Planning Websites

How to plan a website in easy steps, step #7: Hire a web designer

Once you have planned out your website needs and name, it’s time to hire a web designer. You should already have a list of web designers in mind from step #4 (website research), but now that you’re ready to hire a designer, here are some additional things to consider:

Check the web designer’s website

Take a closer look at your prospective designer’s website. Can you find all the basics, like contact information, clearly defined capabilities and specialties, and samples of their work? Take the time to visit their website in a couple of different browsers. Download Firefox or Safari, or check the website from your smartphone. It may look a little different in each browser, but you shouldn’t find anything that looks obviously out of place or broken.

Check the web designer’s portfolio links, too. Then put a few of the customers’ websites into a Google search like this: “site:samplewebsite.com” (insert the sample site’s actual domain, but keep the site: before it). This will bring up a special search that shows you how many pages Google has indexed just from that website.

Check to make sure all the page titles and descriptions are different, and make sure all the major pages are indexed. If there are a decent number of pages listed, and all the titles and descriptions are different, then the web designer has at least a basic understanding of SEO.

Another good test for the web designer’s websites, and also the portfolio websites, is to see if the code validates. Just visit http://validator.w3.org/ and copy and paste the link to each site. The best web designers will have no errors whatsoever, but depending on how many samples they have, it is common to have some errors on some sites.

If there are more than 20 errors on a site, you should move on. Invalid code may work in some browsers at some times, but you want your website to work all the time in all of the current browsers.

Once you have checked the websites, ask the web designer for references. Speaking to actual companies who have hired the web designer can give you a better idea of how the designer’s process works, and whether that would be a good fit for you.

Ask about the web designer’s process

If you haven’t already gotten a firm bid, ask for a proposal now. It should explain all the technical requirements and capabilities of the website, include a firm price, and include firm deadlines. You wouldn’t sign a contract with a lawyer that said you have to pay a certain amount on a certain schedule, without having specific timelines and descriptions of what the lawyer will accomplish throughout that schedule, and signing a web design contract is no different.

In addition to knowing exactly what the web designer will do and how long it will take, you need to know who you can contact. Is there a project manager? Will they be sending you updates throughout the project? Who can you call if you have questions or concerns?

The answers should be: yes, the project manager’s name is _______ and you can reach him or her by phone at _______ or by email at ________. The project manager will send updates weekly. The project manager should be your main contact; if the designers or developers have questions, they may contact you, but you should only talk to the project manager with concerns so that he or she can work those into the schedule rather than letting you call developers directly. The project manager should know what everyone is working on during a given day and can schedule the best time for an interruption of the main team members.

Get specifics

Besides the technical specifications, price, and timeline, you should find out now what your options will be for future changes. If you’d like to change the homepage 6 months down the road, is that something they can train you to do, or would they offer you an hourly rate to complete those changes? It all depends on your needs.

On one hand, if you want to make minor changes to the site and have some basic computer skills, it’s a great idea to have your web designer train you to make the changes yourself. On the other hand, if you don’t know anything about websites or you need to make significant changes, it would be better to let the web designer handle things.

Even if you want the professionals to make changes for the foreseeable future, make sure that the web designer understands you may eventually want to have someone else update the project. Discuss your options and make sure they are not using proprietary code.

In many cases, an open source content management system like WordPress is a great platform to build your website in, and by using a standard tool you can have another web designer pick up where the first one left off.

But if your web designer intentionally codes the website by hand in a proprietary way, you’ll end up paying a new designer lots of money just to figure out how the old website was coded before they can begin to make changes.

Get ready to hire a web designer

Once you have compared proposals from at least 3 web designers, it’s time to sign a contract. Stay tuned for help avoiding common web design contract pitfalls and future articles on questions you should ask a web designer before you hire them.

Website research

Before you start buying a domain and paying a web designer, take your time to do some website research. That way you’ll have a backup plan in case things don’t go as planned.

Research domain names

One of the best ways to research domain names is to go to a registrar — the company you buy a domain from. You can use someone famous like GoDaddy or a lesser-known but better company like PowerPipe.

(It’s wise to read reviews of a registrar before you actually buy a domain. You don’t want to run into problems with your domain. But there’s not much that differentiates registrars, besides the other services they offer. Paying NetworkSolutions $19.99 gets you the exact same domain as paying PowerPipe $12.10. And remember that you want to keep your domain and hosting separate.)

Whichever one you choose, type in ideas for domain names, and the registrar will tell you if they’re registered already. Don’t be surprised if it takes you awhile — a lot of domains are already taken, even if there is no actual website there yet.

Try to use a keyword that describes your entire business, but also something that gives you a brand. For example: AlamoWebsites.com is a good domain name because it has a memorable brand name, it uses the company’s main keyword “websites,” and it’s nice and short.

At this stage, you’re trying to brainstorm a list of choices; don’t buy a domain yet. Focus on balancing keywords with branding. That way, the search engines will find you, but your customers will too.

Find web hosting

Now that you have a list of possible domains, work on finding web hosting. It’s often wise to have one in mind and then ask your web developer for a recommendation. Don’t host your site with your developer, since you want complete control of your site at all times, but some have good hosts that they are used to working with.

