Web Design – More Than Just a Pretty Face
It seems like these days any Tom, Dick or Harriet can design a website, however all websites are not created equal.
Just because it looks lovely it doesn’t mean it’s going to help you meet your business goals. Your website has to be found, used and enjoyed, if it’s going to generate the leads and sales you’re hoping for.
Let’s say you want to create a new website, or update your current website. You have a logo and a color scheme. You have a pretty good idea of the content you want on the site. You’ve found a web designer who you’re confident will create a lovely looking website for you; you’ve seen their portfolio and they have lots of lovely websites in it.
But before you go ahead with the project, before you sign off on anything, in fact, before you even settle on your web designer, you should find out how they take account of the following:
- Web Standards
- SEO
- Usability
- Metrics
To get an idea of their awareness of these elements of web design and development, here are some useful questions to ask:
- What programming languages will you be using to build my website, and how will this effect search engine crawlability and indexing, user experience, and download time?
- How will my website be optimized for the search engines?
- (If a redesign) How will you make sure that the search engines and users can find my new website pages when the page names change?
- How will my website be optimized for users? Can I be confident that visitors will have a clear understanding of what my website is about, be able to navigate my site easily, and take the actions I want them to take?
- How will we measure results after the site is launched?
A good, knowledgeable web designer should be able to not only answer these questions, but also explain them in a way that makes sense to you.
Although elements like SEO, Usability and Metrics are huge subjects on their own, your designer should have a solid understanding of how they relate to web design. They should also have a professional support network to help fill any gaps in knowledge he or she might have, and to whom they can refer you for more specialized services if necessary.
With these concerns addressed, moving forward you can be confident that your website will not only look lovely, but will also more likely become the business asset you are hoping for.
What other knowledge/experience would you expect a web designer to bring to the table for your web development project?
If you are a designer, how do you feel about being involved in these additional aspects of building a website?
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