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Top website designers realize that your website has to make a good “first impression” of your business for your online audience. Finding skilled website designers who know how to effectively use their UI (user interface) and UX (user experience) expertise in order to make it more appealing, engaging, mobile, and user-friendly is not an easy task. How to find quality-driven and skilled website designers will be explained in this featured post.
Finding and hiring such professionals is not as easy as it sounds, but it’s also not very difficult if you know what to look for and what questions to ask. We all need a little help making the right choices from time to time and it’s our goal to make sure you get the best designer for your website by using these 10 easy tips.
10 Tips For Selecting The Best Website Designers
You can follow the ten actionable tips mentioned here to find skilled website designers for your website project – let’s dive in!
Tip #1. Choose A Local Company
Online marketplaces for freelance services have made it easier to hire freelancers. You can easily hire freelance website designers to save your time, money, and effort. But here are some solid reasons why hiring freelance website designers is not a good choice:
- You will have to compare the proposals of freelancers.
- You will have to create contracts yourself.
- Freelancers have priorities other than your project.
- It’s difficult to manage a website design project with freelancers.
- Freelance website designers might not have marketing expertise.
The benefit of choosing a local web designer comes down to the ability to physically meet. For example, if you’re located in England, it would be better to hire website designers in the UK.
It’s good to meet the representatives of a local agency before you hire them, allowing you to gauge their expertise and communication skills. This will help you decide whether you should hire them or not.
Tip #2. Check Their Reviews
You should read the reviews of each designer to find out their strengths and weaknesses. Reading reviews makes it easier to attest to the reliability of the designers you are going to hire. Make sure you set some time aside to read and compare reviews of website designers so you get good value for your money.
Some website designers might show the contact details of people who’ve left reviews on their websites. You should use those given contacts if you want additional information about the web design agency you’re going to hire. Here’s a sample email you can send to a website designer’s previous client:
“Dear (Name), I hope you’re doing well. I run (your business), and I’m contacting you to ask about your working with (Designer). I’m planning to hire (Designer) and want to ensure that they can handle my project. It’d be great if you took some time to answer my questions regarding (Designer). Waiting for your response”
Tip #3. Explore Their Previous Work
Before you decide to hire a web design agency, you have to visit the websites they’ve built in the past. It’s better to make the extra effort to visit the websites they’ve created instead of checking the screenshots to check if the websites are appealing to you or not.
It might be difficult for you to gauge the expertise of an agency by exploring their previous work. This is why you should send their previous work to someone you know who can differentiate good design from bad design, so you can make a learned decision about hiring a design agency.
Tip #4. Ensure They Understand Your Objectives
You don’t want your website to be “another” website on the internet. If you have clear goals for your website in your mind, then you should ensure that the agency you hire understands those goals and can help you achieve those goals. You should avoid hiring an agency that isn’t interested in exploring your industry and providing constant support to your business.
It’s better to schedule a short meeting with the website designers you want to hire. Share your basic objectives with them and note down any suggestions they give you. Make sure you conduct these meetings with different website designers and compare the suggestions to choose the best ones.
Tip #5. Gauge Their Marketing Expertise
The website designers you hire should know how to help your business through marketing. Your agency should have the proper expertise to ensure that your website is SEO-optimized and ranks higher in SERPs. They should also be able to optimize your website to help you get more email subscribers and also help you conquer social channels.
Exploring the marketing skills of website designers is not difficult at all. You can ask them to share any marketing strategies they’ve implemented for their clients in the past.
Tip #6. Test Their Knowledge of A CMS
Using a CMS (content management system) like WordPress.org makes it easier to post and manage content on a website. The website design agency you hire should know how to integrate a CMS with your website.
For example, if you are going to manage content on your website using WordPress, then the design agency should be able to integrate WordPress and ensure it works properly.
They should understand how to install and activate your site theme and plugins. Plugins are third-party software apps that provide various functions, features, and elements of the website such as a contact form or a chat widget for visitors to connect with you via live chat or email.
Tip #7. Check If They Use Responsive Web Design
Websites are no longer as sluggish and “unresponsive” as they used to be. Both users and search engines prefer those websites that can load up faster and provide an intuitive experience. Therefore, the website designers you hire should know how to design a responsive website that fulfills the expectations of users and search engines.
You can check the websites developed by a website designer to experience their responsiveness. Here are some factors that make a website responsive:
- Responsive websites adjust to the Browser size.
- Responsive websites have proper design elements.
- Responsive websites load up faster on smartphones.
Tip #8. Explore Their Local & International Projects
The website designers you hire should’ve worked with international clients in the past. Experienced website designers who’ve worked with both local and international clients have experience which enables them to provide great results for their clients.
Website designers who have worked with big international firms know how to go beyond the expectations of their clients. They also know how to integrate the brand’s identity into website design to help a company achieve its branding goals.
Tip #9. Ask If They Follow Trends
Trends keep changing in the web design industry. If you don’t want your website to look “outdated”, you must hire website designers who are passionate about changing trends.
Ask the designers you want to hire if they care about trends. Designers who follow new trends will tell you about the publications they follow to know the latest developments in the web design industry.
Tip #10. Inquire About Their Customer Support
No website design agency can claim to provide a “fit it all” strategy to all its clients. You’d need to oversee the design and implementation phase of the website design project to ensure that it meets your specific needs.
Ask the website design agency you want to hire if they provide reliable support and can act as per your feedback. Other than that, you should also enquire if they can share progress reports related to the project.
Bonus Tip – Ask for Recommendations
The ten tips mentioned above can help you find the best website designers. However, if you want to save time and effort, you can ask for recommendations to choose website designers for your needs. You can rely on social platforms to get recommendations about hiring website designers if nobody in your close circle has ever hired a website designer.
Final Thoughts
You don’t have to be a website designer yourself to find the best designers for your site. We have summed up the best tips to help you find skilled and reliable website designers make sure you follow these tips before hiring one so you can make the right decision. Please take a moment to comment below and share this blog with others in need of a website designer.
