Choosing a Web Designer the Easy Way

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Choosing a Web Designer

When you choose a web designer, there are many things that you need to be aware of and that need to be taken into consideration before you make a decision.

To some extent, the ability to work successfully with your web designer is sometime as important as their actual skill in being able to deliver the project.

A web designer that is skilled in what they do but is a pain to deal with can make the whole process frustrating and not worth the money being spent, especially if you have an emotional attachment to the project (which you should have being the one supplying the money and motivation)

That relationship can be worth a large proportion of the contract.

However, there are some key things you need to consider.

Be careful in what you get for your money. Some possible pitfalls you may want to check on:

Obviously what do you get for your money

What is included? Design, Content, Search Engine Submission, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Graphic Design, Updates? You need to get these details so you can compare your quotes against each other. You also need to quantify some of these things in terms of quantity, hours, numbers search engines submitted to etc.

What are the ongoing costs?

All websites have ongoing costs. Web Hosting, Domain Names and updates are the main three. Make sure you know the total cost of your investment. Some companies offer lower up front costs to lock you into higher ongoing costs that end up costing you more. Some other things are SSL certificate costs, more bandwidth and web space.

How easy is it to incorporate your branding

Some template sites are hard to blend a logo or colours into them, be wary of template driven website companies, some of these people are skilled enough only to change the text on a template. Some designers design their sites from the ground up incorporating all of you design elements in their design. These companies offer the most flexibility.

How reliable is the services provided

With hosting and email, too much down time can make the whole experience unworkable. You don't want to have to change hosts after six months because your designer has provided you with a poor host. Some people rely heavily on email and these are the people that need to choose carefully so their business inst impacted.

What are the costs for making changes later on?

Updates and maintenance on your site is something that will eventually happen, even if you don't change the content frequently (see the Making Your Site Super Sticky Article for the benefits of this) you will eventually change some content and so you need to know what it will cost over a year.

Hidden costs

Make sure common things (like search engine submissions) are either not included or are an extra cost. Some key things can be omitted to keep the price down. Make sure you don't get sold short. An important one...is the web designer doing the job part time Are your web designers doing this as a full time job? Some designers are working during the day and then web designing at night. A lot of designers started out this way, but it can cause issues when you need something done and they don't do the job from 9-5.

If all these things check out then you have found someone who you can work with and provide you with a service that will get you your desired result.

Remember; choose a designer with the right skills, but also one you believe you can work with on an ongoing basis. Build a working relationship that will benefit you both and your web project will benefit as well.

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About the Author: Steven Gardner runs DeepWeb Web Design, a web design business that caters to all businesses looking to get an edge with their presence on the Web, providing web design, maintenance and consulting services. You can find him at www.deepweb.co.nz.

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Shawn Lyons Story

http://www.rabbitmovers.com/

Rabbit markets itself as an anomaly in an industry with a bad rep, capitalizing on a staff of artistic types, word-of-mouth referrals, and a Web site that posts positive customer testimonials and descriptions of extra services traditional moving companies don't usually offer.

So far, Rabbit's bare-bones sales and marketing strategy—except for maintaining its site, the company spends no money on advertising—is working. Rabbit's founder, former itinerant writer Shawn Lyons, who started the moving company in 2004 for $1,500—the cost of a 1981 Dodge Ram cargo van—estimates revenues will be around $300,000 in 2006. This is up one-third from a year ago. "Originally, I was just going to do the 'man with a van' thing and have time to write," Lyons says.

But about nine months into helping friends move their furniture in his spare time, Lyons decided he was onto something because demand kept increasing. So he pursued the licensing and insurance required by New York City and State and started to build Rabbit into more than just a traditional moving company, carving out a niche with young urban dwellers.

Today Rabbit, apart from making residential and commercial moves within the New York metro area and renting storage space, also offers massages ($80 per hour) and feng shui ($200). Clients normally take advantage of these extras after the move. Moving prices range from $100 an hour to a flat $1,500 for a complicated, labor-intensive move that includes packing.

Toby MacPhearson, a 31-year-old information-technology worker in Manhattan, paid Rabbit about $650 to move from the neighborhood of Chelsea to Hell's Kitchen, and is glad he took advantage of the feng shui service. "I was mostly in it for the practical aspect: It helped me reduce my stress by helping me set up the apartment in a logical manner," says MacPhearson, who has since referred two friends to Rabbit.

Still, Rabbit is a tiny presence in an industry that generates approximately $7 billion a year in revenues and employs an estimated 450,000 workers. David Sparkman, a spokesperson for the American Moving and Storage Assn. (AMSA), an industry advocacy group with 3,400 members, estimates that there are 5,000 to 6,000 mostly small, family-owned moving companies, with just a handful of large van lines.

