Ten Tips for Web Design Magic

Now that we’ve harangued you to upgrade your Web site, take advantage of business blogs, read your Web stats/, incorporate search engine tips and use Web 2.0 themes, it’s time to choose a Web design firm to make all of the above happen for your small business. Google “web design” and spend the rest of your natural life clicking links or narrow down your search around some specific best-practices criteria.

1. Best of Show - Good Web firms have great or imaginative Web sites they designed themselves. Their sites employ logical navigation, have intuitive layout and you’re never more than 2 clicks away from what you want. Look for a way to get in touch with them; check for samples or a portfolio.
2. Site Suckiness Quotient – if a firm is confident in what it does, the rep will give you non-judgmental analysis of your site. No one should tell you that your current site sucks (you probably know that already); rather, they should discuss (in addition to improving navigation) what they would do to make your site more marketable. Do they mention replacing graphics with text? How about improving the content-richness of the text you already have? That’s valuable input.
3. The Online 5K – if the conversation begins with, “It’ll cost about $5,000 to redesign your site,” then hang up. The $5K delimiter has replaced the $3K ruler in build ‘em fast design and the fact is, it does not have to cost $5,000 for a straightforward site without too much interactivity. Yes, of course, interactivity is good and we recommend it, but design itself just doesn’t cost that much. (Programming does.)
4. The Monthly Gotcha – Web sites have to be updated. If the firm recommends a large fee for “maintenance,” then be concerned. They should be using relatively easy tools to enable you or a staff member to edit the site without enrolling in a community college (remember, Webmaster is a job!). One such tool is Adobe’s Contribute ($150 retail) and there are plenty of content management systems (CMS) as well. Beware the firm that doesn’t encourage you to self-edit. A modern site should be editable by the site owner.
5. The Full Monty – Web sites that are completely Flash are rarely editable except by a Flash programmer. Read the want ads for Flash programmers and deduce how much they charge hourly. Certain sites do well in Flash; most small business sites do not. Is the firm you’re considering pushing Flash? Ask about site updates before you sign and don’t send money without signing a contract (see #8).
6. Who’s Your Daddy? – Does the Web firm employ designers, coders and programmers or is it a virtual firm with only contractors in various countries? It’s better business to have a designer or project manager for your site who is your single point of contact during the design and build process. You should build a relationship with your design firm; there should be a person there with whom you can relate and who understand your business’s culture.
7. Ownership – Who owns the finished site? (We’ve already cautioned you to be sure you own your domain.) The copyright for your site should be yours but there’s a secondary issue: who owns the original files used to build your site? If there are cool graphical buttons and in 6 months you want another button, can you get the original graphic file that is the basis of the button? Ownership of content and original build files should be part of your contract. Those files include Photoshop, Illustrator and similar graphics.
8. Bottom Feeders – I’ve often said that if I weren’t married to a lawyer, I’d never again speak to one willingly (unless you get into trouble and then you want the biggest, baddest one out there, eh?). Get a contract with your design firm that specifies what the work product will be, the launch date and ownership (plus lots of other lawyerly things). If the Web firm is incorporated, you stand a better chance of that contract actually meaning something.
9. See No Evil – Looking at an online portfolio is one thing. Talking to real clients whose sites don’t make the Web Top 5 portfolio choices is another. Google the firm; if they aren’t showing up as site author in the meta tags, I wonder how their clients rate their work. Due diligence is your job.
10. Lift the Veil – Anyone can click “View/Page Source” in a browser. Look at some of their sites; better yet, have someone who knows HTML do it for you. Are their sites coded well or are they generated from pre-built templates? Do they contained sliced images (an antique site design technique)? Do they validate according to WC3 standards and are they ADA compliant?

There are too many horror stories about aborted Web site builds and yours doesn’t have to be one of them. Do your own thorough investigation before signing anything that you showed first to your attorney.