Custom Website Design and Development

Q. What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?

A. you need to see a portfolio of their previous work and it should be easy to find on their web site. Most of the porfolio sites should still be live. However, if you come across some sites have changed or that are no longer live, don’t necessarily hold that against the developer. In this economy, companies are going out of business right and left. Plus, companies often re-design their sites and may or may not use the same team to do it.

Do Your Homework

Surf the Internet; Note what you like and don't like in terms of the look and functionality of other sites.
Online go to WebPagesThatSuck.com, "Where you can learn good design by looking at bad design."

Know Your Industry

Define your business in one sentence.
Understand how your business will translate to the Web.
Know how your customer base operates.
Look at your competition to see what they're doing on the Web, and determine if you'd do it the same or differently.

Network to Get Recommendations

Work with someone you trust.
Assess your designer's experience.
Make sure you can communicate well with the designer.
Phone references and ask about timelines. What did the designer do well and not so well? Did the designer stick to the plan?
Look for someone whose personality reflects the type of site you'd like to present.