Some pitfalls to avoid when choosing a website designer

There are many factors to take into account when choosing the best website design company for the task of building your website, so where do you start and how do you avoid making a costly mistake?

It may be a surprise to hear that when many of our new clients come to us for website design, they already have a website! But it doesn’t surprise us (anymore) as we’ve been in the business for long enough now to fully understand that simply having a website isn’t always enough.

Some of the most important pitfalls to watch out for when choosing who will design your website are:

• Uncreative designs – you may go with a design company who offer great technical skills when it comes to building a website, but not all will have the artistic vision and capabilities to make it look good and bring it alive. Developer specialists in particular tend to have a somewhat ‘technical’ style – whereas you may need a designer who can provide a combination of technical and creative abilities for optimum results.

• Non-existent SEO – the pages on your new website will need to be optimised so that they show up properly on search engines. At Design M, we carry out customised on-site optimisation as standard on every website we design.

• Not owning your own website domain name. We always advise our clients to buy their own website domain name, in their own domain name account (the set up of which is a very simple process). In fact, we do not hold the domain names for any of our clients. It is very important that you buy it yourself so that no matter what, you will always have control of your own website address.

• Getting locked into monthly contracts or subscription-based websites. With so many options out there, just a few points to consider are:

– How much will your website design end up costing you over a longer period of time of say three to four years? A one-off payment could work out much better value in the long run.

– If you decide to part ways with the contract/website subscription, what will happen to your website? Will you independently own (and have access to) your domain name?

– If you are paying monthly for website maintenance and updates, could you save by having updates carried out as and when they arise? (As many websites don’t actually require ongoing work every month once the initial design is completed).

At Design M we can provide you with a simple, one-off payment quote for your new website design, and any further website maintenance charges are as and when required on our hourly rate. (So if the update only takes half an hour, that’s all you’ll get charged for).

So avoid the pitfalls and contact us today to discuss your next website design project.