Small Business Website (part 4) – hire a web designer
by James Agate
Now for the final installment in our small business website series, today I will talk about how to go about hiring a web designer for your small business.
In case you missed them; here are the first 3 parts in the series: the planning stage, choosing a domain name and DIY web design.
Hiring a web designer
This may sound like a relatively straighforward task but there are a surprising number of things that need to be considered before you make any commitments.
Getting someone in to design your website is effectively outsourcing a part of your business and I think it is important to think of it as outsourcing. ‘Getting someone in’ sounds like a casual decision, ‘outsourcing’ reinforces the fact that this is a conscious strategic business decision.
The golden rules of outsourcing your website design
- Web Designers are notorious for going under – Be sure to choose a stable agency that has a decent portfolio, a proven track record and a professional manner. You really don’t want your web agency going skint because that can cause all sorts of problems and in some cases will mean you have to completely start over – a complete nightmare!
- A website is a business tool not a platform to inflate the ego of the designer – exercise caution with a design firm that places too much emphasis on its creative credentials over its commercial acumen.
- What is it that you want from your website (e-commerce, brochure, community etc)? – find the web design agency that specialises in that area.
- What’s your budget? Some agencies charge considerably more than others but don’t think for a second that by paying £10,000 you are necessarily getting anything better than if you’d paid an agency £1,500 (this isn’t a concrete rule but definitely something worth considering)
- Also, don’t think that because the agency charges you £5,000 for your website they are any less likely to go skint compared to other web design agencies. In fact, I would speculate that the agencies that charge more would struggle and disappear more often than the more reasonably priced agencies purely because work is harder to come by.
- Go back to your plan and look at what you wrote with regards to the design, colour scheme, feel & look of the site. Don’t let your designer lead you away from this – you know your customers better than he/she does.
- Web designers have a tendency to be a little bit ‘high-maintenance‘ – (it’s their creative nature!) learn to work with this or pick an agency that has project managers who can act as a go-between for you and the designer.
- On a similar theme, be careful when it comes to working with the rockstar designers – yes they may be talented but their sheer arrogance can mean a lesser service than if you had gone to a new, hungry web design agency.
- It’s nice to use a young and upcoming firm for your website – give the newbies a chance. BUT meet in person and make a judgement – ask yourself “Is this designer going to be around in 2 years, 5 years, 10 years time?” If you’re not convinced or simply don’t want the risk, choose an established player in the market.
- Remember to put in place a robust system for controlling your website it becomes part of your brand and your business so you don’t want control to be placed too far away from you so ask your designer about a CMS (content management system) or failing that ask them how much they charge in terms of a retainer for their ongoing services.
Some Web Design Agencies
I would recommend Googling ‘web design’ on a daily basis for about a week, keeping track of the agencies that appear at the top of the organic results and those that constantly appear near the top of the paid for results.
If an agency consistently appears near the top of the organic results, it tells you the following :
- The agency has probably been established for some time
- It knows what it’s doing when it comes to search engine optimisation (SEO) because it has conquered a competitive keyword ‘web design’.
If an agency consistently appears near the top of the paid for/sponsored results, this tells you the following:
- The agency has a large marketing budget therefore is arguably successful, well funded and likely to stick around
Be careful when choosing an agency that you’ve only seen once or twice in the paid for results because this suggests that they are poorly funded (which brings into question the longevity of their business), or haven’t planned their marketing budget very well which speaks volumes about their ability to plan – will your project get finished on time?
Whilst analysing an agency’s position in Google search results can help with your overall decision it obviously shouldn’t be used as a hard and fast rule for selecting a web design partner.
Some Web Design Agencies
Here are a few web designers that I have come across – by the way this doesn’t constitute a recommendation so please do some research yourself before making any commitments.
