How to choose a Web Designer
Our businesses are super precious to us, we’ve all poured a ton of sweat, blood and tears into our companies. So, it can be really challenging to bring someone else into your business, even temporarily.
Picking the right Web Designer to create or refresh your business website can feel daunting. There are a ton of talented designers out there!
So, here are my tips to help you pick the right Web Designer for you and your business:
Pick for personality
One of the most important factors in any working relationship is the personality match. If you can’t get along with someone, working with them will be a pain in the you-know-what!
Say, for example, you are someone who loves to get friendly with people and keep things fairly casual. Perhaps then, working with someone who is quite buttoned up and overly professional might not be the best fit. Sometimes, like in life, opposites attract but there is usually some underlying commonality that helps make those relationships work.
This is why I recommend reaching out to your potential designers to chat a little and see how we get on. Even a quick 30-minute call is enough usually to tell if you’ll work together and communicate well throughout the project.
Make sure you have similar work styles
A little harder to gauge up front, but almost as important as a good personality match is a well-synchronized work style.
Personally, I’m a very punctual person – I think it’s a hangover from my film days – and I’d find it a bit frustrating to work with someone who is chronically late. That’s not to say that I am inflexible, and am almost always happy to reschedule appointments as needed, but a little part of my bristles when someone keeps me waiting a long time.
Another element of your work style is your communication style. Are you more comfortable, and more fluent, talking things out or do you prefer to write down your comments and share them that way? Do you feel confident saying if something doesn’t work for you, or do you needy our Designer to fish it out of you? Often your Web Designer can adapt their communication method to suit your needs, but if you both sit in the same comfort zone in terms of communication styles it will go a long way towards a successful end product.
You love their style
Obviously, liking your Web Designer’s visual style is a huge part of your decision to work with them. If they can’t create something, you’ll like then it isn’t a good match.
That’s not to say if your Web Designer doesn’t have an identical example to your dream site in their portfolio they won’t be able to create something amazing for you. Each site is created with the client and their ideal customer in mind, so in essence, they’ll always look different from one another.
But there will be an underlying theme or style to their work – and if that doesn’t speak to you, then it’s time to look elsewhere.
Make sure that their price and timeline work for you
The last, and most mundane, requirement for picking your perfect Web Designer is that their price and timeline fit with your business.
If your dream designer’s prices are 100 times your budget, then I’ll bet that even if you found the money to afford them you might not feel so happy with your website when you struggle to pay your other pressing bills.
This might be because the scope of work your website requires is larger than you thought, so it’s worth doing an audit on your website before requesting quotes to make sure they’ll cover the work you require. Take my free website quiz to identify which aspect of your website needs the most TLC!
It can, however, be worth exploring stretching past your budget to work with the right designer – one who will capture your company’s essence, streamline your customer journey and ultimately bring in more customers with a dreamy new website. This is something you’ll have to feel out for yourself, but most good designers will tell you if they are way out of your price range and refer you to someone who might be a better fit.
Timeline is another important consideration since it isn’t always possible to book designers right away. So, if you have, say, a product releasing on a certain date and you need your new website launched a month beforehand then your timeline will dictate which designers you can work with based purely on their availability.
If you don’t have such a pressing deadline for your new site, then it can be worth holding out to work with the right designer, and often designers will have a waitlist for future projects that you can hop on to grab their next available dates.
So, once you’ve got a sense of your potential new collaborator’s personality, work style, aesthetic, price and timeline, you should be all set to decide if you’ve found the one!
