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Looking for a Web Developer

In following yesterday's posting of me ranting about Search Engine Optimization Guru's...here's a great post on how to look for a web developer.

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10 Key Things to Look for in a Good Web Designer
By Gary Klingsheim (c) 2008

The pace of business today is positively supersonic. There
doesn't seem to be enough time for anything anymore, and
businesses of all sizes are working harder and faster all the
time.

It's important to work smarter, too. And that means when you
have to choose an important vendor for an essential service, you
need to slow down and make a deliberate, careful decision. This
is particularly important when you are getting ready to put your
company's face on the World Wide Web in a new or
newly-refurbished web site.

Before listing the ten key things to look for in a good web
designer, let's define a few terms. Even though you may
encounter variants on the name ? like web developer, web artist,
webmaster and so forth - we're talking about an individual who,
alone or with some assistance, is going to "get you up and
running." This means more than simple design.

You may need someone who can help you conceive and write copy.
You may need someone who can plan smart site structure. You may
need help getting a domain registered, files uploaded, e-mail
accounts set up, and other technical details. You will
definitely need someone who can do just about anything, or
quickly find out how, or have an associate who can at the
ready.

With these caveats, and serious encouragement to shop around for
price and professionalism, here are the ten things to look for,
in rough order of importance:

1) Experience
You will need someone with all the techniques, tools and tricks
that will help you prepare your web site and accomplish your
online goals. You should confirm that the candidate knows the
entire alphabet soup of protocols, web markup languages and
coding utilities: HTML, XML, CSS, PHP and so on. Ask all
prospects for a portfolio, ask if they can "hand code," find out
how many years of experience each has, etc.

When you interview designers, on the phone and/or in person, you
will get these answers swiftly enough. But take due time to get
more important insights as to the individual's character, level
of expertise - and how well your personalities mesh. You will be
working closely together, after all.

2) Customer Service Orientation
As important as experience is a mindset and attitude of making
customer service a priority. If a designer/developer is too busy
to answer e-mails or phone calls, will they be able to keep the
production schedule? Ask for references, and make a point of
actually calling them. Ask the prospect's previous clients if
the web developer was responsive, on time and effective.

3) Original copy and Graphics
Creating professional and 100% original web graphics separates
the adults from the kids every time. Most anyone can do some
"quick and dirty" copy writing and slap it on a page with some
pictures and hyperlinks. On the other hand, a talented and
veteran designer will demonstrate knowledge of page layout, have
a way with color and know how to place elements on a page for
best appearance and web site performance. Take a good look at a
number of the sites each prospect has built, and make sure no
one is using "templates" or "starter pages" that come with some
software programs or are available (even free) on the Internet.

4) Creativity
You need to decide right away (before you even start talking to
designers) just how much the designer you find will be involved
in the conceptual process. Your designer may need to help you
with some of the "big picture" questions, such as marketing, web
copy writing (for search engines) and how to generate traffic.
You want someone creative, but not a "diva" who won't follow
instructions or work with your ideas to bring them to fruition.

5) Marketing Experience
The easiest way to find out if your prospective web designers
are good at marketing web sites is to view their site and their
portfolio. That you are considering selecting them to design
your site is a good first indicator that their designs convert.
You'll further want to ensure that you can find what you're
looking for on their site quickly and easily and that you can do
the same on some of the sites in their portfolio.

6) Cost
Pricing for a professional web site of 10-15 pages with the
standard features runs all the way from $500 to $5000. It may be
that your idea is so complicated that you might have to pay for
an estimate. For a full picture of all the costs involved in the
project, ask for all the costs to be broken out individually -
domain name and hosting, graphic design work, marketing fees and
web development matters.

You may need to place a deposit if the job is large enough, and
you should have all payment terms worked out before work starts.
You can work out an hourly rate, a flat fee or some combination
of the two. Leave nothing unstated or assumed: Get every detail
in writing, including deadlines and how many revisions are
included.

7) Job Timeline
After you ask the developers how long the process will take,
make a point of asking references if the project was, in fact,
completed on time. A basic web site may take as little as a
week, while more involved and technically challenging sites
could take a month or more. You need to know what the real-world
turnaround time is for the specific people you are considering.

  Communication Skills
Don't hire anyone who insists on speaking to you in
"computer-ese" or won't explain unknown terminology. You have to
communicate with this person about things that are important to
your very survival, so you need to be clear at all times. If you
cannot establish a good working relationship, it won't matter if
you have Leonardo Da Vinci working on your code, it just won't
work out.

9) Full Service
There may be one or two things that your designer/developer
cannot do, but for the most part you should be able to find a
reasonably-priced professional who can handle just about
everything. If the designer needs help installing a particularly
complicated shopping cart, or your site requires some heavy
database programming, it is reasonable to expect that your
designer might need some assistance. All of this should be
spelled out in the pricing, of course (see #6, above), and you
should never be surprised by anything your designer is telling
you. If you are, you overlooked something in this list!

10) Availability
Are these prospects full-time web professionals? Or are they
moonlighting from some other job, even a completely unrelated
one? It may be that a part-time web designer who's working at
McDonald's really can do a great job for you, but will he/she be
available to meet with you during normal business hours? No
matter what decision you make - full-time pro, part-timer or
student - you must be able to get hold of your designer.

Finally, do you homework before speaking with anyone. You don't
need to be an expert - after all, you're hiring help, because
you're not - but you need to know enough to know what you're
hearing. If you are uncertain of your own ability to keep on top
of what's going on, get a friend with at least basic web
knowledge to help you locate, interview and assess candidates.

Use all of this "head" knowledge to narrow down your list of
candidates, but don't be afraid to use your intuition ("heart"
knowledge) to get a feel for each person's honesty, integrity
and character. Using this mix of study, inquiry, discussion ,and
feel, you will start to develop judgments about the candidates.
Following this procedure thoroughly should result in your
finding a good match for your Internet needs.Copyright ? 2008 Jayde Online, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

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