3 Marketing Mistakes Web Site Designers Make When Selling Their Services

1) They don't have their own domain.

If you knew that you were going to the primo networking event of the year, would you bring business cards printed with your neighbors telephone number? Heck no!

So why would you waste your time and energy building a reputable web site design firm, under somebody else's domain? Somewhere down the road you'll eventually get your own URL, so start your business the way you want to finish it.

It costs just $8.95 to register your own domain with GoDaddy.com for a year. Reliable hosting service can be had for less than $20 a month.

I gleefully pay $18.95 a month for my service, and they include all sorts of neat perks. That's just 5 bucks a week, less than a dollar a day. If your biz isn't worth a $1 a day investment, then you should be looking for an alternative line of work.

2) They don't offer any indication of their price range.

Even if you don't want to give up the entire farm, always give your sites visitors some sort of indication of what your prices are like. This way if your design skills match what they're looking for, they have an idea on whether they can afford your services or not.

The best way to do this, is to simply give a price range on your 'Request a Quote' page. Here's a brief blurb that you can use:

"Each web site we design has unique elements specific for that particular company. Therefore we do not have set prices. However, just to give you some indication, our rates for complete site design basically range from $250-$10,000, depending on the complexity of the job.

If you'd like a precise quote for your Web site, please fill out the following form."

3) They use cool techie terms to motivate the prospect.

Let's say I'm relatively new to the Net, and I'm looking for a decent site designer. Somehow I stumble across your little home on the web. Your site looks good and it loads fast.

Then I and click on the link that describes your services and you have something like this:

"We use Java, Javascript, CGI-BIN and Perl programming, Cold Fusion, and DHTML to build your site."

Duh! I can barely figure out how to configure my e-mail filtering program, and now you're giving me a cold rundown of your technical capabilities. Assuming I'm not a technophobe, you're still bombarding me with too much techno-babble!

A better way to handle this situation is to tell me 'why' I'll need all this razmatazz that you're offering. Give me benefits on why Java is a good thing for my site, and not in my coffee cup. Tell me 'how' DHTML is going to make my life easier. Make believe I'm a client who has more than enough money to spend, but needs a little hand holding to understand all the technical terms.

Copyright 2005 Jennifer McGroary

About The Author

Article by Jennifer McGroary

The ideas in this article are based on the e-book, "The Web Hosts and Designer's Marketing Guide." If you'd like to gain IMMEDIATE access to 100+ strategies and tactics for promoting your web site design or hosting business, get your copy today.

http://www.WebBizInfo.com

REMEMBER, successful marketing is the main ingredient in most profitable web service businesses.

Finding the Perfect Web Designer 101

So, you've decided that your company needs a web site. Now what? Since we are ultimately talking about your "online business image", unless you yourself have web design experience, finding that perfect web designer to create your company site is a very important next step. If you've never had a web site created before, you will find that there is quite a lot to consider if you want your site to be successful, and you may have to do a bit of homework to find the right person for you.

Regardless of the type of site you want, to be successful, your site will need to do, at least, these 3 things:

- Look professional
- Function properly
- Get good positioning on the search engines

In achieving this goal, there's good news and bad news.

The bad news is that there are all kinds of designers out there, offering all kinds of services, and prices are pretty much across the board. The good news is that there are some simple points you can follow to help make this process easier.

So, how do you go about finding a designer?

Since there are so many different companies offering web design, you might start by making a list of what your specific needs are. Every site is unique so it's a good idea to know what you need before you start calling around or sending in estimate forms. Some things you might need to know are:

- Will you be selling a product online?
- Does your site require a database?
- Do you also need web hosting? or a domain name?
- Do you want to have your clients contact you through a form?
- How many pages do you think the site will be?
- Are there any pages or features specific to your business that you would like to have on your site?

Also, write down a couple of URLs of sites that you like. Or maybe you've seen a specific feature on another site that you would like to incorporate into your own site. Having a rough idea of the kind of site you're looking for will help you find the right designer for your project.

Referrals

One of the best ways I've found to find the right designer is to get a referral from someone you know personally who has already had their site designed and they are happy with the site, and their experience with the designer. So let your friends and family know that you are shopping around for someone to help you create your online business image. People who have had a good experience with their web design company will be more than happy to pass the information along.

If you do get a referral from someone, go and look at the designer's site and see what else they've done. If you're interested, you can fill out a free quote form on their site, or email the designer with the specs of your project.

Job sites

There are a number of online sites that will help you match your project with a number of designers who will then bid on your project. The one thing to be aware of is that these sites have all types of designers listed with their service from those with years of experience, to those who just bought themselves the latest version of Dreamweaver and have now labeled themselves "web designer".

Although these job sites do make it harder for less experienced people to be listed as a serious prospect, when they ask for your project description, you can include on there that "only serious professionals need apply". You can sometimes eliminate the amount of riff-raff that will send in proposals for your project.

