Before you make the decision to create an online presence for your business, you must ask yourself a few questions such as, “Can our business benefit from a website?”, “What kind of functionality will my company website need”, “Can anyone in our organization build or maintain this type of company website?”, and if the answer to that question is no, “Can we afford a website designer?”, “How do we hire a professional website designer?”, “What will our company website design needs be in 5 years from now?, 10?”. The list goes on.
When establishing an online presence, these and many more very important questions will present themselves and the business owner will more than likely be faced with doing some research into the world of website development.
Because an informed client is much easier to work with than a clueless one, HillSiteDesigns has put together a list of important concerns that a business owner faces during this initial phase of website development.
“Will my company website design need to be unique, or could a premade website template be customized to suit my needs?”
To help answer this question, we recommend visiting some competitors company websites and see what they are doing. You could even go so far as to contact them and ask what is working for them and what is not. Visits to other types of company websites can introduce you to functions and services that might work for your company website as well.
HillSiteDesigns can create a business website tailored to your business model or we can customize one of our premade business website templates to your exact specifications. In addition to our business website templates, as a feature of our website hosting plans, we offer a hosted solution where we charge a monthly fee for everything you will need to operate your business website including an online store complete with shopping cart, guest books and forms for customer feedback.
In order to choose which option would better serve your business website design needs, you must determine the degree of complexity that your business website must have.
Although these premade business website templates are perfect for the small business that only sells a few products, if your business has a large inventory or needs web applications such as a data base for tracking and reordering or a feature like a blog or auction then you are most likely going to require the services of professional web developers such as HillSiteDesigns.
Another factor that must be considered is scalability. Your business is going to grow, and your company website design must be capable of growing with it. Failing to take this into account when designing a business website is a costly mistake that can be avoided simply by planning ahead. It costs far less to design a company website with scalability incorporated into the original company website design than to redesign an entire company website because of poor planning.
HillSiteDesigns creates company websites in modular form so features can be added with very little coding and the list of modules are extensive. Whatever your company website design needs, HillSiteDesigns is ready to take your business to its next level. Our company website designs are unique, effective, scalable, and flexible to meet the demands of your business today, tomorrow and the next decade.
If you determine that the complexity of your company website design is going to require the services of a professional website designer then you are going to be faced with a new set of questions and concerns. First and foremost among these is,
“Who will be the best choice to design a business website for my company?”
Again, to help answer this question, visiting some professional website designers’ websites is a good place to start. You can quickly weed out the “noncandidates” and when you land on a page that catches and holds your interest for longer than 15 seconds it is time to take note. Most web surfers will spend less than 8 seconds deciding if the page they are on is worth staying on. That is true even for those who are looking for something specific. A good business website needs to catch and hold the visitor longer than that critical first 8 seconds or the visitor is gone along with that potential revenue they represent. If a professional website designer’s website cannot do this for themselves then how can you expect them to do it for your business?
HillSiteDesigns specializes in grabbing the prospective customer and bringing them into the site. Surely you must realize this since you are still here.
Once your prospective website designer has cleared this hurdle it is time to look at some of their work. Any good professional website designer will have some examples of business websites they have created. Make sure these examples are of real business websites that are online and not just “dummy” samples hosted on the same domain as the developers website. Poke around on these sites and see what kind of features this designer creates. Test the links and see how fast the pages load.
Still interested? Good! Now would be a good time to find out how long your prospect has been in business. Although there are some very good professional website designers coming out of training, it is always a safe bet to go with a proven track record rather than gamble on unknown talent. Let someone else take the risks.
HillSiteDesigns has a portfolio which includes business websites as well as personal web pages along with a list of past clients that you are welcome to contact.
Now if you still feel comfortable with this designer it is time to talk about price. Unless you are going to use a premade website template with the most basic features your website designer will need to do some research now in order to estimate the cost of your business website design. Pay attention to how this is done and you can get a feel for the thoroughness of your website designer.
It may seem like hiring a professional website designer is more trouble than it is worth but let me assure you with a little planning and research you can find the right designer for your business website design and your project will be a great success.