Most likely, your website is the first thing a customer sees before doing business with you. Because a small business website is so important, you’ll want to be sure to find a web designer who will reflect your business. A customer’s first impression of your site will either cause them to contact you or to click away to one of your competitors. For the average customer, you’ve got their attention for 15 seconds. So it’s incredibly important to make first impressions count for your small business website.
Are you looking to hire a website designer? These questions should be at the top of your mind. You’ll want to be sure to get them answered before diving into creating your site.
Seven suggested questions for you to ask a potential website designer:
- How long have you been designing websites?
- How long will it take to complete the design?
- How much will it cost to design and build my site?
- Do you offer marketing services?
- Where can I find what others are saying about you?
- Will my site be mobile-friendly?
- What do you need from me to get started?
1. How long have you been designing websites?
Generally speaking, the longer a website designer has been in the business, the more experience they’ll have gained. They’ll be more familiar with any technical and design issues that may arise during the website’s development and know ways to resolve those.
Make sure that you check out a designer’s portfolio of past projects on their website. This will give you a good starting place for the type and quality of the designs they’ve completed. If your potential website designer’s portfolio looks amateurish or outdated, you’ll want to contact another website design company.
2. How long will it take to complete the design?
This largely depends on how complicated the website design is. On one hand, if your site is one or two pages, it could be completed within a few days or a week. However, if it’s a site that contains dozens of pages and submenus, most likely, it’ll take much longer and cost more.
After discussing your specific small business website needs, be sure to ask the designer to send you a preliminary proposal. This way, you see everything that’ll be involved in designing your site. Additionally, you’ll be able to take another glimpse into your website designer’s aesthetic, organization, and attention to detail. If you’re spotting numerous typos, general information that has nothing to do with what you asked for, it’s a red flag that their website for your small business may be as vanilla and as error-prone as their proposal.
3. How much will it cost to design and build my site?
This will vary based on two things: the complexity of your website and the level of expertise your potential designer has. For example, a three-page informational site will cost much less than a twenty-page site. And more likely than not, a website designer with lots of experience will charge you more than a designer just starting out.
Additionally, if your small business website will need a lot of maintenance each month, you’ll want to keep that in mind. For instance, if you’re constantly offering new services, rotating deals, or consistently adding new blog posts, you’ll want to let your website designer know upfront and be aware that they may need to devote more time each month to backups and maintenance tasks than if your website had more stagnant information. This, in turn, could turn into a more costly website design.
Generally speaking, you’ll want to budget to pay half of the total cost of your site upfront and the second half after the completion of your website.
4. Do you offer marketing services?
Many small business owners wear many hats. They’re often too busy selling their services to also do their own marketing. So when they have a business website built, they fall under the assumption that it’ll instantly start attracting visitors. Unfortunately, this can be compared to erecting a sign in the middle of the desert. There’ll be no traffic, and therefore nobody will be able to see it.
Ask your website designer if they offer additional marketing services. For instance, a pay-per-click paid advertising campaign on Google will generate instant traffic that can be measured on Google Analytics (Your website designer can help with this as well). Additionally, you may want to think about creating an email newsletter for your current and potential customers. I’ve taken this advice to heart and have recently launched an email newsletter campaign myself.
Whether you’re thinking of using a free or paid approach to marketing your small business website, you’ll want to leverage the power of search engine optimization (SEO). An SEO campaign will build up a steady stream of traffic over time as your rankings increase in search engines like Google. Ask your website designer if they offer SEO packages that you could add into your website. If so, they’ll be able to research keywords that you could rank high for in Google (as close to the top of the search bar for maximum clicks). SEO is not a fast two-day turnaround. There are companies that specialize in offering SEO services. However, with some work on your part and possibly help from a professional, it could make a real difference in your website being found by potential customers.
5. Where can I find what others are saying about your potential website designer?
Knowing about previous client experiences with a small business website designer will give you a good idea if you want to work with them. The first place you should check is their own website. More often than not, small business website designers have testimonials from past customers on their websites.
Another good place to find testimonials is to type their company name directly into a Google search. This will bring up their business profile on the right side of the screen, so you can easily find a list of reviews from real clients.
Here is my Google Business Profile that comes up when you do a Google search for “Hilary Popham Website Design.”
If you’re still unsure about the website designer that you are considering, ask if you can speak with one of their customers. Website designers that are confident in their reputation will be happy to provide a list of references.
6. Will my site be mobile-friendly?
These days, people are searching for products and services from anywhere at any time, most often on smartphones and tablets. In fact, customers are using mobile devices five times more often than desktop computers. This trend isn’t likely to flip anytime soon.
Therefore, it’s essential to ask your designer if your site will display on all electronic devices. Check their portfolio of work and test a few websites on your mobile device. Is it easy to scroll through the website on a mobile device? Are you able to easily find what you’re looking for? Do the text and photos automatically snap into a size and ratio that you can easily read? These are just a few things that you want to be checking for when it comes to a mobile-friendly experience. A seasoned website designer can walk you through each of these quandaries and more.
7. What do you need from me to get started?
Being fully prepared saves time and frustration for you and the website designer that you’re working with.
Here are a few things that you will need to give them:
First, choose your domain name. It will be something like www.yourdomainname.com.
Next, it will be helpful to give your website designer any pictures or images that you already have available. Giving them a current graphic file of your logo is always a plus. If you don’t already have a logo for your business, a website designer may be able to help you to create a logo. I’ve designed many logos for customers who did not have one, and I was able to include it in their package at no additional cost. I believe that a website that includes a professionally designed logo is more credible than a site without it. For samples of some of the logos I’ve designed, visit the Portfolio page of my website and scroll down to the logo section.
Once you have chosen your website designer, you can visit my other blog, 10 Things You Can Do to Help Your Website Designer Create an Amazing Website. This article expands upon some of the topics discussed here, and also some additional tasks that both you and your web designer can do right off the bat to make the process go more smoothly.
Hopefully, these questions will help you start thinking about what you would like to discuss with a potential website designer. Approaching several designers before settling on one is a good practice to ensure you can have a website that fits your business’s online marketing needs.