The biggest problem people have with using these job sites is that potential clients are usually overwhelmed with the number of quotes they receive for their project. Be aware that you may have to rifle through a lot of proposals that are not what you are looking for.

These sites usually offer a Designer's Profile and some kind of a rating system, which can help you learn a bit about a potential designer. Reading the reviews listed from previous clients can also help shed some light on your choice of designers.

Yellow Pages

Yellow Pages ads are expensive so chances are that you will find professional design firms to successful web design individuals listed there. They will usually list their URL in their ad and it's always a good idea to go to their site and see what they have to offer before contacting them.

What you should be looking for in a designer?

Possibly you have a couple of designers you are interested in. But how do you know for sure? There are a few specific things that you should be aware of when picking your designer.

Portfolio

First and foremost, you want to check out their portfolio! This is the body of work that this designer has recently created and it tells a lot about what they offer. All web designers should have an online portfolio that you can easily access.

Take a good look at their own site and other sites they've created. Do the sites look professional? Is the style of the designer something you would like to have on your own site? In addition, you can contact companies that have had their site designed and ask them about their experience with this designer.

Price

Another thing to consider, although this is not the top priority, is price. Although there is no clear-cut rule as to what an "average" price for web design is, this is one situation where, in most cases, you get what you pay for. This is simply not the time to cut corners. So in considering price, also consider that you are paying for this individual's expertise, as well as their time and experience.

It is more important to create a successful site that has a good position in the search engine and one that you are very happy with the look and function of than to save a couple of bucks. If you get a good site, your site will be able to grow with your company and, hopefully, that's for a very long time!

Search engine optimization

The number one mistake that most first time web site owners make is that they don't know what to do with their site after it's designed. It is very possible to have a beautiful site designed for you and no one ever sees it.

A good designer will not only help you create a professional looking site, they will also ensure that your site gets a good ranking with the search engines so that your site can be easily found online. Make sure that your designer will optimize your site for the search engines and submit it to the major search engines.

Specialized services

Will you be selling your products or services online? Will you need a database driven site? How about Flash or embedded video or audio? Not everyone offers these services; be sure to ask specifically about what you will need for your site.

A couple of other things to consider is web hosting and domain name registration. Make sure if you need these services that your designer can help provide them too.

Compatibility

Lastly, when you are talking to potential designers, it should be someone you seem compatible with. Does the designer seem friendly and are they willing to answer all of your questions? Do they respond promptly to your emails and/or phone calls? Basically, is this someone you "click" with?

Communication with your designer is crucial. You need someone who is willing to answer any questions and keep you up-to-date on the status of your web design. A good designer will keep in touch with you every few days, at least. You don't want to get down to the final days of creating the site only to find out you don't like it!

Testimonials

Most designers will have testimonials from previous clients on their web site. It's a good idea to see what their customers are saying about their services, and again, calling one or two clients regarding this web designer's services is a really good idea.

Summary

There are many factors involved in finding and picking the right designer to build your company's web site, but the key is to remember that this is your business image, one that you hope to have for many years to come, so you want to pick your designer as you would pick a real estate agent to find your "dream house". If you pick the right designer the first time, you won't be looking for someone to redesign your site in 6-9 months.

Be thorough, ask questions, look at samples, and you'll find the perfect web designer for you!

About The Author

Teri Tucker is owner of T&I Grafix Business Web Design, a full service web design company that offers custom web design, logo design, search engine optimization, Flash animation and web consulting services. For more information on our design services, please visit our web site at http://www.tigrafix.com or email us at teri@tigrafix.

Getting A Website: How To Get A Better Price From Your Web Designer

So you have decided you need a website. What next?

Before you contact some web designers to get a quote, you will save yourself time, money and trouble by first sitting down and thinking about what you actually need. The more you can “nail down” your requirements, the more likely you are to get a better price, and not be surprised by getting a bill for extras at the end of the project.

First, think about what you want from your website:

Do you want to sell products online, using a shopping cart and some method of accepting payments?

Do you want your site to be a “static” online brochure, showcasing your products or services?

Do you want your site to generate leads & enquiries for you to follow up directly?

Is your site primarily aimed at providing information for existing customers?

Is your site going to be a useable, interactive service e.g. searchable property database?

Now consider how many pages you will need. Web designers will use this as an important factor when quoting you; if you initially ask for too few, you may get a bill for extras. Ask for too many and you may be paying more than you need to.

Think about the titles of the pages you need (as they appear in the site navigation) As a minimum, you will probably need “Home”, “About Us” and “Contact Us”.

Now give some consideration to the design of the site. Do you have a colour scheme in mind? Do you want some Flash animation? What sort of imagery do you want used? TO get some ideas, surf the Net and note down any websites you find that you like the look of, and give the URL to web designers. This will help them get an idea of what you like.

You should also consider which technical issues are important to you.

Does you site need to be:

* Fast Loading? If your target market are home users, a large proportion may still be on slower dial up internet connections.

* Graphically Intensive? Perhaps you need to appeal to corporate users, by employing a strong, professional design.