With so much competition out there, concentrating on a unique group of customers has helped Rabbit establish a strong reputation. Apart from Rabbit's positive plugs in its Web site's testimonials section, sites like Apartmenttherapy.com and Brooklynian.com include posts such as: "Rabbit Movers are awesome. I've used them and passed them on to friends as highly highly recommended."

That seal of approval lends multiple benefits to Rabbit. "The notion of community in an urban setting leads to positive word of mouth, customer loyalty, and branding, and it seems like Rabbit has all of those," says Heidi Neck, assistant professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College.

Those who hire Rabbit to help them move shouldn't expect stereotypical movers. "Most of our guys are artists or in some creative field; they're just a really creative bunch," says Lyons, who counts chefs, painters, musicians, and writers ranging in age from 23 to 43 as his employees. "We're trying to move away from the perception of movers being supermacho creeps. Movers kind of have a bad rep in New York, and for good reason. There are a lot of scams, so we try to combat that," he says.

Aside from wanting to work with people whom he liked on a personal level, Lyons says it was easier to communicate the tone he's trying to create for the company to people who already intuitively understood it through their own experience. Trying to nurture friendly interactions with clients further sets Rabbit apart from the competition.

Since good employees are the key to creating a good moving experience, Rabbit pays fair wages across the board. Lyons says most of his movers make between $13 and $15 an hour, while many other companies pay workers under the table or at minimum wage. Keeping morale up, he says, is a necessity when your primary selling point is alleviating stress for the customer.

Also atypical of a moving company: Rabbit's community of young movers and customers is forming around the Brooklyn art scene. Lyons studied literature and writing at Temple University in Philadelphia and wanted to have his career fit with his creative background. So he recently bought and renovated a space in Brooklyn's Dumbo neighborhood (Dumbo stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge), where he now rents space for artists to display their work.

Not directly related to Rabbit's moving business but intimately connected with its people and its style, the studio will host exhibitions at this year's Dumbo Arts Festival, and some of the artists will be Rabbit's own movers. Lyons says most of the people he expects to attend the exhibition are former customers who asked to be added to the Rabbit mailing list.

The company also specializes in moving art for galleries. Lyons says the movers' appreciation for the work establishes a trust between them and the client. "What's really great is that they're not just movers, they're really smart guys. In a business you need things that are malleable—people who are quick and able to adjust to what you need," says Priyanka Mathew, gallery director for Gallery Arts India, one of Rabbit's clients, and a former banker at Goldman Sachs. Mathew says Rabbit has moved scores of contemporary Indian paintings and sculptures without damaging a thing.

The company also employs a design aesthetic on its Web site, trucks, and T-shirts that appeals to its target demographic of young urbanites. "I just went along with what I would want in the aesthetic of the designs, the character, and quality of the movers. So far it's working, I think," says Lyons.

Rabbit's faithful clients—Mathew included—agree that the company's got staying power. "I really think this is the way that business is going to be moving—especially small business. You have to be sound fundamentally, but to create a niche and an edge, you've got to try and differentiate yourself, and that's what Rabbit does very well," says Mathew.
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What is Google's Supplemental Search Result and How to Deal with It.

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Have you have ever checked to see how much of your site Google has indexed by using the site:www.domain.com command? If so you may have been puzzled to see results that said 'Supplemental Result' after the website URL.

What is a Supplemental Result? Well, briefly it is an index of web pages that Google has determined do not belong in the regular search index. Wait a minute, not showing in the regular Google search results? That is a lot of potential visitors to your site just lost because your pages are no longer showing up in regular Google searches. What can be done to get yourself out of Supplemental Hell?

Site Age:First of all things to consider is whether or not your site is new and does not have many inbound links. If that is the case, don't worry too much, just get out there and try to get some incoming links to your pages. Be sure to do this as 'naturally' as possible avoiding web spammers or 'bad neighborhoods'.

Duplicate Content?: Are your pages lacking original content and just contain copies of information taken from other sites or do multiple pages contain similar content? Original and informative content is king and Google is very loyal to it. Get rid of copied content and write your own or pay someone to help.

URL's with extensive variables: Avoid URL's that contain multiple variables. If possible avoid variables longer than 2 characters and keep the amount to a minimum. For example, www.domain.com/file.php?itemnumber=2344 would be better served by shortening the variable to something like file.php?in=2344.

Link, Links, Links: I mentioned too few links earlier in the article and suggested increasing links. Well, remember to get good links, avoiding bad neighborhoods. Fewer quality links are better than a lot of low quality links. Too many low quality incoming and outgoing links will lessen Google's trust in your page. Get quality links from quality sites, preferably from pages not already in the supplemental index.

Lastly, remember that Google seems to be constantly changing its algorithms and tweaking them. If your site is genuine and following Google's webmaster guidelines, then your site has a good change of returning to the regular index.

Aiden O'Neill is an editor for Consumerwebhostreview.com. where visitors can take advantage of savings on webhosting packages and utilize webtools like the Instant Domain Name Lookup Tool to dynamically search for a domain name.
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