One thing you need to know about finding web hosting is that most “web hosting review” websites are actually affiliate marketers. What that means is, they get unique links to each web host, and then no matter which host you choose, when you click on that link the affiliate marketer makes money on the sale.

So of course they’re going to say nice things about a lot of different web hosts. What you need is a truly honest comparison, or a truly honest recommendation.

We recommend 1and1 for smaller websites and RackSpace for larger e-commerce websites. (These are not affiliate links, they’re just honest recommendations.)

Find a web designer

It’s not hard to find a web designer. It’s just hard to find the right web designer. You have two basic options: work with a local designer, or work with someone who may well be overseas.

The pros of working with a local web designer are that you can meet face to face, and you’ll often feel that you have more control over the project. Because of the emphasis on customer service, you’re likely to spend the most money this way. But it’s often a good way to go on large, complex websites.

The pro of working with a long-distance web designer (overseas or not) is that you’re likely to save money. Typically the web designer will prepare detailed specifications on exactly what they are going to do you, and then they do it. There’s not much back-and-forth checkup, other than approving the initial layout. They just do the job.

The best way to find a web designer that’s right for you is to find a company that has already made websites you like. Check designers’ portfolios and see how you feel about their samples. Do they look nice? If you were a customer, would the site work well for you?

If SEO is important to you, but you don’t know much about it, you can try a free tool called WooRank to measure some of the sites in the web designer’s portfolio. If the sample websites rank 50 or higher, you’ll do okay with that designer. If the sites rank 70 or higher, your SEO should do quite well, as they have done the job right.

Don’t forget, you can also ask friends and family who they have used. Often word of mouth is the best way to find the truly great web design companies. Either way, find at least 3 web designers, and have them all prepare proposals for you. That way, you’ll have a list to choose from.

Website research wrapup

Once you have a list of possible domain names, web hosts, and web designers, it’s time to make a diagram of what you want on your website.

When you or your web developer are finished with your website, it’s important to test every aspect. You don’t want to find out about problems from your customers!

Here is a list of the major areas and how to test your website. After you check it yourself, have your friends and family take a look. Many times they’ll see things you don’t, because they’re not as close to the project, and they will have different web browsers than you do.

Check your content

First go through each page of the website, making sure that nothing looks out of place. Check your wording for spelling and grammar issues, make sure all your images are showing, try clicking on lots of links to make sure nothing is broken.

After your visual inspection, it’s helpful to install LinkChecker for Firefox. This plugin will automatically check every link on your website to let you know if you missed something.

Validate the code

If you hire a reputable web developer, the code is often valid. But it’s important to check. You can just go to the industry-standard W3C Validator, or you can get a more comprehensive website test from places like UItest.

If you didn’t specify that you wanted W3C valid code in your contract, you may not be able to force your developer to fix the code.

But it’s important to ask for valid code, and if they are a company that wants your long-term business, they will fix the errors. (This is one big reason it’s important to be picky when you are choosing a web developer.)

Test the website with different browsers

Even if your code is valid, it will look a little different on every web browser. That’s because web browsers don’t follow all the standards. They were coming closer for a long time, but now that HTML5 is out we’re back to pretty scattered browsers.

This is where your friends and family can really help. Get anyone and everyone to look at the major pages on your website and let you know if there are problems. On Windows computers, you can press “Alt – Print Screen” (two keys together) to copy the web browser onto the clipboard.

Then you can click “Control – V” or right-click and choose Paste in an email. This way, if there are any problems, your friends and family can show you exactly what it looks like on their computer. This will help your developer figure out what is wrong.

Most website developers test their sites well, but it’s pretty much impossible to test in every browser anyone could use. Reaching out to everyone you can will help because they’re likely to have browsers you and your web developer don’t have. Have everyone pull out their smartphones and test there, too.

Test your website’s forms

Even though your web developer should thoroughly test a website before telling you it’s finished, they miss things sometimes. If you have a contact form, try using it and making sure you actually get the email. Do this for all the forms on your website, and also test anything else users need to interact with.

It is also helpful to print a few pages of your website, especially receipts and product pages. Make sure that they print clearly with the default settings. If not, ask your web developer to create a better print style sheet.

Test your website’s store

It may sound obvious, but actually go to your store, with a real consumer PayPal account or credit card, and buy a few items. You might find out that everything still has “sandbox” testing settings, or you get credit card errors, or you don’t receive a receipt.

Test website usability

After you’ve gotten rid of any major problems, it’s often helpful to listen to people’s opinions of your website. Actually, it’s a really good idea for your web developer to conduct usability testing throughout development, so that if a process is really difficult for people, they can change it. This way it gets done faster, and you don’t have to pay extra for re-coding.

But even after the website is “done,” usability testing is important. Use a service like User Testing — you pay $30 for each tester, and they will send you a 15-minute video testing whatever you asked them to test.

You get to hear the tester talking about your website and see their actual computer screen. This is another great way to catch web browser-specific bugs, because you can see what they see.

You might find out that people don’t understand your terms, or they’re having trouble finding something that needs to be obvious. Usability testing is one of the best ways to find out when something on your website needs a serious change.

Doing somewhere between 3 to 10 usability tests will help you get a good idea of the bigger picture.

Before you launch a new website, make sure to follow these testing guidelines. It will cost you a little time, but it will save you some serious embarrassment in the long run!