Choosing the right company to design your web and development service is an extremely important step to building a successful online presence. All web designers are not created equal. Our goal is make this process easier and so we have compiled a list of things to consider as you shop around.
Be sure you convey clear concise ideas of the functions that you want your website is to accomplish. Leaving it up to your web designer to fill in the blanks can be both ineffective and costly. It is very important to convey the objectives of your website in advance.
Familiarize yourself with basic terms currently in use such as WEB 2.0, AJAX, or SEO (Search Engine Optimization). If you do not know the meaning of any acronym that your designer uses ask him for an explanation of its function. This simple practice may save your paying for functions that you do not really need.
Web Designers and Web Developers often get confused. Typically a Web Designer will help take your ideas and create the basic graphic design elements as he understands them. Web Designers often take the next step for you by converting that graphic into a functioning website. They may have to hire a web developer to take the basic design and convert it into a working website. A good Web designer, will by definition, be part artisans, part technician, and part marketing guru. Therefore, their services tend range from “pricy to even more pricy.”
Minimize maintenance (continuing) costs): One of the most often overlooked aspects of hiring a company do develop your website is maintenance. All good websites are never really finished. All good websites require constant updating. This fact is confirmed over and over by search engines results. Websites that are updated on a regular basis rank higher than the ones that are not. Accordingly, , it is important to know how your web designer or web developer plan to update your website. For example: would you invest $500 if you knew it would end up saving you $2,000 within a year? Of course you would, any good business person would. So would it be better to have your web developer charge you an hourly rate for all of your future updates or have them develop an administration script where you could easily keep your website updated without any technical knowledge. A good web developer will offer to develop an administrative page on your website where you could log in from any computer with an internet connection and keep your website updated as easily as you can edit a Word Document.
Good things to avoid
Technology is constantly changing. This has never been more true than it is on the Internet. Web surfers want their information and they want it right now. Studies show that most web pages have a 2 second make or break period. Most web surfers know within 2 seconds of landing on a website whether or not they are going to continue to read any of the information on your site. First impressions are tremendously important. On the web that could mean the difference between a profitable website or flushing your money down the drain. There was a time when it was popular to have a long animated introduction on the first page of your website with music in the background. This fad has died. Again, if your website takes more than 2 seconds to load, you risk losing 90% of your visitor traffic. It has been said there are only 2 people who like those flashy intros: The person who made it, and the person who paid for it. Other than that they have been proven to have a negative effect on your website.
There has been a large movement in the web development community to provide certain standards to follow during the development of websites. “Web Standards” are meant to improve the way websites are designed in order to improve the web surfer experience. Accordingly, you should avoid any web developer that is not familiar with the term: “Web Standards” and if they practice them in all of their projects. Unfortunately, no one can be forced to follow these standards so there are many web developers who completely ignore them. The end result is a website that may look good on a Windows machine, but will look horrible on a Mac. Websites which do not follow web standards are going to look different after any web browser upgrades. So paying for a website made without following web standards is like paying for an obsolete website.
Where did my web designer go?
Make sure your web designer or web developer has an established business and will be available for any ongoing requests from you. Many web developers will multi-task your project along with numerous others. They would prefer to take your website, get your approval and disappear ignoring any “glitches” or updates you may need in the future. Work with a company that you know you can trust and you know will still be around 10 years later when your company goes public and you need a redesign. 
It is a good idea to find someone local where you can actually meet the people personally who will be putting your site together.
How will people find my website?
Internet marketing should not be treated as afterthought. Implement your web marketing strategy at the outset is imperative. The term SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is making sure that your website is formatted the best way possible to enable Google and all of the other search engines to find your keywords and place you as high on the search engine rankings as you deserve. A few years ago people had the ability to type keywords into the code of their website and that was the only way the search engines would find you. Now the technology has advanced so much that the search engines examine your website from top to bottom and even dissect into your code. This makes SEO a very important part of the web development process and should be emphasized during the entire project.
Don’t let your web designer stop at SEO. Having your website optimized for search engines will get you listed but it will not always get you to the top of the list. This is where SEM - Search Engine Marketing comes into play. Not only do you want to make sure that your website is optimized but you also need to show the search engines that your website is more relevant than the others. This is done through the process of search engine marketing. There are many aspects that can be included on your website to help automate some of this process. Make sure your web developer plans to not only optimize your site but plans to market it too.
Summary
Choosing a web designer / web developer is much too important to brush off as a simple task similar to throwing darts into Google and picking the first person who comes up. Choose someone who will take your website from Point A to Point B without charging you hidden sub-contracting fees. Someone who can insure the quality of the site by using web standards and thus avoids outdated technology. By deciding to enable the updating of your website yourself (in house) you can save considerable amounts of money in the long run. Having a website does not mean people will open it, therefore make sure your web developer offers an effective way to market your website in addition to designing it.
