Before listing the seven key things to look for in a good web designer, let's define a few terms. Even though you may encounter variants on the name ? like web developer, web artist, webmaster and so forth ? we're talking about an individual who, alone or with some assistance, is going to ?get you up and running.? This means more than simple design.



With these caveats, and serious encouragement to shop around for price and professionalism, here are the ten things to look for, in rough order of importance:

1) Experience

You will need someone with all the techniques, tools and tricks that will help you prepare your web site and accomplish your online goals. You should confirm that the candidate knows the entire alphabet soup of protocols, web markup languages and coding utilities: HTML, XML, CSS, PHP and so on. For more details visit to www.thedesignbuild.com

Ask all prospects for a portfolio, ask if they can ?hand code,? find out how many years of experience each has, etc.

When you interview designers, on the phone and/or in person, you will get these answers swiftly enough. But take due time to get more important insights as to the individual's character, level of expertise ? and how well your personalities mesh. You will be working closely together, after all.

2) Customer service orientation

As important as experience is a mindset and attitude of making customer service a priority. If a designer/developer is too busy to answer e-mails or phone calls, will they be able to keep the production schedule? Ask for references, and make a point of actually calling them. Ask the prospect's previous clients if the web developer was responsive, on time and effective.

3) Original copy and graphics

Creating professional and 100% original web graphics separates the adults from the kids every time. Most anyone can do some ?quick and dirty? copy writing and slap it on a page with some pictures and hyperlinks. On the other hand, a talented and veteran designer will demonstrate knowledge of page layout, have a way with color and know how to place elements on a page for best appearance and web site performance. Take a good look at a number of the sites each prospect has built, and make sure no one is using ?templates? or ?starter pages? that come with some software programs or are available (even free) on the Internet.

4) Creativity

You need to decide right away (before you even start talking to designers) just how much the designer you find will be involved in the conceptual process. Your designer may need to help you with some of the ?big picture? questions, such as marketing, web copy writing (for search engines) and how to generate traffic. You want someone creative, but not a ?diva? who won't follow instructions or work with your ideas to bring them to fruition.

5) Marketing experience

The easiest way to find out if your prospective web designers are good at marketing web sites is to view their site and their portfolio. That you are considering selecting them to design you site is a good first indicator that their designs convert. You'll further want to insure that you can find what you're looking for on their site quickly and easily and that you can do the same on some of the sites in their portfolio. For more information logon to www.javascript-magic.com .You may need to place a deposit if the job is large enough, and you should have all payment terms worked out before work starts. You can work out an hourly rate, a flat fee or some combination of the two. Leave nothing unstated or assumed: Get every detail in writing, including deadlines and how many revisions are included.

6) Communication skills

Don't hire anyone who insists on speaking to you in ?computer-ese? or won't explain unknown terminology. You have to communicate with this person about things that are important to your very survival, so you need to be clear at all times. If you cannot establish a good working relationship, it won't matter if you have Leonardo Da Vinci working on your code, it just won't work out.

7) Full service

There may be one or two things that your designer/developer cannot do, but for the most part you should be able to find a reasonably-priced professional who can handle just about everything. If the designer needs help installing a particularly complicated shopping cart, or your site requires some heavy database programming, it is reasonable to expect that your designer might need some assistance. All of this should be spelled out in the pricing, of course (see #6, above), and you should never be surprised by anything your designer is telling you. If you are, you overlooked something in this list!

Use all of this ?head? knowledge to narrow down your list of candidates, but don't be afraid to use your intuition (?heart? knowledge) to get a feel for each person's honesty, integrity and character. Using this mix of study, inquiry, discussion ,and feel, you will start to develop judgments about the candidates. Following this procedure thoroughly should result in your finding a good match for your Internet needs.

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