* Optimised for a particular screen resolution? Do you want the site to look best on 1024 x 768 resolution screens, or perhaps your target market is more likely to have older PC’s with screen settings such as 800x600.

* Updated yourself? If you regularly need to change the text/images of your site, you may need to ask for a quote for a Content Management System (CMS). Ask fort his to be identified as an optional cost, so you can judge if it is cost effective for you. Alternatively, you could purchase web editing software (such as Macromedia Contribute) though you will need to make your web designer aware that this is what you will be doing.

* Aimed at specific end users? Perhaps your target market are printers or music industry professionals, who tend to use Apple Mac computers. If so, make your web designer aware of it – many designers do not pay much attention to checking web sites run correctly on Macs.

By taking a little time to consider the needs of your website, you will help your web designer immensely, getting the site you want at a cost effective price.

About The Author

Robin Porter is CEO of London web site designer Arpey Internet. He can be contacted via the company website at http://www.arpey.co.uk

Choosing a Web Designer

In recent years, the web design industry has experienced a growth rate of huge proportions, due entirely to the numerous companies that have appeared as a result of continued Internet expansion. The business world’s appetite for websites and ecommerce solutions show no signs of abating in the near future, and organisations and individuals who want to commission the services of a web design company are faced with a dizzying choice of options.

Companies will rightly advertise their creative skills, technical expertise and design know-how. They will use lots of technical terms and buzzwords in their marketing literature, but because of the sheer number of companies all offering more or less the same services, the point is reached where all the advertising can begin to look almost identical.

How then does one go about choosing a competent design company from the many available? If you are new to the workings of the Internet, then the most obvious and perhaps safest method is via personal recommendation, which by its very nature is a vote of confidence from a satisfied customer and presents a golden opportunity for an organisation to excel itself; after all, there is nothing like a referral to start the ego twitching and make a company go all out to impress.

An alternative method to a referral is of course to look on the Internet itself. You will find literally thousands of web designers advertising their services and at the same time providing visual proof of their abilities via their own websites. It is always a good idea to look at portfolio and testimonial pages; you can then contact one or two of their customers to get verbal references; these may help you in deciding which design company is best for you.

Another option is to choose a company at random and talk to them about what you expect from your intended website. Good designers will listen to what you have to say and work with you; they will gather as much information as possible from a customer before going anywhere near a computer. Moreover, they will always be willing to offer sound advice and will develop solutions to help bring your ideas to life.

In addition, and perhaps the smallest sector of the web design industry are the self-taught individuals who whilst having no formal training or qualifications, do possess a natural talent, aptitude and enthusiasm for web design, and who for the most part produce extremely high-quality work often at a fraction of the cost charged by the larger companies.

It is worth mentioning that there are so many capable and talented designers available, that the hardest part of getting your website built will probably be deciding which company or individual you want to do it. Taking the time to look into all the options should help to ensure that whomever you chose would produce the required result.

This article is the property of the author and may only be reproduced in its original form.

About The Author

John Sheridan is a professional proofreader of hard copy items and website copy. He also writes web copy and occasionally accepts small copy-editing assignments. He can be contacted via: www.textcorrect.co.uk

How to Choose a Web Designer?

Hiring a web designer is the next big step upon entering a web design business or anything in relation to it. Moreover, we have to make a good choice because our business depends on it.

To give you a clearcut idea on how you are going to choose your web designer, here are some of the things that you must consider:

1. Be aware to beware. First, you have to have the basic knowledge of web design techniques. It is a well-settled fact that before you enter a business, you yourself must have a good grasp of its totality. When you are knowledgeable, you know when a design is excellent or when mediocre. Another, you also know when to criticize or appreciate the work of your web designer.

If you are not aware of the surrounding circumstances of your business, chances are you will easily be deceived or your business will sooner or later go down the drain. You do not like that to happen, do you?

So, keep those thinking caps and explore your business world. Spend some time reading about web design and everything about websites. Go to your local bookstore and invest on books and other facilities.

2. Talk with basis. Get in contact with the experts in web designing. From them you can learn the ins and outs of web design services.

Another, talk to some of the designer’s former clients and ask them about the services of other designers. Learn from their mistakes as well as their achievements.

Don't just peruse a number of great sites, be sure to know the reason why they are best. From it you can glean the gist of what you should be focusing.

3. Bear in mind that graphic design is not the be-all and end-all. Graphic design is not the only basis in choosing a web designer. Though it is an important factor to consider, still that only forms part of what makes a feasible and lucrative website.

Other factor to consider is the designer's quest for equilibrium between form and function. If form is what matters the most for him, then that could be pretty dangerous. Next, is his organizational skill. Is he good in organizing the page layouts? Better be sure about it. Good navigation is also another factor. This is because viewers get bored easily. They can change their minds to your drawback with just a flick of a finger. Therefore, you must have a good navigation to keep them from getting bored. Good navigation must also be coupled with user-friendliness so as to be used easily and hassle-free by the visitors. The most important factor to consider is the 'call for action'.

