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Your website is one of 4.5 billion others on the net. Hence it must have some distinctive features that have the ability to catch the attention of the surfer and create the desire in him to come back to your site.

Moreover, your website is your online corporate identity which represents you, your business, your ideology, your professionalism, your employees and establishes your brand. Your online presence is dependent on your website that denotes you need a professional web designer to create a captivating website that promotes your business.

While deciding on a web designer for your website you need to focus your attention on the following two major points:
A. On the web site
B. On the web designer.

 

A - Web Site

You must have a clear understanding of your needs when you are visualizing a website for your business that you will keep in the forefront while devising the marketing strategy of your concern. You need to consider the following points:

1. Purpose of a website

You must have a clear vision of the purpose for your website. Whether you are looking for a mere web presence because all your competitors have a website or you want to communicate with potential clients, expand corporate branding or to generate sales is your sole discretion. Depending on your needs you can have any one of the following type of website:

• Advert
• Sales Support
• Shop

Advert

Here you only want to provide the company name and contact details. The visitors should have a clear idea of your business and the contact details in case they are genuinely interested in your product. This is the cheapest web site that doesn’t need a professional web designer and has the least maintenance cost. In case you register with as many search engines and directories as possible it will help in driving an abundance of traffic at your website.

Sales Support

In this type of website you are not only bothered of a web presence but also interested in increasing the volume of sales. This means that you need to provide the company name and contact details along with feedback forms, product specifications, manuals and brochures, frequently asked questions and other relevant information that will make the customer genuinely interested in buying the product. You must ensure accuracy in content and good navigational access to the potential customers.

Shop

This is a full fledged e-commerce venture where your attention is to promote and attract attention of customers and convert the searchers to customers. Your website must provide the company name, contact details, product catalogue as well as a functional payment system. If the system works perfectly you can gain a lot from e-commerce. But you must proceed with caution as it is an expensive proposition. Designing and maintaining the website needs a reasonably high budget.

2. Budget

You must evaluate your financial capability before deciding on the design of your website. There is cost involved in:
- Web designing
- Acquiring domain name and its rental
- Provide for rent for web space
- Cost of modifying or updating content
- Cost of monitoring mails
- Cost of Web Hosting Services

You should know your affordability status before taking the plunge.

3. Time

You must estimate the time that you will be able to provide the designers to create the website, carry out test checks and ultimately provide a functional website. The target date should be finalized by you before you start working on designing a website.

4. Visualize the website

You must decide on the size of your website- the number of pages, designs of shopping carts or galleries, designs of logo, simple text or flash presentation etc. before selecting a web designer. The basic idea is that once you have a clear impression of your needs you will be in a better position to explain it to your designer. For this you can get an idea from:

1. Browsing the website of companies who deal with your kind of business
2. Get a general idea of current web pages by browsing the sites of the companies that you know

 

B - Web designer

Choosing the right web designer for designing and developing your website is a crucial decision as it has an impact on your web presence. They say ‘first impression is the last impression’ and your potential clients get the first impression of you by visiting your website. Hence you need a professional help in designing your website so that your website attracts targeted qualified traffic to your website.

You must carefully analyze the following points before deciding on your web designer:

Portfolio

It is recommended that you have a clear understanding of the prior websites designed by them. They must have at least 15 to 20 satisfied customers and you can directly talk with their clientele and get a thorough understanding of the nature of satisfaction they provide. You should also ascertain whether they focus on your business needs or only to aesthetics.

Expertise

You should know of the areas of expertise and the level technical know how of the web designer before you shortlist any of them. Now-a-days only web designing is not enough the designer must have an idea of search engine optimization as well. He should also analyze return on investment and recommend ways to optimize the performance of your website.

Communication

The response time taken by the web designer is an important point that needs a lot of attention. The channels of communication, the expertise to satisfy queries, the time taken to respond and the number of projects the designer handle at a time are important factors to be considered before short listing a designer.

Cost

You should never choose the cheapest designer as it is the quality that matters. Sacrificing the quality of your site at the expense of cost is not a wise decision. Rather it is recommended that you choose a designer who gives quality service at a reasonably affordable price. There should not be any hidden costs and in case they charge for any modifications or conceptual changes that have to be specifically stated in the contract.

Size of the designing firm

You should collect information on the size of the web designing firm. It is always recommended to opt for a firm that believes in working as a team. This means parts of your work are done by those who possess the requisite experience and then accumulated to give a finished website. In case it is a one or two member firm then it might hire graphic designers or programmers or outsource your website which is not a desirable option.

Time taken

Whether the web designing firm maintains the target date has to be considered before finalizing any of them.

Professional outlook

The web designer must have a professional approach to work otherwise there might arise undesirable situations with the client. It is very important to have a compatible web designer otherwise it has a negative impact on the nature of work. Your designer should be able to fit in the way your team works.

Services provided

The designer you select should have the ability to sell you a complete Web site solution based on your needs only designing the web site is not enough. They should also provide additional services like domain registration, site development, site maintenance, content management, site analysis, and hosting. If your designer can setup or provide these services for you, it will save you a lot of time and money in the long run.

After careful analysis of all the services that will be provided by the web designers, cost involved in designing and running the website and the estimated time involved you can now choose the web designing firm that best suits your requirement and falls within your budget. Ultimately it is your website and you have the right to choose the designer you fill will be able to give shape to the website that you dreamt of.