7 Critical Questions to Ask When Hiring a Web Designer

Hire Someone Who Can Answer Them, or Your Site Will Be a Flop!

There are many web designers out there, eager for your business. A lot of them are well-trained in the technology of building a website, and are quite good at what they do. Still others are graphic designers who had no choice but to offer website design as a service, as this is what their clients needed and wanted. And then, frankly, there are others who THINK they know how to build a website because they taught themselves HTML, the language behind web pages, but they really are clueless. They don't understand the technology that is required to make a site work properly, they don't understand the graphic elements, the psychology of using certain colors, the way to place the images on the page so that the eye naturally focuses on the important elements of the site, etc.

There are web designers at both ends of the spectrum, and many who fall somewhere in the middle. However, very few web designers, at either end, understand the MARKETING elements that will make the difference between a website that looks nice but doesn't do the business owner any good at all, and a website that brings in the business.

With that in mind, you can ask certain questions that will give you clues as to whether a web designer that you are considering hiring can produce the results that you desire from your website. After all, your website is your public face. It must represent you well. If it looks unprofessional, potential customers will get the impression that you're not that concerned or serious about your business. My own opinion is that a website that looks unprofessional is worse than no website at all. Look at it this way. Would you let your 14-year-old nephew do your bookkeeping? Then why would you let them build your website? I rest my case!

So you ask your friends who are also business owners, you look up "web designers" on the internet, you check out the yellow pages and you find three web design companies that look interesting. You call them and set up appointments to interview them. They show up at your office or store, portfolio in hand, and tell you how great they are. Here are some questions that you might want to ask that will give you a good indication of whether they can build a website that will be a great marketing tool for your business:

1. How will you build a website that will load fast, capture the attention of the visitor within seven seconds, and keep them coming back again and again?

That's right, you only have 7-9 seconds to capture the attention of your visitor before they leave for another website. If your site still hasn't loaded, or if they don't see anything interesting, they're outa there!

2. Do you know how to set up an email-capture form and hook it up with an autoresponder?

If your interviewee doesn't know what you're talking about, you might as well thank him for his time and move on to the next candidate. Without a way to capture the email addresses of your visitors so that you can continue to correspond with them, you're leaving a lot of money on the table. That potential client may not be ready to buy your product or service, and may have every intention of returning in the future. Usually he won't, though. If you have his email address, which you have enticed him to give you in exchange for free information or coupons, you can build a relationship with him until he is ready to buy.

3. Can you design my site so that the call to action is clear and prominent?

Again, a good web designer will understand that without a clear call to action, you are wasting your resources. The visitor needs to know what it is you want them to do, whether it's buy a product, sign up for your newsletter, or call you for an appointment.

4. Will my pages be optimized for the search engines, and how?

The answer should be "Well, of course!" And the designer should understand the uses of keywords, metatags, linking strategies, title tags and search engine submission . If they don't use all of these when they are explaining what they will do for you, then they do not understand how to get your site found in the search engines. BEWARE: If they tell you that they use software that will submit your site to thousands of search engines, show them the way out! This is considered "spamming" by search engines, and your site could be banned!

5. Which browsers and which versions do you check to ensure that the site is workable?

The two major browsers being used today are IE (Internet Explorer) and Netscape Navigator. AOL has it's own version of IE. There are others, such as Mozilla and Opera. The current version of IE is 6.0x and the current version of Netscape is 7.0x. Your web designer should be checking your website at least in the last two versions of IE and Netscape to ensure that everything works properly. Although there are standards for coding web pages, not all browsers see everything the same. You want as many people as possible to see your site the way it was meant to be seen.

6. Will my site be designed according to the accessibility guidelines and other W3C standards?

If your web design candidate stares blankly at you, tell him "Thanks, I'll get back to you" and lose his phone number! The W3C is a non-profit commission that sets the standards for website coding. There are guidelines that should be followed to ensure that people with disabilities have the same access to your website. For instance, a lot of sites these days like to leave the underline off of a link because they think it looks more sleek. They will make the linked text another color instead. You may not think about this, but someone who is color blind will not see the different color, and won't know that the text is a link. You've just lost some potential customers.

7. Can you design the navigation so that it is clear, understandable, and the visitor will always know where he is in the site and can find what he wants without clicking more than three times?

The 7-9 second rule applies here. If the visitor can't figure out where to go for the information he seeks, he'll move on to the next website. A common, unfortunate phenomenon is referred to as "mystery meat navigation". This refers to the use of images for buttons, but they don't say anything! You have to run your mouse all over the site to try to figure out where the information is. While this may produce a nice looking site, it doesn't do anything for your bottom line.

A few other points to remember:

• Make sure that YOU are the owner of your domain name. There's nothing worse than having your web designer disappear from the face of the earth and finding out that your domain name was registered by him, in his name. You have to jump through hoops to convince the registrar that you are really the owner!

• Make sure that you have all of the hosting company codes and contact information necessary to access your website, even if your web designer is maintaining your site for you. Again, if he disappears, you need to be able to get to your own site, or know who to call so that your new web designer can access the site.