What to look for in a web designer

Hiring an efficient web designer is the key to a successful online business. A good web designer will have all the necessary skills to deal with strict details and reflect your goals for your website as accurate as possible. That way, you can spend more time on formulating ideas and managing your online business.

Web design is also a very complex profession. At times it can be easy enough that anyone can do it, other times it requires complicated methods and great knowledge to achieve even the simplest of things; which makes finding the perfect web designer equally difficult.

Assess a web designer thoroughly before giving him the job. Refer to as much background information available that you can find, and take into consideration his or her reputation.

To be more specific in terms of skills, look for the following qualities:

  • A versatile web designer is able to code in many different coding languages: HTML, JavaScript, PHP, CGI, Java, Perl etc. You do not need to learn the languages for yourself. Usually the more you see in his résumé, the better.
  • Programming standards are constantly changing and improving each day. Things learned from school are no longer relevant; so spend less time being critical on a web designer's educational background.
  • Spend more time assessing their experience after college to the present. Most of the skills a web designer will need to accomplish your goals are learned during that period of time.
  • An efficient web designer follows strict ethical standards. Get to know their personalities; this will be necessary because you will be working with them for a long time. Unlike offline businesses, changing employees--especially web designers--can be a really painful process. All the codes written by your previous web designer will have to be learned by the new one, regardless of their skill levels. Changing programmers also pose a huge security risks as they know secret codes, and can anonymously hack into your website later on.
  • Good web designers interacts with you on a need-to-know basis. The reason you are hiring a professional is because you don't want to waste time on complex codes. On the other hand, there are important information that you need to know, like administrative passwords, registrations, etc.
  • Effective web designers work well with other people. It is generally safer to hire at least two web designers for security purposes.
  • The finest web designers are also talented graphic designers. Finding both qualities in one person is a bonus.
  • Good web designers are well-versed on the online trends and SEO. They will know when to correct your ideas, or make modifications to increase the reach of your online business. Gauge their search engine optimization skills carefully.
  • Web designers have to be clever and witty. There will be times you will ask for impossible features to be added on your website. During those times a web designer will have to come up with quick substitutes to fit your needs, which won't be easy.



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