Numerous businesses out there don’t fully understand what a website design company does. Some feel like they are the Swiss army knife to the internet, while others (who actually know very little about website design,) think website design is extremely easy.
The truth of the matter is, website design has several different levels and all website designers and design companies are not created equal. The problem with the word “website designer” is there are no qualifications needed to call yourself a website designer. However – at the end of the day – knowledge, practice, and study are exactly what a website designer needs to build effective, user-friendly and successful websites.
What a website designer is responsible for:
– Discussing your needs, evaluating your competition and industry.
– Creating your website’s design, look and feel.
– Setting up your CMS (WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal being the top 3)
– Laying down the static pages for you (Home, About, Contact, etc.)
– Setting up a publishing page, article section and/or blog where you can write content.
There is no need to overcomplicate what a website design company does, it’s all outlined above. While some companies are professional and offer a manager to handle the project and offer top notch service and design, there are others who throw something together quickly, and hopefully, their low ball price will reflect that.
Don’t treat your website designer like he invented the internet. It isn’t your website designers job to get you to the front of Google, for instance – this isn’t what they do. A good website designer or developers job is to create something that is visually pleasing to a human and also robot friendly for SEO and then hand the keys over to you. Once the website is created properly and correctly from step one, it is now something you must build upon to gain a steady stream of sales, visitors, customers, and subscribers. No business was built overnight and woke up the next day with thousands of customers.
With that said, if a company offers online marketing or SEO services, for a monthly fee they will handle properly SEO-ing your website with content, link building and other online marketing efforts to make sure your website is striving the way it should.
At the end of the day your website is important to your business. Regardless of if you are a restaurant, pool cleaning company or landscaper – your website should be as professional and as well developed as your business is. When working with a website designer, work with someone that you would hire to work in your business because that’s exactly what they’re doing.
