Finding The Right Web Designer
Finding a website design firm or freelance builder is easy. How to find website designer that will do a great job and provide the correct design for your business can be very difficult. In 2020 according to the Office of Occupational Statistics and Employment Projections, there were nearly 200,000 web developers and digital designer jobs with more than 25,000 design firms in the USA alone. This does not include the thousands more freelancers which there is no way to track accurately. To find that right one you will be looking for a needle in a world-sized haystack. So how do you find the right designer, at the right price for your business project?
Make A Design Plan
Before you even start looking for a website designer you need a plan, as with all things.
- Identify your website and business goals. Will it be actively used for making sales or just a presenattion?
- Identify who your target audience is.
- Describe what makes your product or service unique.
- Collect design elements such as photos of your own product or service.
- Create an outline of what your website content will be.
- Define what pages you will need and whether it will be selling online or by contact.
- Make a list of your social media accounts available and whether you want others or not.
- Research who your competitors are, make a list.
- Provide a list of other websites that you like and explain what you like about the designs.
- Will you need a domain registered?
- Will you need Hosting for the website?
- Do you need a logo designed for your business and website?
- Do you want the designer or firm to also provide SEO and marketing?
- What are your deadline requirements?
How To Find The Best Website Designer
The first thing to do is search for the best firms on the internet, “web design company”. You can include your city if you would like a local agency you could visit. Ignore all of the advertised ones that display AD in the search results. They paid to be first on Google. You will find several good agencies that list the best firms. Scan through some of these and make notes of who they list as best and who has the best ratings in the price range you are looking for. Please keep in mind that ratings can be bought.
Now scroll down until you come to actual web design firm company websites. These are the guys who were at least good enough to get listed first in Google for their own business. Getting listed first on Google is the first priority if you want your website to sell products or bring in new business for you.
Now is where you start weeding out the good from the not-so-good. Take your list of possibilities and start studying how they have done for past customers. Most have a portfolio. Go through their portfolio and see how their customers’ websites function and look. You will find that many web design firms use the same or similar style for all of their customers. Do you like what you see? If so leave them on your list. I would also recommend running an analysis of the portfolio of their customers to determine how the sites function. This tool is the best as it has its own system which incorporates the Google Page Speed Insights. GTMetrix is free for personal use and provides a lot of data about how a website works. This report below of our website performance taken March 17, 2022.
Now comes the hard part. How much are you willing to pay. Take your list of web designers you still have and request quotes from them based on the website plan you created beforehand.
Web Design Articles
If you are interested in DIY the website you might want to look at some of my previous articles.