet with someone to find out what you want and don't want. Knowing what you want ahead of time makes it easier for the designer to give you an accurate proposal because everyone is on the same page. Also consider whether you want the designer or someone else to maintain the updates on your site or if you would like to handle this aspect yourself.
3. Check references. It's one thing to look at a designer's work, but how easy were they to work with? Did they follow through with the assignment as proposed? Were they easy to get in touch with when there was a question? Did they respond quickly to messages? Did they work within the budget? Did they complete the work in the time they estimated?
4. Get a proposal with a not-to-exceed cost. A lot of companies will give you the lowest price just to get the work and then they come up with change orders. Before you know it, the price has doubled. Make sure everything is clearly spelled out in a proposal so you know what is included and what is not. If the designer knows what you want, they should have no problem giving you a solid not-to-exceed cost.
5. Register your own domain name. Don't leave this crucial step up to the person who will be doing the design work. It's your company and you should own the domain name. This is a critical point that I cannot stress enough. A friend of mine was able to get a federal trademark on her company name because she had registered her domain name before others who tried to use the same name. If she had allowed someone else to register the domain name, she wouldn't have been able to prove ownership.
6. Purchase your own hosting account. There are many good hosting companies out there that can provide the support you need to host your web site and email accounts. Purchasing the hosting yourself allows you to be in control of your site, not your designer. I've heard a number of stories where the designer used the web site domain registration and hosting to hold a customer hostage when they wanted to have someone else work on their site. That's a big no-no in any industry. The hosting companies I recommend are Netfirms and Network Solutions.