How to choose a web designer

Unless creating your own hobby related site, you should use a professional web designer to create a website for your business.

There are many people out there who claim to be web designers but in reality have no real experience of meeting web standards or designing for established clients.

Questions to ask a web designer

• What software do they use?
• What technology and languages do they use?
• Can they manually write HTML code?
• Can they apply SEO to the website?
• Are they able to create forms and interactive content?
• Can they work in a secure server environment?
• Do they validate code to web standards?
• Do they meet accessibility guidelines?

Any good web designer should hold these skills, even if they don’t apply to your project at hand they are still a good set of questions to ask. Should a web designer lack in these areas, they are unlikely to be qualified to work on your website. 

Try to find out what programs the web designer will use, although a website can be setup using cheap software this does not necessarily mean it will be a good website.

Web design software

• Microsoft Front page should be a warning sign, few professional web designers will use this programme
• Plain text editors, in theory should demonstrate that a web designer is able to code by hand, and in return has a good understanding of their medium
• Dreamweaver and other associated programmes are very good and expensive, however just because a web designer owns this software does not necessarily make them qualified

Other questions to ask

Find out what steps the web designer will take to make sure your website can be found in the search engines, this is very important.

Ask to see examples of the web designers work, if they have a portfolio take a look.

Find out what will happen if you do not like their design, will you incur additional charges or will they keep working on the website until you are satisfied?

Find out who will retain copyright of the website once it is complete, some web designers try to retain ownership of the website. In our opinion the client should own the website outright with no limitations or conditions at all.

Ask about the websites cost, a website quote that sounds to good to be true usually is.