Archive for January, 2010

Collaboration for Kids, LLC is a Private Indianapolis Pediatric Speech Therapy Practice

Collaborating for Kids logo and website launched today. They provide private speech therapy in Indianapolis for pediatrics. They wanted their small 5 page website to have a fun and sunny approach so they could help communicate to their audience how bright their futures really are.

Their logo was already in existence but needed to be redrawn in vectors so that they would not be limited by the raster sizing issues they were experiencing.

They are members of both ASLHA and NAPW and can be visited at their new website: www.collaborforkids.com.

Choosing a website designer is a little bit like shopping for a car. The second you mention you’re in the market, everyone you know has an opinion about what you should get – and more often than not, these opinions tend to contradict one another. What one person insists is critically important, another swears is utterly useless. Eventually, you end up meeting with designers with that same feeling you’d get at the auto lot: with a big list of wants, but no firm sense of what kind of value and performance you should get for your money.

With that in mind, I suppose it’s no surprise that so many clients come to us with half-formed ideas about what they’ll need for their website. Often, they’re completely convinced that what they need is a CSS layout, CMS platform, Java coding, or some other technical feature – even though they aren’t exactly sure what these things mean. What they do know is that someone else used these tools and made some money, or at least a good impression.

As you might’ve guessed, however, choosing technical features for your website before you know exactly what you want it to do is a bit like going to your doctor and asking for a prescription you saw on television. Just because the people in the ad seemed happy with the cure, that doesn’t mean you have the same affliction – or even if you do, that you’ll get the same results. Just like every person’s body is different, so is their business situation. What works for one website can flat line another.

For that reason, my advice for prospective web design clients (whether they are thinking of working with us, or someone else) is to take some time sketching out ideas about what they’d like their site to actually do, rather than which new technique they want to try. Make a list of the capabilities that could help you grow your business, whether you think they’re doable in the short term or not. Once you’ve taken that step, ask a few key customers what they’d like to see, and take a tour of some competitors’ websites. Sometimes these different perspectives can yield big insights.

A good designer or team can take an end goal and find the most efficient way to get you the site you need. But a client who comes in looking for the “latest and greatest” can easily end up with something that’s different than what they really want – or worse, paying for features that they will never need or use.

These days, more clients than ever are turning to cut-rate web design firms to try to solve their online needs. It makes a kind of sense; in these tough economic times, business owners have to be smarter than ever with their money – and who doesn’t want to save some cash by hiring an aspiring designer or overseas company for less than they’d spend with someone more established?

The problem with this approach is that, like most things in life, something that looks too good to be true probably is. You certainly can save money by going with the cheapest Web design company you can find – it’s just likely to cost you a lot more in the long run.

Here are four ways that “rock-bottom” designers can cost you big money down the road:

Quality. There’s nothing complicated about it: good work almost always costs more than bad work. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the cheapest companies are charging less for a reason. Never has the term “buyer beware” applied as strongly as it does to the web design business, where virtually anyone can put up a site and be in business the next day.

Now you see it, now you don’t. Unknown design companies are infamous for giving low bids, showing a dazzling sample or mockup, and then given you something underwhelming – or disappearing altogether – once the deposits have been paid. The reasoning should be fairly obvious: it’s much easier to draw a sample of what a good web page might look like then it is to actually create and code a working site.

Compatibility. Along those same lines, imagine this scenario: you finally get a great website, one that you’re sure will do everything you wanted it to, including leaving your customers, colleagues, and competitors in awe. The only problem? Half of your visitors can’t load the pages correctly.

A good site is more than just a pretty design – it’s a platform that works well across many different browsers and systems. Your pages are only as valuable as the impressions they create on the people who visit them. A quality web designer can ensure you end up with a layout and coding it works for all your customers.

Service. If you have an issue with your new website, or need to change something in your layout, who will be available at help you? Unfortunately, with technology and marketing goals being what they are, it’s a virtual certainty that your site will need some kind of service or upgrade at one time or another. A reputable web designer shouldn’t be farther than a phone call or e-mail away.

Everyone wants to get a good deal, and budget-conscious business owners need to be especially careful with their money. Keep these tips in mind as you evaluate web design companies. And remember, there are a lot of ways to lower the price of your site, but many of them can end up costing you more in the long run.