The designer must be adept in the purpose of mounting a website. Is it to make the visitors buy a product or subscribe a business?

The website is there to serve a goal. Be sure the web designer caters to that goal!

4. The lowest bidder may not be that good. It is not just about getting the website done. It is about getting it done right! Quality may sometimes have a crucial link with price because of the maxim - You get what you pay. Moreover, web designers who have the lowest rate are usually inexperienced and hard to work with. Do not sacrifice the quality over a meager sum. It will surely spoil your business!

About The Author

Maricon Williams

Please visit Web Development Services Pros site at http://www.webdevelopmentpros.com/sections/Website-Design.html for comments and inquiries regarding this article.

Web Designer's Guide to Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the buzz word you will see everywhere in the internet nowsadays. Designing a website today is no longer about aesthetics. It must not only look good, it must be visible to the search engines as well. What should a web designer take note when designing a search engine friendly website? This article attempts to discuss some important pointers for web designers in creating SEO friendly web pages.

(Note: We are not talking about boosting search engine rankings as that would require a separate article.)

From a search engine point of view, the perfect webpage has no graphics, no scripting, no tables...etc but just alot of normal, plain readable text. You can just take it that plain text is the food for search engine spiders. Therefore, the more text you have, the more you will keep the spiders happy. However, from the design point of view, such pages are very boring but the fact is that everyone is more interested in keeping the spiders rather than us happy. The argument is that if search engine spiders cannot find your site, no one will. Based on this philosophy, we witnessed the fall of flash and sites with strong graphics over the years. Many sites that utilized heavy graphics where no longer found. Web developers become happy because they have an excuse to create less impressive websites...

The question is can we make both the saerch engine spiders and us happy? The answer is definitely a "Yes" provided that web designers can follow certain rules when designing web pages. They need to step out of their comfort zone and learn abit more about new web technologies.

Domain Name and URL Naming Convention

Having a proper domain and url name is quite often neglected. Many search engines actually put some weightage in the way you name your domain or url files. You will definitely want to include some juicy words in your naming convention. For example, if you site is about website critics and your url is http://www.sitecritic.com, this will definitely be better than a domain like http://www.bluecatfish.com. The same principle goes for hyperlinks. If you have 2 words as key words, you can use an underscore "_" or dash "-" to separate them.

Title

Do not fool around when writing the title. From my experience, this is the most important part of your webpage. Many designers like to put special characters such as " * "," | ", " : " or " [ ] " in the title to make it look unique. If you really want to make your webpage special, I advise you to do it else where such as in the body of the HTML document. You should include your keywords in your title. Like the previous example, if your web site focuses on website reviews, make sure you have the words "Website Reviews" somewhere in the title. Noticed that "WebsiteReviews" is not the same as "Website Reviews". Spacing is important.

When writing the title, try not to write more than 8 words. There are no hard and fast rules on that but the fact is that more does not mean good. In fact, the more you write, the more your keyword density will be diminished. If you keep repeating the same keyword in the title, search engines will see your site as spam and you will be dead in no time. For example, a title like "Sitecritic Web Reviews" is much better than "Sitecritic Web Reviews, Internet Marketing, Web Design Ideas, Internet Directories, Budget Web Hosting, Melbourne". I will have to stress again, do not fool around with your title.

Meta-Description

After the title tag is the meta description tag. Many people argued that meta description is no longer important. Based on my experience, they are still relevant in SEO rankings especially if your website is new. The principle in writing the meta description tag is the same as the title. The only difference is that you want explain abit more about the services that you provide in a friendlier format. You will also want to include your keywords in the meta description.

Menu, Content and Links

You should not use any javascript menus that hid the urls. Many javascript menus are fancy but actually not SEO friendly. What ever technique you are using to create the menus, make sure that the "a href" tag is visible. You might also want to include a variation of the keywords in the menus, links or text. Like the previous example, if your keyword is "Web Site Reviews", you might not want to use the same word over and over again. You can vary it by using "Professional Web Reviews, Reviews of Websites, Site Reviews...etc". Varying the keywords makes your content more interesting and is good for SEO as well.

When writing the contents, try to put the keywords in different areas of the document. Use tags like "b" or "h2" to make the keywords stand out. Avoid urls that say "click here" or "view". Though often used, they are not advisable for SEO purposes.

Text links are stonger than image links. It is therefore not advisable to use images as the main navigation menu throughout the website. If you would like to incorporate images in the user navigation experience, you might want to consider separating the text from the images. This can be achieved easily using CSS or the background image option in the table or td tag.

Images

Unlike many Search Engine Experts, I strongly encourage the use of graphics because I am passion about Web Design and is sad to see so many websites that are well optimized for search engines but look crap on screen. You need to balance between the amount of graphics used and downloading speed. Like I mentioned before, if your header banner or important images contains text , you could split up the text and use the images as a separate background or floating layer. That way, you can make the image size smaller and also make the text visible to the search engines. Transparent gifs are very useful for laying over other content or images. Appropriate use of jpegs and gifs can also cut down loading time by alot.

