A knowledge of the common mistakes when hiring a Web Designer will give you a walk through what you should pay attention to when hiring a Web Designer and also demystify the steps involved in hiring a web designer.
A lot of Web Designers think they have a monopoly of knowledge, key secrets, and talents used in designing a website, it is, however, funny that these acclaimed talented Web Designer tend to flummox clients with many techno-jargons by throwing around SEO, meta tags, analytics, and miscellaneous items at their clients and the clients are then left with no option than to smile and nod in satisfaction.
Clients, however, end up with a bad and unproductive website even after paying a fortune for it. Finding and choosing a Web Designer that can accurately design a website that will yield results can be a frustrating and confusing process for many people. People end up making wrong choices and in the long run, they are left with a bad website because they ended up hiring an unqualified vendor.
This post will help identify some of the common mistakes to avoid when hiring a Web Designer. These common mistakes are:
Spending too LITTLE for a great Website:
This is very common among people intending to hire a Web Designer especially if it is for the first time. They often mistake a website for a regular day to day item used in business activities such as business cards, safety pins and so on. The result of this false comparison is that it creates a mental picture that a great website should always be cheap, fast and easy to get and the truth of the matter is that “cheap” always eventually cost most and yields fewer or no result.
Another consequence of spending too little for a great website is that it creates room for a recommendation from family members, friends and colleagues about Web Designers (who everybody says is good at his/her work) that can do the job at a cheap rate or even for free. It is necessary to realize quickly that if you are to use these recommended Web Designers, whatever impression you will be creating to your customers will be in the hands of these Web
Designers who most of the time do not know anything. Another case is with people that make use of cheap or free online website builders when trying to see that they spend too little for a great Website. An example of a website builder is Godaddy’s Website Builder which is free at first or Wix where you can drag and drop your website into existence. These website builders do not work for real businesses and you will only suck your time into months of work and what you will be left with is a cheap time-sucking website for all your work. It is therefore important to avoid spending too little if you want to get a great website.
Spending too MUCH for a great Website:
Contrary to the first mistake, spending too much for a great Website is also a common mistake people make when hiring a Web Designer. Getting a Huge Contract or a bill does not make a website great. There are many cases of people who pay an amount as high as $37,000 (which is the price of a car) for a website yet they did not get anything good. The websites they got had awful navigation, pages vanished, the sites went down many times and some were even hacked by porno sites which were a bit of an embarrassment to them. Some of these people had to look for help and the eventually hired us for a lot less than $37,000 and the got an awesome website with a shopping cart (they are making a lot today with just this). Some are even linking the website to websites of their other business and this is helping them to make more money weekly as they sell their products. People should always note that what they need is an expert and not someone who wants to sell a site since there is a big difference between the two. In a nutshell, do not pay too MUCH for bad advice and work.
Hiring a Designer to make your Website:
A designer is an individual who makes designs for objects, designers are artist with the primary work of designing. Website Designer or builders, on the other hand, helps to prepare and build contents for the website, their role is mainly related to layout and styling pages with the contents the build including images and text. Website Designers or builders help to beautify a site. The site must however function and work. Hiring a Designer to make your website will only make you end with a nice-looking website that will not work. In as much as it is necessary to ensure that your site is well presented, nice-looking with different beautiful colors and properly ordered, it is also important to bear in mind that people do not visit your site for these reason. They visit it only if they have found enough reason to and they are sure that they can obtain what they are looking for in the site. This is what a Website Designer does and not a Designer. There is therefore a very big difference between the two and in no condition should they ever be taken to be the same if you want to get a great website that works.
Watch Out for Hidden Fees:
People tend to get carried away when they see that all that is required of them is a small agreement and a small fee at the start, they eventually become complacent thinking they will not have to pay for anything again and when they asked to pay additional money for certain miscellaneous items at a later date, they get furious, complain and sometimes not even pay because it was not included in their initial budget for the site.
Initial startup fee and agreement are not the only fees to be paid when hiring a Web Designer, it is therefore important to make inquiries from the web designer and even other sources about the total amount of money that will be needed to design a website as well as hidden fees that may not be noticed easily at a glance. These hidden fees reveal themselves when the need for a plugin or an add-on arises and they often leave clients in shock. A written contract before anything starts can help to avoid this situation.
Always ensure that the Web Designer has testimonials on their sites that you can look at and visit their client’s websites. A lot of questions should always be asked and a real written agreement should be gotten.
Over the last decade, our reliance on mobile phones has become crucial, almost critical, for us to function through our daily lives. We rely so heavily on our smartphones that we now just take it for granted. How many times have you taken the train or bus and looked around at the rest of the passengers onboard? Yes, that’s right, they are all on their mobile phones. But have you ever asked yourself what they are looking at, or reading?
