A successful website design project has many moving parts, from the initial planning stages to the launch date and beyond. To make sure your website’s development goes smoothly and that you get what you want out of it, it’s important to discuss certain elements with your web designer before they start working on your project. Here are 7 Things To Tell Your Website Designer before you start a project, whether it’s your first site or your 100th. They can help ensure that your site is built on the right foundations, so you can focus on promoting it once it goes live.
1. Budget
The first thing you need to do before creating your website decides how much money you can afford to spend. Decide upfront if your business can afford to hire a designer or if you plan on doing it yourself. In either case, create a rough budget for yourself and stick to it. Talk to designers about what they charge and negotiate from there, but make sure you come up with an amount that is acceptable before getting started. When negotiating your website budget, be sure to factor in labor costs and give your designer room for growth. Make sure that both parties are aware of any deadlines because being over budget right off the bat will ruin any chance of meeting deadlines down the road. For example, let’s say you have $1,000 to spend on your new website. A good rule of thumb is to allocate around 10% of your budget towards design work. So, in our example, we would set aside $100 for design work. talk to potential designers and see what they charge per hour/project.
2. Marketing Goals
There is no such thing as content for content’s sake. If you don’t have a clear idea of how your website will serve your goals, it can feel like you’re wandering around in an endless maze. Remember that content marketing is not just about building awareness but also driving leads and sales. To make sure that your website design truly serves your business goals, you need to talk through how people will find you, navigate through your site, and ultimately purchase or take some other action on your site. You should ask questions like: Do I want a simple one-page website or will I be adding pages over time? What types of images would best represent my brand? How important is a custom design versus using templates?
3. Communication Style
Your site’s designer needs to know how you like to communicate. Do you prefer email? Phone calls? Skype? Face-to-face meetings? The more your designer knows about your communication style, preferences, and availability, the better he or she can prepare for your project. If you’re not sure of how you like to communicate, keep in mind that phone calls tend to be less efficient than email and Skype is best for quick questions. If possible, try to schedule face-to-face meetings at least once during every project so that you can see each other’s body language and facial expressions. it’s an important part of effective communication.
4. User Experience Needs
Make sure that you and your website designer are on the same page when it comes to how users will interact with your site. Getting agreement on what functionality is most important, as well as where user experience will trump other factors, is critical. Similarly, look for designers who understand that time and cost constraints can impact your site’s appearance or functionality. A designer who’s willing to give up certain design bells and whistles to stay within budget or hit key deadlines is preferable to one who won’t budge. For instance, if you need your new e-commerce site to be live by a specific date but don’t have enough money for an elaborate custom design, make sure your designer understands that compromises may need to be made. If he doesn’t, consider looking elsewhere.
5. Long-Term Plans
Think long-term. As you’re working on your website, don’t just concentrate on what needs to be done now, also look into how you’ll need to change and update things later on. For example, if you decide to add an online store at some point in the future, make sure your site is built in such a way that it will accommodate that feature. Make sure there are no technical limitations. And remember that sometimes it makes sense to shell out for more expensive features now than having to pay more later when you upgrade. The investment might just be worth it. if not now, then definitely down the road.
6. Short-Term Tasks
Short-term tasks are related to your website’s content and are usually completed by web designers and writers. These include things like: creating an about page, writing articles for your site, or setting up social media accounts. These types of tasks should be discussed in detail before you start working on them. It’s important to make sure that you have everything covered to prevent any issues later on. Here are some questions you should ask: How many pages will I need? Will there be any special features? What kind of tone should I use? Do you have examples of other sites that do what I want my site to do? What is your experience with SEO? What tools will we use to create content? How much time will it take?
7. How Will We Measure Success
A lot of people think that just having lots of visitors and viewers to their site is a success, but it’s more complicated than that. How will you know if your site is working? It could be getting traffic, but not converting. So before you start working on your site, make sure you have an idea of what metrics are important to you and how you’ll measure those things. For example, maybe you want to increase conversion rates by 5% or get 10% more email signups per month. Make sure you talk about these goals with your designer so they can design for them.
You want to make sure you’re on board with your website designer’s vision, so it’s important to discuss what success means for your project. Ideally, you both want high-quality design and functionality on your site, but sometimes website designers will propose cutting corners to keep costs down. Make sure that doesn’t happen by discussing how much money you have to spend upfront and how far you can go with cutting corners. If there are certain features or elements of your website that are nonnegotiable, don’t be afraid to say so, you don’t want these elements sacrificed just because they cost more than other aspects of your site.