CSS Technology

CSS helps you to cut down your tag and gives more room for the spiders to read your content. The problem with CSS is that it is not as straight forward as tables. At the moment, CSS is also inconsistent in different browsers, so before you publish your web page, you need to check the layout in different browsers. I am actually not against designers using tables especially if they find the time spend in creating a full CSS site not justifiable. The fact is that there are still cases when using CSS is not advisable. An example is when displaying tabular data; Tables still excel in displaying tabular data at the moment. Unless you are using complex nested tables, the table, tr or td tags should not pose too much of a problem for the search engine spiders.

Conclusion

Web pages should not be boring and web designers should not bow down to the Google revolution. A well designed site combines both form and function and yet, still able to be search engine friendly. I strongly believe that this can be easily achieved if website designers are able to follow very basic rules in designing their web sites.

About The Author

Bernard Peh is a great passioner of web technologies and one of the co-founders of Sitecritic.net - Website Reviews and Design Ideas. With more than 5 years of commercial experience in the web industry, he leads a group of experienced web designers and developers to provide the web community insights into creating effective websites. During his free time, he enjoys reviewing websites, doing freelance SEO and PHP work.

admin@sitecritic.net

Using a Web Designer Instead Of Doing It Yourself

I built my first website approximately five years ago and since then, I have always designed and built my own sites. This process has served me very well and over the years, my web building skills have advanced considerably (mostly through trial and error!). I have always recommended to my customers and subscribers that they too learn how to build their own sites and this is for two reasons:

1. It means that you know exactly what is going on with your site and how it actually 'works'. As you have built it piece by piece, you know, quite literally, every aspect of it.

2. Doing the work yourself will save you a small fortune on web design costs.

During the past couple of weeks though, I have done something that I would have previously not even considered doing - I have started to talk to a professional web designer with a view to hiring him to build a new business website for me!!!

Why I hear you ask?

Well the answer is simple - because he can do a much better job of it than I can AND he will take on all of the stress that the project would have caused me.

I have an idea for a new online business (totally unrelated to Internet marketing/eBay or any of the other areas that I currently work in) and it needs a professional site with quite a bit of 'behind the scenes' functionality. There is nothing like it around at present which means that the functions I require are fairly unique to this project. I have spent some time talking to different programmers that I know around the World to see if they can pool their expertise and write different bits of the software required and link everything up through the website that I build but it was just getting too fiddly.

I was at the point where I was ready to toss the whole project out of the window when I took a step back and looked at things from a completely different angle. What I really needed was one person (or team) to take on the entire project and simply provide me with the new website based on the brief I supply them with.

So that's exactly what I have done. I have a rough idea of what the site will cost and admittedly, it isn't going to be the few hundred dollars that it would have cost me BUT the end result should be far more professional and will be produced to my exact specification. Most importantly though, it takes away all the sleepless nights that I would have experienced as I went through the process of trying to get everything to work together.

With this in mind therefore, I would like to amend the advice that I have been giving out for the past few years......

Learn how to design and build your own business websites BUT when you have learned how to do this, DO consider hiring professionals and outsourcing some of this work as and where possible :-)

Copyright 2006 Richard Grady

About The Author

Richard Grady has been helping people earn online since 1998. eBay sellers find wholesalers for free at: http://www.wholesale118.co.uk (UK) & http://www.thewholesaletrader.com (US).

How To Choose A Web Designer

A little while back I had a bit of a discussion about a certain profession that I won't mention here in case someone from the industry in question takes it the wrong way. Don't get me wrong, every major profession is there for a reason and adds a tremendous amount of value to society. The fact of the matter is that every industry and profession has good aspects and bad. When you think of a doctor, lawyer, architect, accountant, etc, you tend to have a personal frame of reference, as well as a more widely held stereotype. There are usually some aspects of that profession that irritate you, or that you think could do with some improvement. Perhaps you don't make use of certain professional services because of these perceptions, whether or not they are commonly held or based on fact.

That got me thinking about my own industry, and what it is about the internet consulting and web design and development industry that drives people nuts, and that if things were different, people would utilize these services more often. What would people change about the industry if they had a magic wand? What would you do differently if you were, for example, a web developer, to differentiate yourself?

These are some of the things I've been told hold people back when discussing this topic with some small businesses:

* Web design and development is too expensive for the average small business

* Apprehension over how qualified an internet professional really is

* There is too much jargon in the industry, which makes it confusing to assess as a non-technical business person

* There is a shortage of internet programming skills relative to visual design skills in the industry

Personally, my big wish is that a certain level of qualification (a degree combining computer science, design and business) was a requirement to practice, the same way that older professions are required to, like accountants, doctors, lawyers, etc. The low barrier to entry makes it difficult for businesses to distinguish experts from hobbyists. Imagine having to choose your doctor based on what he tells you he knows how to do for you!

