10 questions to ask your potential Web Designer
We at point2point understand that a business owner will seek multiple quotes and interview different companies to find the right fit as far as a partner in the digital realm. After 20 years of doing this, I always like to give a lot of free advice as far as what to ask your digital marketing company.
- You get what you pay for
The old adage of fast, cheap and good is a major concern when it comes to Web site budgets. I personally think anything less then $2,500.00 for a web site you start running into “good” being a issue because that means it was fast and cheap. - What platform will you be utilizing?
I can’t stress it enough that WordPress is the default best platform to build a Web site on. The ease of use for the client to make changes and the ability for a web designer to using this platform makes it our number one choice. - Copy and content
I often say that being a Web designer is easy, that writing great content and copy is the hard part. Make sure when getting quotes you understand that you will most likely have to provide copy and content or hire a professional to help you create that. We have partnered up with many marketing and content writers that can help you achieve your vision, check them out. - Search engine ranking guarantees
One of my pet peeves is Web site designers promising the world as far as search engine rankings go when it’s simply not that simple. In the start of my career in the early 2000’s you could rank on page 1 of Google for a search term just by having a Web site. That is not true anymore so be weary of anyone offering guarantees things that simply can’t happen. - Stock photography vs real photography
This is a short tip. Stock photography is always a much more cost effective option vs hiring photographers. However, I believe that a Web site with custom photos vs one that is using stock photography will always be nicer. - Where is my web site going to be hosted?
I literally wrote a book about how picking your Web host can be one of the most important decisions made. The cost of hosting can range from $1.00 to hundreds of dollars a month depending on the scope.A place to host your web site is absolutely required for visitors. Without the computers and the folks maintaining those servers, serving up the files when you type in the web site address, nothing would happen when someone tries to go to your web site. We try to make our hosting service more of a concierge service then just a hosting package like GoDaddy and what not provide. We want our customers to have one phone call(and one email address) for anything related to their online platforms. - What is included in my hosting package?
Not all hosting packages are equal. Often times I use the analogy of a storage unit. Many web hosts are just renting you the space and their support boundaries are very short. We try to go the opposite route and include regular changes and maintenances in our hosting packages. - Is a SSL certificate included in the hosting?
When you go to a web site and you see the little padlock next to the web site address, that shows that it is SSL encrypted. Every web site should have this secure certificate because it obviously makes it more secure but Google also ranks SSL encrypted web sites higher then non secure web sites. Often times we have seen this as a “add on” cost which is a tactic many bargain web site hosting companies so it’s worth asking. - Who is responsible for the domain registration and renewal?
You can have a web site hosted with Company A and your domain name(yourname.com) registered with Company B. This can often be confusing and it’s very important for all parties to know who is responsible for very important service. A domain has to be renewed yearly to continue ownership. You can’t self register a domain, it has to go through a provider such as point2point, GoDaddy or other providers. - Any additional services provided to help raise search rankings?
This is always good final follow up question when talking to people about a web site. Many companies offer digital marketing but it’s a very expensive service to tackle and not all small businesses need to jump into the deep end.We often times provide optimization of search engine directories to make sure your data is correct across all of the Web.