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Choosing a website designer

There are millions of website designers out there, hundreds of thousands of companies, and thousands of cowboys. Choosing one to build your site can be very, very difficult, and people get ripped off every day â “ but here are some tips to help you find a reputable designer.

1. Make sure they dont use templates.
Pre-built website templates arent for designers; theyre for people without any technical knowledge or design skills who want to knock up a website in an hour or so. There is no shame in using pre-made templates for personal sites, but a designer should never have to use them â “ and for a business site to be based on a template is very unprofessional. There could be a hundred other sites out there that look exactly the same as yours â “ not terribly handy for a business that wants to distinguish itself from the competition. If the company youre checking out uses templates, you may as well build the site yourself.

2. Make sure they dont lock you into their hosting.
I went to see some folks in Chester today whod been ripped off by their designers - they built an E-commerce website from a template, made the customer insert his own products, and charged him £450 for the privilege. Even more obscenely, they then expected him to pay three hundred pounds a year for hosting.
Sadly, this sort of scam is all too prevalent. Get the companys hosting rates in writing â “ or, better yet, host the site yourself. If they offer to host it for free for the first year, thats fine â “ its an accepted industry standard. But make sure that youre free to move your site to another host, and that your domain name is registered to yourself in case of disputes.
You can find out who a domain name is registered to by running a WHOIS check. Test a few of the sites in the designers portfolio, to make sure theyre not registering their clients domains under their own name.

3. Always look for testimonials that can be backed up with contact details or web addresses, a portfolio site hosted on a proper domain name (anything that sounds spammy like super-cheapwebsites-4u-2day.me.uk should be avoided) and a good command of written English. If they confuse your with youre, or its with its, or there with theyre or there, they will make your company look horribly unprofessional and untrustworthy.

4. Use the W3C validation service to test their portfolio website for code errors. If they cant make code that passes validation for their own website, how well do you think theyll write yours?

5. Test their portfolio site, and sites theyve made for clients, in at least both FireFox and Internet Explorer, to make sure that they display correctly. They dont have to look exactly the same â “ they probably wont, thanks to Internet Explorers blatant disregard for Web standards â “ but make sure that you can at least move around the site and make sense of it, and that it looks half-decent.

6. If the designer uses a Hotmail address, run. If they wont give you a contact telephone number, run. Mobile numbers are acceptable and normal, due to the transitory nature of website designers, and shouldnt carry the stigma that theyd be associated with in other industries. Check to see if theyre tax-registered, and that theyll be able to furnish you with an invoice and receipt, on letterheaded paper.

7. Meet up with your designer in person if you can. Obviously this is hard if theyre overseas, but if you live nearby, ask if they charge a consultation fee.

8. Determine whether or not the designer will charge you for updates to your website, whether or not youll be able to easily update your site yourself, and whether or not theyll still be around in a years time to help you out with it. Contact the customers listed in their Testimonials section, if needs be.

9. As a just-in-case, Google their business name (in quotation marks) just to see if theres any negative feedback left in forums. Dont ever buy website design services from eBay. Ever. Seriously.

10. Although this may run counter to a few of the things Ive already said, be very wary of large companies offering website design services. The smaller companies, sole traders and partnerships, always do a better job for much less money.

I hope these tips help to steer you away from disreputable designers, but remember to use your common sense, shop around, and keep your wits about you.

If youd like to check out my own services, please feel free to have a look at http://www.stainless-design.co.uk (for web design) and http://www.hostingforaquid.co.uk (for web hosting). Please feel free to reprint this article, but do not modify it under any circumstances.

Good luck!