So, how then does one assess a potential internet partner, who can and should be a long-time partner in the online success of your business? Here are some things to look at carefully when choosing a web designer, web developer, internet business consultant, or related service provider, from my experience:

* Technical and business qualifications and experience. Is the business comprised of an inexperienced person with a web design hobby, or has the business got people with tertiary level business, programming and design skills in-house? Make sure they have real-world business experience in developing e-commerce solutions, and look into how far back that goes.

* What online business applications has the business developed previously, and how does this match your requirements? Some web design businesses will give you a very nice looking static brochure site, while others will be able to offer advanced functionality, such as a database and content management capabilities, e-commerce functionality, internet business consulting services, site promotion, site management, hosting, domain registration, design, application development, site optimization, newsletter systems, form processing capabilities, logging of user activity, online surveys and polls, user registration and authentication, advertising management, content syndication, and the like. Check how many of these are optional extras an how many are included in the price you are quoted up front. You should always get a detailed proposal up front, and compare apples for apples rather than being too subjective initially. RealmSurfer, for example, differentiates by bundling over 250 enterprise-level applications into our small business package, at a lower price than most web designers will charge just for the design and some basic functionality.

* Long term cost/benefit. What is it going to cost you the next time you need to make a modification? I've never yet come across a successful website that was designed and left as it was created on day one. Your site needs to change with your business, so make sure you know how you will be billed for those changes, and what the time frame for them will be. Every site also has hosting, bandwidth and maintenance costs that most people don't think of when first creating a site. Look into what these will be, and what you get for them, so that you can budget for them when starting your project. Also keep in mind that a cheap solution with one or two features will probably not serve you as well as a slightly more expensive one with extensive built-in capabilities.

* Personal style and preference. Different businesses will bring different styles and methodologies to the party. Make sure that the one you go with suits your personal preferences. If your internet specialist loves graphic-intensive Flash-based sites, they will probably develop your informative content-based solution, just not as well as someone who specializes in your preferred style.

* Online promotion. Make sure that the business you choose is good at promoting their own online presence. Google, Yahoo, and MSN are the three most popular search engines, so make use of them when choosing a provider. If you are looking for a web developer in your local area, search for the terms you find most important and include the name of your area. For example, I optimize my services for the Joondalup area, so a search for "web design Joondalup" or "web development Joondalup", or many other internet-based services, brings me to the top when people are searching for local service providers. An internet business that is no good at promoting itself online will be worse at helping you get yours up to full potential.

* Satisfaction guarantees. No website can make a flawed business model work, but an online expert should be able to help you make it everything it can be over time, much the same way a personal trainer can't make you fit overnight, but they can help you become a top athlete with focused ongoing attention. Find out what guarantees, if any, are provided. This is a real differentiator, because, understandably, many web design businesses won't do this. Those that do are at least serious and confident in their abilities to ensure that their clients are happy and successful.

* Management of expectations. Any internet business that claims excessive short term success rates is probably overselling themselves. Make sure that they (and you) are realistic about the time frames in which your online presence will start producing results.

* Consulting skills. Make sure that you are dealing with an internet consultancy, not just a web design house. Experienced internet consultants have the business experience to help you make your business successful online in ways a web designer will probably not.

* Find successful web sites online. Many will have the site developer's details in the footer, or in a credits section of the site.

About The Author

David Malan is an internet and e-commerce expert, with over ten years experience in the industry. He owns and runs RealmSurfer Consulting, an internet business consultancy based in Perth, Western Australia.

http://www.realmsurfer.com.au

Seven Things to Ask for When Hiring a Web Designer

If you ever plan on hiring a professional web designer to create your site, there are seven aspects that you are entitled in demanding. The designer that you intend on hiring could have created 2 sites or 200 sites; you should always verify the following seven perks no matter how renowned the designer is.

1. Having a designer who does authentic custom design holds a greater advantage over those who only produce from pre-designed templates.

Fully original customized sites will most frequently (depending on the designer you hire) look better and more professional then one that isn’t. Just be sure to find out how the designer works before hiring.

2. Make sure your designer will be able to give you flexibility and options in the future. If your company grows will your website be able to keep up with the changes?

The designer should be able to quickly and effectively alter your site on demand. Be certain the builder is implementing a system to make these changes available.

3. Get a GUARANTEE! This one is pretty self explanatory. Just make sure you can get your money back if the created site isn’t to your liking before signing any contracts.

4. This isn’t obligatory but if the designer or his firm also offers search engine optimization services then that would be helpful. If he doesn’t, you will have to do it yourself or spend more money hiring someone else to do that too.

Even if the designer does not optimize, he should at the very least construct the Meta tags and spread out your keywords around your content.

5. Make sure you have enough information before attempting to create a website. The first step in designing a good web page is having a clue of what you want your site to be about.

This will help your designers work a lot more efficient. Even the best designer in the world won’t be able to do much without the proper information. Basically, make sure the designer gives you a decent and reasonable amount of time for you to produce information.

