Whether you are designing a new website for the very first time or revamping an existing one, the website designer you choose to hire will influence the success of your website. Hence, hiring a web designer is one of the most vital tasks you will encounter as a business owner.
Finding a web design company that best suits your company’s specific needs and goals comes with great stress and pressure. So, to ensure you select the best agency as a business owner you must conduct a thorough hiring process. Like hiring a new employee, selecting a firm that carries out web design services takes interviewing, assessing performance results, appraising portfolios and reviewing references.
So how do you identify if a web designer is well-suited for your business? The solution is to ask the right questions during your selection process. It’s critical to ask the right questions during this process because who you choose to work with to construct your website will dictate how much you enjoy the process and the end product. Remember, if you use your website for marketing purposes, you will be working with this web design agency for several years. It’s an investment.
No matter if you schedule a phone call, video call, or if you meet in person, when speaking with your web designer and ask these following ten question to set up your website for success!
1. Do you have any experience in my industry?
Although this question may not appear to be exceedingly important, if your business works within a unique industry, the learning curve needed for a web designer to get up to speed may extend your projects timeframe by two or three times.
Therefore, hiring an employee that has previously worked in your industry is beneficial. It may be difficult for an agency to give advice and recommendations related to content and user experience if they do not have knowledge in your area of expertise.
At the same time, be on the lookout for a designer who does have experience in other industries also. A web designer with knowledge in your industry can provide some helpful insights, but they may not be able to bring in ideas and practices learned from working within other industries.
2. Do you have a portfolio I can see?
Many web design agencies showcase their work online through their website. This will grant you the chance to discover their web design capabilities and if their work looks professional. Take note of the design styles they use and their websites’ user experience.
When looking at a web designers’ portfolio, it is essential to take note of the following considerations:
Is the work attractive?
How is the user experience? Is it seamless or flawed?
Does it line up with what you’re looking for in your website?
Is their work clear and captivating?
Do they have favourable reviews from past clients?
3. What kind of research will you do on our business?
High-quality branding and website design involves prior research to successfully plan, design, and market your business. You want to collaborate with a web designer who can acknowledge your ideal client. Asking a potential designer this question demonstrates a deep dive into your business to recognise your brand’s purpose, the proper steps to maintain your online excellence and the needed functionalities.
4. Which content management system do you use?
Content management systems (CMS) are used to organise and create content on your website. Knowing what CMS your website designer uses and recommends is important to know, especially if you will also be adding and maintaining content on your website.
Ensure that the CMS platform aligns with your website’s needs and functionality requirements. The administrative functionality and the back-end design of CMS interfaces vary greatly. It is favourable to ask your designer for a website demonstration to be aware of how intuitive and customised the CMS of their websites are. After all, your business will be utilising this system a lot, so it is vital that it is an easy-to-use platform for your team.
5. What is your process for feedback and revisions?
There may be an instance where the first draft of your website comes back to you, and you don’t love it. Many website projects include a first draft with some sort of revision process so you can review your site functionality and design and provide feedback as needed before the website is finalised. For a pleasant experience working together with your web designer, it is constructive to understand their process for sharing drafts with you, seeking your feedback, and consolidating it into revisions.
6. What is your design process?
Organisation is key to keeping your project timeline close to the estimated website launch date. The most organised web designers have a reliable design process that you can depend on. Aim to join forces with a web designer who can confidently walk you over their workflow with complete clarity – from the initial research and development stages until the website’s launch. A solid design process also ensures that you won’t run into any time or budget problems once the project starts.
7. Do you follow SEO best practices when building the site?
Integrating Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) into your website to effectively market your product or service is a top priority. An SEO strategy is fundamental to web design, so your web design should include some of the following SEO services such as image optimisation, fresh on-page content, strategic page titles, promotive meta descriptions, and keyword research can help your website rank higher on Google. Such SEO services should begin from the project’s onset to ensure that your website is made with the groundwork that you need to be noticed online.
8. How will your design aid me to reach my targets?
This question requires your web designer to talk mainly about how they can help your business. A web designer that approaches your project with the mindset of “I want to help you succeed” can answer this question with ease, citing how the characteristics of your web design will allow them to achieve the targets and goals you wish to meet.
9 Do you offer services other than web design?
If marketing isn’t an aspect of your business that you carry out in-house, hiring a digital marketing agency that handles web design can be beneficial. Other services such as content creation, SEO and social media all work collaboratively with your website. So, it may make sense to look for a one-stop-shop for all your marketing efforts. Your universal marketing strategy will be more cohesive if your web designer has each of these elements in mind when building your website. Plus, you will probably be saving yourself some money in the end.
10. How will we communicate throughout the project?
Communication is key to a successful business to web designer relationship. While some web designers may choose to work on specific pieces of your website independently, others may have a team consisting of writers, programmers, and graphic designers in which they divide the work based on their specialties.
In any circumstance, there should be a transparent picture of who the point person is that you will be in contact with during the entire length of your web design project. This may be the web designer themselves, or it may be another member of their team who deals with client interactions. When it comes to something as critical as your website, you don’t want muddled communications where it leads to a long game of phone or email tag until you arrive at the right individual.
Time to hire your website designer
Do you have a better understanding and feel more prepared for what questions to ask your potential website designer before starting a project? We hope so!
Don’t be frightened to ask the tough hitting questions when searching for a web designer to work with. If you ever get the sense that you are disturbing the designer you are interviewing, it’s probably time to get back on the drawing board – a reputable web design agency will at all times be adaptable and considerate and willing to help their customers, after all!
Angela Spearman is a journalist at EzineMark who enjoys writing about the latest trending technology and business news.
