You thought it all over a hundred times before and you have
finally decided to put your business on the Web (or to replace
that embarrassment of a website that was actually turning heads
when it was first made during the nineties). Now you probably
think it will be enough to find the right web design company and
they will take care of everything. It should be easy for you...
Well, think twice! There are thousands of web design companies
in the world and choosing the right one isn't easy especially
when you don't know where to look and how to determine what is
the right choice for your needs. In this article I will help you
do your homework before you end up being disappointed either
with a lousy website you'll get or with spending way more than
you initially expected. First of all, you have to do some
research (
Google,
Yahoo,
MSN...) typing keywords that you would use
if you wanted to find services or information related to your
own business. This way you will be one step closer to getting to
know your competition. Since many of the results will be useless
and not necessarily related to your business, the next step is
filtering the results in order to make a selection of websites
that are similar to your own website needs. When you've made
your final selection sort the remaining websites by: a) great
visual appearance and b) good functionality (these two
characteristics are the two most important defining factors of
any web site). Go through these two categories and make notes
about what you liked at every site regarding design:
logo
design, nice images, flash animation, useful navigation,
attractive color scheme, etc. and also find out and note what
your competition put on their website: what kind of information
they have included, how do they make their visitors stay and
research further, what is the structure of the sites and how the
content is organized. Finally, make an exhaustive list of things
you want to put on your future web site. Now that you have
collected all the information you needed you will see that you
are much more certain about what you want and how do you want it
to be done. Now you should collect all the material that you
need for your website: articles, images, legal stuff, related
texts, reviews, technical information... It is important that
you collect as much material as you can because that process
will get you a much clearer picture of requirements of your
business than you had in the very start and in the end you will
know exactly what you need and what you don't need on your
website. Next step is narrowing down your list of web sites with
good design (three to four examples) and finding out which web
design firms created those websites. If you can find out who did
it, take a tour through their site: look at their portfolio,
learn about their pricing and collect their contact information.
Almost every decent web design firm will have an RFQ form where
they will ask you questions about your web site needs, your
budget, colors you would like to use, links of a few web sites
that are similar to what you need and details for each site
(e.g. "has the features I need but design is lousy") and if you
remember what I said earlier in this article you see that these
are all questions you already know the answers for. :-) This
way, not only that you will speed up your designing process by
telling your web designer exactly what you want and having all
the material ready, but you will also know exactly what is good
and what you want to be changed when you see first design mockup
from a designer. Finally, what is most important, you will avoid
hiring a firm that's not fit to do it right or within your
budget.
About the author:
Website Acquired:
www.pear-logo-design.com
Date Written: 8. December 2005. This article is allowed for
reproduction as long as the links and information about the
author are kept intact.
2006
Pear Logo
Design
