Your website is often the first place a potential customer meets your business. Before they pick up the phone, call into your shop or send an enquiry, there’s a good chance they’ve already looked you up online and formed an opinion based on what they found.
That’s why choosing the right web designer is such an important decision. A great website can bring in new customers, build trust and grow your business for years. A poorly built one can cost you sales, frustrate your visitors and end up needing to be redone far sooner than you’d planned.
With so many web designers and agencies in Ireland to choose from, it can be hard to know where to start. Prices, styles and levels of service vary hugely, and it isn’t always easy to tell the difference between a designer who’ll deliver and one who won’t.
To help you make the right choice, we’ve put together three key questions to ask before you hire a web designer.
1. Will my website design be a big part of my website’s success?
Don’t think of your website design as simply an aesthetic and functional feature. Rather, the overall design and navigation of the website will determine a large part of its success in terms of creating an enjoyable user experience for visitors. You also need to consider the cutthroat nature of websites today, in that your competitors are in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Therefore, the design must be modern, responsive and optimised for search engines, desktop and mobile devices. Your chosen website designer should know, understand and champion this.
2. Does this website designer have a good professional reputation?
Check to see if your prospective designer has a portfolio and a list of previous clients to their name. If they don’t, this is an immediate red flag. How can they prove that they’re up to scratch? Their portfolio should be filled with positive testimonials from past clients, which illustrate how professional the designer or agency has been to deal with and how the website has worked out for the client. This shows what type of people you’ll be dealing with during the long website design process. If they explain their outcome measures and KPIs for their designs and builds, this is a great trait which shows that they take their job seriously and understand the importance of their work.
3. What support options do they offer?
Websites are robust and sprawling online platforms that give your business a visible online presence. When they’re designed properly, they shouldn’t be riddled with mistakes. However, this isn’t to say that problems will never arise. Would you know how to back up your website, for example? A good website designer or agency should offer a period of free support after your website goes live to deal with any bugs and issues that arise. Anything between two weeks and one month should be expected. After this period, will they offer any free elements of support, will they charge per hour, or will they have support packages that you can avail of? This is an important area to be clear on, as you’ll need to know where you stand when it comes to the longevity and maintenance of your business website.
Choose a Web Designer You Can Trust
Your website is an investment in the future of your business, so it’s worth taking the time to find the right person to build it. Look for a designer who understands that good design drives results, can show you real work and happy clients, and will be there to support you once your site is live.
Don’t be afraid to ask plenty of questions before you commit. A good web designer will be happy to answer them and will want to understand your business, your customers and your goals before they start.
At Whelan Web Design, we build modern, mobile-friendly websites for businesses across Waterford and the South East, and we stay on hand to support our clients long after launch. If you’re looking for a web designer you can rely on, get in touch with our team today. We’d love to hear about your project.