6. Make sure the hired designer will also take care of hosting and domain names and not simply do the designing. If you don’t really comprehend the concept of hosting and domain names, get informed about it first then ask your designer if he offers it.

7. Be careful that the web design firm you have your eye on doesn’t charge by the hour. Unless you enjoy paying large sums of money, talk to the designer about a flat fee. Try and get a determined or approximate price before even starting.

Basically, you should ask for these things when hiring a web designer. Just remember to not be afraid to ask questions if don’t understand anything about the firm u plan to do business with.

About The Author

Brian Lee works in the SEO department for NRJ design, a Montreal Web design company.

nrjdesign.com

Brian@nrjdesign.com

Your Web Designer Is Not The Boss - You Are!

A web designer shouldn’t tell you how to run your business. You need to make sure you find the right designer who understands what you want and can achieve your aim exactly as you want it.

Web designers are experts at constructing and managing websites and can be a great asset to your online business. That being said, there are some webpage designers out there who can get carried away and will try to design a website they way they want it, and not the way their employer asked them.

To ensure you don’t end up with a bossy designer, the following is a basic guideline you can follow to find the right web designer:

Know what you want for your website – How do you want your website to be laid out? Will you be using pictures or other graphics? What do you think would appeal most to the audience you are targeting your product or service to? The last thing you want to do is to seek out a web designer and not have any idea how you want to build your website. This is how you can lose control over your project and be lured into using someone else’s ideas.

Recommendations – if you have friends or colleagues who have used web designers, ask them for a recommendation.

Check out the designer’s portfolio – Once you find a web designer you are interested in, be sure to check out their portfolio to see previous work they’ve done. This will help you decide if you think their work is similar to what you had in mind for your own website.

Discuss your project – if you like a designer’s work, tell them about the project you would like to create. The designer should have plenty of questions for you. During this time you can get a feel for their personality and vision, and see if it will mesh with yours.

Request a quote – Although web designers may not be able to tell you the exact amount a project will cost, they should be able to estimate a probable cost based on the project description you have provided. A webpage designer doesn’t come cheap, so be prepared for a high price. If for any reason you find the cost is more than you are willing to pay, check out other designers and find out what their quotes are. This will help you determine who you should go with, or maybe to consider designing your website yourself if you simply can’t afford it yet.

Routinely meet with the designer – make sure you schedule appointments with the web designer to make certain everything is going according to plan. Your website designer should have no problem meeting your requests or making changes, as long as you are not making unreasonable demands (IE asking them to re-work entire pages without additional pay because you’ve suddenly changed your mind).

Remember, you have total control over the design of your webpage, regardless of what your web designer may think. You are desiging your page with your customers in mind. Don’t let a website designer boss you around; even if they are an expert in their field. The bottom line is it’s your website.

About The Author

Itay Paz is the founder of Internet Marketing Hype, an online newsletter that discusses the insights and excitement of today's internet marketing including: affiliate marketing, advertising, conferences, seminars, workshops, ebooks and other information products. Itay Paz is now sharing his knowledge with other Internet Marketers through his new Internet Marketing Hype Ezine. Itay’s online magazine will provide you with exceptional insights of Internet Marketing in a simple and easy way. Sign up for Itay Paz’s Internet Marketing Hype Ezine by visiting his website at http://www.internetmarketinghype.com.

Stock Images- The Indispensable Tool For Designers And Webmasters

When the already obtainable photographs are accredited for definite usage, then they are called Stock photography. These are also known as ‘stock photos’, ‘photo archive’ or ‘image banks’ in USA. Outside the United States, the term ‘picture library’ is generally used to refer to these stock photos. Stock photographs generally consist of still images, illustrations and videos. Stock photographs are useful to a large section of people that includes book publishers, business resourceful groups, specialty publishers, interior decoration firms, magazines, graphic designers, advertising agencies, web designers and filmmakers. In the Internet there are outstanding collection of stock photography images from all the leading brand names. Instead of going for on-location shooting, using stock photography will help the customers to save adequate amount of time and money. Suppose, submitting a photo on a certain topic is required immediately and there is no time at all for shooting the photo in a conventional time-consuming process. So, stock photos can come to the rescue now. Researchers can easily come across their well-desired images from the broad assortment of online images. With the advent of digital delivery techniques, people can buy, download or e-mail images easily.

