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When most people hire somebody to build them a website, they go in only caring about how their site will look. Here are a few things you should discuss with your potential web designer.
You want:
Clean, up-to-date code. Clean code means that when another web designer looks at the code your web designer wrote, it should be really easy to follow. It should be neatly indented to show the hierarchy. It should be hand-coded with no marks from WYSIWYG editors like Dreamweaver. The CSS should be in an external style sheet not in-line all over the page. And the biggest red alert of them all is if you see the page coded in tables. Tables are basically a sign of somebody who hasn’t learned anything new in web design since 2004. You don’t want that person.
Good usability. Usability is essentially the ease as to which users can navigate and interact with your site. Ask your web designer for some examples of good usability in sites they have designed. They might talk to you about navigation or page layout. The key is that they talk to you about something. If they don’t/can’t, that is a red flag.
SEO. You want your site optimized for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) so it comes up on search engines when people type in relevant keywords which, in turn, will drive traffic to your site which, in turn, is almost the whole point of having a website. Ask your web designer how they will implement good SEO on your site. They should talk about things like keywords, linkbacks and relevant content. If they say these things, at least they’re in the ballpark and not idiots. It also wouldn’t be a bad idea to look through a book on SEO just so you have an idea of what it’s all about too.
References. Ask for references. Be sure to specify that you want non-relatives. Call the references. Ask them how they found the designer. Ask them if the designer was good at communicating during the project. Ask them if they ended up paying more than how much was originally estimated, how much more and why. Ask them if they had any problems at all with the designer. And after you ask that last question, pause after they answer just to see if they add a little more juicy stuff. That’s an old interview trick.
All the control. Make sure you clarify that when your designer is done and paid for, you want all the logins and passwords to the FTP, to the WordPress Admin, to the whatever. This way if you ever want to go with somebody else to continue maintaining your site or to do any sort of redesign, you don’t have to go back to the original designer. That can be awkward.
This is not an exhaustive list. It’s for you to know the other things you should be thinking about when you want a website beyond how it looks. It’s also something for you to arm yourself with so you don’t go in there thinking that this person has all the power and knowledge. And it will also let them know that you are not an idiot to be taken advantage of. Because you’re not.
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