When determining whether you want to pay a professional to design and maintain your web-site or you want to do it yourself, you should take the following into consideration:
Remember... the time and money it takes you to learn how to design and maintain your web-site is time and money away from what makes you money.
- what is your budget both short-term and long-term
- are you really saving any money by the time you have purchased software and/or hardware, paid for hosting services and spent the time learning how to use your new tools?
- how much time do you have to commit to learning how to use HTML creation, image editing, FTP and other software
- how much do you want to spend on the "tools" such as software and/or hardware
- Plan on spending between $200 and $2000 for HTML creation, image editing, FTP and other software required for basic to advanced website development.
- Plan on spending 20-200 hours learning basic web-design skills; 200-500 hours learning intermediate skills; 500-1000 hours learning advanced skills.
- Plan on paying for a high-speed internet connection and keeping your computer hardware "up-to-speed" with processor, memory and/or other upgrades.
INSPECT SAMPLES OF THEIR WORK - are their sites user-friendly and easy to navigate? Is the design consistant with the service or product offered? Is all "time-sensitive" material current? While grammar and proper spelling are important, the client is usually responsible for content - but check anyways.
CONTACT THEIR EXISTING CLIENTS - are they pleased with the designer's work? is the designer diligent with updates, changes and deadlines? is there anything they would hve done differently?
GET ESTIMATES AND HOURLY RATES - if you can be specific about what you are looking for, get an estimate for initial site creation and hourly rates for change-roders and updates. For a little more money, you can always have a designer give you 3-5 different layout choices before making a final decision. Always ask about "billing increments" or minimums. Always pay your designer on time - otherwise, your site can be subject to "interruption", reconnect fees and worse.
CHOOSING A WEB-DESIGNER:
TEMPLATES VS. CUSTOM DESIGN - ask to see any templates the designer may already have available - this will always be cheaper than creating a site from scratch. you can even start with a template and have it customized it to suit your own needs.
DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH - Before you even meet with a designer, you should spend some time browsing other web-sites offering services, products or information similar to your own. Print samples of these sites or create a list of these site addresses to share with your designer. Make sure you identify who your competition is and then develop a site that is unique and sets you apart from the rest. Remember... if your competition has established an internet presence - you can't afford not to.
CONTENT AND UPDATES - Most often, the client is responsible for providing the web-designer with content such as ad-copy (text) and images. The more "site-ready" this content is, the less your web-site will cost you. For example, 1) providing images from a digital camera avoids the need to scan photographs, 2) sending your text via e-mail reduces the amount of "data entry" performed by the web-designer, 3) providing your own graphics or images rather than having your web-designer create custom graphics or use stock images. The client is also responsible for notifying the web-designer of any desired updates and providing the content necessary for those updates.
SECURITY AND PEACE OF MIND - Whether you design and maintain your own web-site, hire a professional - or both... make sure you know the passwords to access your web-site and you have a complete back-up of all the files on your web-site. The back-up may cost you a little more money ($25-$50 each event), but you'll have it in the event you and your web-designer go your separate ways.