In the stock photography industry, the new micro-stock models of images get filed at the agencies. The photographers are paid a certain amount of percentage. There are various factors on which the cost of the images depends on. These are the audience, the frequency and duration of using these images and the associated countries or regions. The licensed price varies from $1 to $200. You can find any type of image that will fit the budget of your project. For big budget projects, you can afford high-cost images; otherwise just go for the images that come at a cheaper price rate. Some professional stock photographers submit their images to more than one agency. The photographers can sell the same image several times. So, the availability of these images increases. In case of ‘rights managed’ stock photography, the agencies go for a separate licensing contract for each use whereas in ‘royalty free’ stock photography, the purchasers can use the image again and again with a single license fee. There is no restriction of time. But there is a limit in the number of usage. In this way, other customers are debarred from using a certain image for a specific time period. From stock photography, both low-resolution and high-resolution images are accessible. You can use the ‘rights managed’ images in 2 mediums separately. But for each use, you have to pay the agency separately. The size of the audience is important here. The non-payment licensing period for most of the stock agencies is 6 months to 1 year. Other options are on hand too. There are also certain provisions to apply for ‘exclusive’ rights in ‘rights-managed’ images. Thus scope of overusing the image by the challenger market lessens. The ‘released images’ are classified into 2 sections. These are ‘model released’ and ‘property released’ stock images. These images are accessible for authorization through stock photography agencies. Usage charge is not required in case of ‘Royalty-Free Images’. So, for unrestricted, worldwide usage, royalty free license is the best resort.

H. Armstrong Roberts founded the 1st prominent stock photography agency way back in 1920. The current name of the agency is RobertStock. In the 1980s, the industry of stock photography got a significant facelift. The Image Bank, Masterfile, Index Stock Imagery, FPG, SuperStock and Comstock Images were the leading agencies of this period. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Getty Images, Corbis and JupiterMedia Corporation emerged as some of the major players in this business. All the photographs are distributed only through Internet. Both professional and amateur photographers are employed in this business. In 2004, fotoLibra started the system of open access model by which everybody became capable of uploading and marketing the images. Throughout Europe and North America, there are several stock photography agencies that supply good quality images to various media publishers and advertising agencies. The demand for lifestyle images is on the rise nowadays.

If we search through Goggle, we can come across innumerable stock photo agencies. You can use smaller or larger agencies as per your requirement. The number of images of your preferred topic varies considerably according to the agency strength. There are certain guidelines you can follow while searching for stock photography images. You should always opt for the advanced search techniques. The position of these advanced search buttons vary according to the agencies. Let us suppose that you are going to search for images on ‘chocolates’. You should insert that very key phrase ‘chocolate’ and click the advanced search button. Soon, you will be flooded with desired results. In some agencies, you have to register as per the agency’s terms and conditions. Not much information is required to register in Index Stock. But FotoSearch, Getty Images and Corbis want extensive information. Your image buying process will get facilitated if you set up an account at the agency’s website. Setting up an account and registering don’t have much of a difference in the websites of some companies. Some agencies proffer special services also. You can search for high quality images such as images without any watermark. In some stock photography agencies, you can get the assistance of professional searchers also. These professional searchers have proven to be immensely beneficial for certain customers. For further queries, calling the customer care associates of the agencies will definitely be a wise option. The amicable customer care services of various stock photography image agencies have got global appreciation.

If you are looking forward to the perfect stock photo for your marketing project, you can at once search through the online agencies. Inserting the keywords, image type, image size and color will be helpful. Searching by orientation like portrait, panoramic and layout is available in agencies like Index Stock Imagery. The more you be specific in terms of keywords, the results will be more precise. Let us suppose that you want photographs on ‘children playing on the beach’. Here, all the key words ‘children’, ‘play’ and ‘beach’ must be included in your search. Re-sorting the images from the search results is possible too. Searching by the name of the artist who has generated the image is another popular option. To make your search more refined, you can insert your desired adjectives in the keyword. If you are satisfied with the images you obtain, you can place them in the ‘light box’ where other people connected to the project can take a look at them. Using the ‘light box’ is acceptable in Index Stock. Some prefer e-mailing the images to the co-workers. The name of the light box appears as the subject line in the mails of the recipients. In the mail, a clickable URL exists that refers to the light box. All the stock photography agencies have almost identical features. After the selection of the stock images, filling up the online ordering form is mandatory. You have to spell out the actual forms of usage of the images. After the completion of the ordering process, you get necessary information from the agencies on the downloading of images. Next comes the step for saving and using the images. The whole process of purchasing a license for online stock photography is trouble-free, speedy and reasonably priced.

Stock photography, nowadays, is an extensively used application of digital media. Digital audio, digital video and other digital ‘content’ are the prime categories of digital media. The digital information processing machines play an important role in this regard. The digital media is technologically far more advanced than the analog media. From the conventional stock photography, a branch known as Micro Stock Photography has emerged. These images are obtainable only from the Internet. The agencies of micro stock photography buy images from a broad assortment of photographers that incorporates recreational photographers also. The cost of royalty free images is quite less. The range of the price is between $10 and $20. Here, quantity of the images is the major concern of the photographers. Bruce Livingstone initiated the microstock photography industry. You can download thousands of microstock photographs from agencies like ShutterStock, Dreamstime, BigStockPhoto, Stock Photo and Fotolia. Gradually, the whole Stock Photography industry is going through a steady growth rate and in the coming years, it will surely undergo further revolution.

About The Author

Albert Mills is a freelance photo researcher based in Barcelona, Spain currently contracting for an international publishing group based in london and leading advertising agencies in Europe.

http://www.epictura.com

alisonyoung@epictura.com