10 Tips to Getting the Best Web Design

A business website is not like a personal one, so you need to have it done professionally in order to actually look professional, work well and achieve your goals, whatever they happen to be.  Clear communication between the website owner and the designer is essential to ensure the web design can achieve your goals. If you don’t know what they are, it’s time to think hard about it because it’s vital to tell the designer what you want before he starts on it.

Here are ten questions you need to answer in order to get the kind of website you want.

  1. What do you want to achieve with the website? It could be to sell products or services, gather email addresses or get more memberships. The web design for each will be different.
  2. Tell the designer exactly what your business does so they can get a good feel for what is needed in the design of the website.
  3. If you have an old website, give the URL to your designer and tell them what you don’t like about it or what it is missing. Give them an analytics report to help them understand what the website is not doing or that you want to be changed.
  4. Look at competitors’ websites and tell the designer what you like about them and especially what you don’t like, so they won’t include that in your design. That said, if you don’t know much about web design, listen to advice from a professional.
  5. Tell the designer what makes your business different from the competition. You should have a unique selling proposition that your competitors don’t have, whether it is better service, free freight, lowest prices, longest returns policy, add-on packages or the best quality.
  6. Instead of thinking about what you have for your customers, think about what they need to resolve a problem in their life – and how you can help them with that. Customers want to know how a product will benefit them before they buy. Supply proof that you can help them solve their problems.
  7. Your website needs quality content. If you can’t write it, ask the website designer if they provide this service and who they use. Is it a professional who knows the topic and has good grammar and spelling?
  8. Think about what features your website will need. A shopping cart, auto-responder, photo gallery, a contact form are just some.
  9. How will you measure the success of your website? The designer will be able to implement tracking and analytics to help.
  10. Do you have a style guide? The designer will need to know the styles of logos and advertising materials used in the past that are still current.