March, 2009

Effective Websites Newsletter

Hi [FirstName],

This issue contains articles about how to choose a web design firm, how to protect your email addresses and the importance of protecting your reputation online.

Trouble reading this newsletter? Read it on our website.

Dave Salahi

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How to Choose a Web Design Firm

These days, anyone can create web pages including your neighbor's 10-year-old kid. However, that doesn't mean you want your neighbor's 10-year-old kid building your business website. There's a lot more that goes into creating a high-performing website than HTML coding.

One of the most important things to consider about your web design firm is their understanding of business, in general, and your business, in particular. A website is a marketing tool and, like any piece of marketing collateral, needs to be focused on the benefits of your products and services. So, it's important for your web designer to understand something about your business. When you speak with a prospective designer pay attention to the kinds of questions they ask. Do they ask about your business, your target audience, your market niche and your competition? Decisions about what pages to include on your site and where to position various items on each page depend on the answers to these kinds of questions.

Does your web designer understand your goals for your site? Most likely, the first and foremost purpose for your site is to increase your sales. If this is your goal, you'll probably want a designer with some marketing savvy. If your goal is to increase traffic to your retail storefront that implies one sort of website. But if your goal is to deliver customer service and support online, that implies quite a different sort of site. It's important for your designer to be clear on your needs and to plan a site that will fulfill those needs.

As you get acquainted with your designer, pay attention to how well they listen. Do they spend more time asking about your needs or talking about themselves? You'll want to know enough about them to know they can do the job, of course. But once that has been established, the rest of the conversation should focus primarily on your needs.
Does your designer talk over your head in technological terms? As a businessperson, you don't need to know all the details of the technology. What you want to know is how a technology decision will impact your business or your budget. Can your designer explain technology in those terms?

You'll want to look at your designer's portfolio to see what kind of sites they have been building. Are the sites attractive and easy to navigate? If you were a customer of that site, would you be able to easily find what you're looking for? Also, look at a few of the sites as though you were the owner of each site and the associated business. Does the design clearly present the most important information from the business owner's point of view? Is there a prominent call to action on most pages? As you examine your designer's portfolio take note of whether the designer is able to work in different design styles or not. Do all their sites tend to look the same? You want to hire a designer who can communicate in a style that is appropriate to your business and your target audience.

Earlier, I mentioned that it's important to establish your designer's technical credentials. It's a good idea to understand what your designer's strengths and weaknesses are. Some designers come from a graphic design background and are good at creating eye-catching designs. Others come from a software development background and are good at technical details like writing code for an ecommerce site. Others know about user interface design, pay-per-click-marketing, or search engine optimization. The ideal designer is capable of handling all of these tasks or, at least, the ones that are important to you. Think about extras you may want their help with such as a blog or an email newsletter and find out if they can handle those needs as well.

You'll also want to see the designer's contract. Make sure that you retain ownership to all of your content. Also, make sure that all of the source code will be delivered to you. For some websites, the files that are deployed to the live site do not include everything that might be needed to make changes in the future. Having the source code ensures that you will be able to make any updates and upgrades you may need as time goes on.

Speaking of updates, you'll want to plan for changes so ask how your designer will handle them and what it will cost. If you'd like to be able to make updates yourself, ask if they can set up the site in a way that allows you to do that.

Get references from your designer. Talk to a couple of their recent clients and see how happy they are. Did the designer deliver on schedule and at the agreed-upon price?

Conclusion

Hiring a web designer, like hiring an employee, is a question of finding a good fit between your needs and the designer's talents, skills and experience. You'll want to make sure that your designer can fill the bill in the areas of importance to you. Evaluate your designer's skills in the following areas vis-a-vis your needs:

• business & marketing acumen
• design
• technical competence
• professionalism
• related areas such as ecommerce sites, search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, and email newsletters

And remember, the best website isn't the cheapest site. It's the one with the greatest ROI.

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What Are Your Questions?

What are your burning questions about internet marketing? Call me at 949-362-0842 or email me at with your questions. Or fill out a one-minute survey on our website. Then watch for the answers in an upcoming issue of this newsletter.