Some Important Questions To Ask And Consider When Hiring A Web Designer

•  Strategy - Is their strategic thought behind their creative processes or are they being creative purely for the sake of being creative?

• Are they a techie with great technical skills and limited design ability or are they a designer with limited technical ability or are they well rounded in both 

• Is their primary motive to create something visually appealing or to create a website that sells?

• Do they have a thorough understanding of the best ways to market your site so they can ensure that the site they design for you is marketable?

• What websites have they designed in the past, and what is the feedback from clients? Does the website sell?

• What briefing process will they go through with you to determine the purpose, feel, content and marketing opportunities for your website?

• Does their previous work meet the relevant brief in terms of image the client wanted to project or did the work simply follow the designer’s favourite style?

• Capacity - do they have the capacity to handle all your work with a quick turnaround?

• Portfolio - does their portfolio show creative that met the needs of the client’s market or was it highly creative but not projecting an image conducive with the market it was pitching to?  When reviewing portfolios don’t assess their work on the basis of “do I like it” but instead look at it on the basis of “if I was in this industry would it be a fit with the image that I was wanting to project?”

• Search Engine Optimisation - Are they able to produce a web site that is optimised for your market place and keywords - without losing the power of the design?

• What do they charge for updates? How quickly can make changes?

• What ideas do they have to make your web site captivating, convert more visitors to leads or sales, keep people coming back, marketing ideas, etc?

• How are they going to make the web site comply with the legal requirements in your Country?

Until next time, 

Tim & Chris