HOW TO FIND A REPUTABLE WEB DESIGNER
If you’re trying to source the right Vernon web designer for your business, you may want to look beyond just portfolio pages. Many often overlook the most basic elements which can lead to a bad decision and a website that is not a good fit for your company, a negative experience, or both. Ask for references and see if there are local businesses you can contact directly, to get some honest feedback about the web design company you are considering.
Look far beyond a designer’s past works and client testimonials; get to know how well they can deliver on some of the most basic components of a website, even if you are a novice when it comes to anything Internet related. Here’s a short checklist that may help:
SEO Web Design.
SEO is an abbreviation for ‘search engine optimization’ and it is what’s needed in order to give your website a fighting chance to rank for keywords in major search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. There are no shortages of website designers that don’t understand basic elements on how to optimize a website for keywords, in fact, most don’t but will tell you they do. A website that is built lacking proper SEO structure can be a complete waste of time and money, since it won’t yield any traffic and potential customers will never find you online. The good news is, weeding out the bad ones will be easy, Google search “web design Vernon” and see where they rank. Not on first page? Don’t bother calling them.
WordPress and Other Content Management Systems.
You’ll hear a lot of complaints about website designers that hold their clients virtually hostage by withholding vital information about a) how to access website content and b) by making simple tasks so complex, you need an experienced developer to carry out the simplest design changes. In some cases, creating this confusion is not deliberate; however, you may regret not asking the question about how you can make changes to your own website post-launch. If your developer is using a widely popular CMS (content management system), such as WordPress, Joomla or Drupal, you stand a much better chance being able to manage your website independently, unless you fancy yourself to be an HTML coding guru.
Get Straight Answers About Rates.
We like to say building a website isn’t rocket science because modern technology has made it easier to build a website than ever before. Especially if your developer is using a CMS, such as WordPress, you’ll find that there are countless thousands of design templates out there that you can purchase, download and install in mere minutes. We are not condoning the use of ‘out of the box’ designs, but we are saying most of the hard work will already be done. These days, charging countless thousands of dollars for a basic website with only a few informational type pages is ludicrous. Shop rates can, however, add up if you are looking to get away from a ‘boilerplate look’ and for those after a more customized design.
