1. How Many Pages? Some people do not think about this but this is the foundation of your website. What are the main categories? What information do you want people to know about? And of course, the more pages you have, the more expensive the website will cost. So think about this carefully. A basic website will usually have:
HOME page, ABOUT page, SERVICES page and a CONTACT page. You may decide that you want a “SPECIAL OFFERS” page too, or a “NEWS” PAGE. Think about it before trying to work out costs.
2. Target Audience. Who am I trying to sell to? Once you understand that, you can think about the appearance of the website. The colours and themes you want to use. For example, pinks and purples may be suitable for selling baby products or pampering products, but they won’t be very suitable for men browsing for car parts.
3. Content. The actual words and images that you want to add to your website. How much do you want to say? Most people will skim over website copy, so it is best to keep it short and punchy. Short sentences are best. At the same time there needs to be enough content that the search engines understand what it is you offer.
4. Images. Pictures are good for most people as they add colour and interest to a page. Bu they must be relevant. It is worth investing in some nice images. You can buy images online quite cheaply and they do make a big difference to the look and feel of a website. But getting original photographs of you or your business is even better. Think about getting some original photography.
5. Legal. What legal documents do I need to put on my website? You may need to think about a privacy policy and terms and conditions policy if you are selling online. If you take information from people who use your website, you should be aware of what is required legally by doing so.
6. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). There is no point in creating a website if it will not be found in Google or Bing. Make sure that your designer will consider SEO when building your website.
For established businesses with a website, it might be worth considering a refresh every 2 to 3 years. Just like clothes fashions, the look and feel of a website can look a bit dated and old-fashioned. There are new plugins and better ways of programming all the time. Also, what the search engines like Google and Bing expect from a website changes too. A few years ago there was less emphasis on how mobile-friendly a website was. Now websites which aren’t mobile-friendly are considered less valuable to searchers and are ranked lower than websites which are responsive on all types of devices.
If you search for “web design durban” in Google there are pages and pages of web designers. So how do you choose one? On price? Because they’re on page 1 of Google?
What should you look for in a good web designer?
1. A willingness to listen to your ideas. A web designer who only knows one way of designing websites and reuses the same format time after time is not taking your ideas on board. This may be an indication that they have limited web designing experience.
2. A portfolio that they are willing to share with you. Make sure you can see what they’ve done before. Do these websites look good to you or do they look a bit boring?
3. Good communication skills. You want to be able to get in touch and discuss ideas. Are they willing to take your call or respond to your email in a timely fashion?
4. A pricing structure that makes sense to you. Perhaps you want to add more pages – how much will that cost? What about ongoing maintenance? If they offer this make sure it is cost effective. Tweaking a heading which takes two minutes might result in an hourly charge.
5. An understanding of search engine optimisation (SEO).
There is little point in getting a website launched if it is not search engine friendly.
- Is there duplication? Quite often there is unwittingly.
- Are the pages built for speed? Page loading speed has an effect on ranking so this needs to be taken into account.
- What about the navigation menu? Does it make sense to you? Is it structured logically? Can you access all the pages within a few clicks? If you struggle to navigate, your website visitors will too and so will Google.
- Keyword research and page names. Will the website designer do keyword research and assign page names accordingly?
6. Proficiency in copywriting. Who will provide the copy for the website? This needs to be clear since I’ve heard of some websites being built with no text whatsoever to the clients complete surprise! Copywriting is a skill. Writing for the web is different to writing a letter or journal. It needs to be engaging and clear. The copy needs to read well and contain NO spelling mistakes. We’ve more on copywriting for the web here.
7. Hosting packages designed to meet your needs – not theirs. If they provide hosting of your website, make sure that you have full access. Many times I’ve seen people want to move away from one hosting package but can’t because the website designer pulls all the strings.
8. Good up-times on their server. If they host your website, how often does the server go down and with it your website? Do they host lots of websites on the one server all competing for server power? What contingency planning do they have, for example backup servers? Do they keep backups of your website in case of a complete disaster?
9. Client focussed domain administration. If your website designer buys the domain you want to use, make sure that they assign it in your name – not theirs. Again I have heard of clients being held to ransom because they can’t access their domain as they don’t own it. You need to own it. I would suggest always buying your own domain.
10. A clear and achievable timescale. Are they so busy that you will have to wait weeks for your website? If they are rated website developers then maybe it is worth the wait.
I hope this checklist helps you choose the best website designer for your needs. Usually you get what you pay for. So if you go cheap then there may be compromises which have to be made.
If you want a small business website that punches above it’s weight, get in touch with 93Digital.
We have other digital marketing services which you might be interested in or just give us a call today to have a chat about our web design service.