Archive for the ‘Web Design’ Category

Every once in a while, I catch a prospective client looking at our website samples the same way some would examine an x-ray, or maybe a piece of abstract art – interested, but without a very good idea of what they’re seeing.

I don’t think that’s hard to understand; unless you put together layouts and code for a living, a lot of the online world can be divided into pages that are pretty, and those that aren’t. To make matters worse, not everyone would agree on which sites fall into the good-looking category. Even so, most business owners and managers know they need to be looking for something in the web design samples they see, they just can’t quite put a finger on what it is.

To make things a little bit easier, and help you find the web designer or company that’s right for you, here are a few things to look for when you check out web design samples:

A variety. When looking over a portfolio, you shouldn’t get the feeling that all the sites have the same look and tone. Yes, every designer has his or her own distinctive style, and these elements are bound to come out in the projects they work on. Still, an eerie similarity between different sites is an indication that the person is unwilling – or unable – to start from scratch on a new project. Unless your business is just like every other one you see in their samples, stay away.

Quality. Taste is a subjective thing, but quality – even if it isn’t in the style you like – will nearly always stand out. There’s a big difference between a painting that’s bad, and one that’s just not for you. Web designs are no different. If what you see looks cheap, disorganized, or lacking in some other way, then take that as a sign that you should probably work with someone else.

Attention to detail. In the same way, what’s just as telling as a portfolio full of shabby-looking web designs is one that has stunning pages that seem just a little bit off. Whether it’s a misspelling here, a graphic that seems a little out of place there, or just the sense that the whole thing lacks a certain polish, missed details are a clue that the designer has trouble paying attention to detail.

A style. Assuming you don’t see any of the red flags I’ve mentioned, what should you be looking for? The best answer is a sense of style that matches your own. That doesn’t mean that you have to be looking at the exact website you would want, just that you agree with the designer’s overall approach to other projects. Clients sometimes forget that commercial design is still art – you might not know what you want, but you’re likely to recognize it, or parts of it, when you see it.

Looking over web design samples, online or in an office, can be a little bit daunting. After a while, it’s not unusual for one thing to start to look like everything else. But pay attention to these tips, look for any indications of future problems, and then find the best stylistic fit for you and your company. It might take a little while to develop a keen eye, but you’ll be glad when you find the perfect designer.

In design, as in life, there are some relationships that start out well, but ultimately go nowhere. But while the bookstores are practically overflowing with advice on when and how to get rid of that not-so-special someone, deciding to shed your web designer can be a little bit trickier. Who’s to say you can find another professional to take their place? What if you can’t afford someone else, or if it takes them too long to learn about your business?

Here are four solid signs that you should be looking for a new web designer – whether you’re looking at their first proposal, or they have been designing your site for years:

Their own site is terrible. In my mind, this is an enormous red flag. It’s absolutely amazing how many supposedly “professional” web designers and web design companies have sites that look, well… terrible. If they can’t even be troubled enough to do quality work on their own website – which should be their most important sample – then what can you expect them to do for you?

They don’t return your calls or emails. Next to talent and hard work, consistent communication is one of the foundations of a good website. As designers, we can only start with what we think looks good and will work for you; it’s up to the client to let us know if we are on the right track. And yet, it’s not unusual to hear of customers having to place half a dozen phone calls just to find out what’s going on with their project. That should tell you everything you need to know about the working relationship going forward.

Their proposal is vague. If you’ve been working with your designer or team for years, then having the exact wording on an agreement might not be your biggest concern (although it’s still a good idea, since spelling out the terms can prevent confusion and disagreements later.) But if a proposal you receive from a new vendor doesn’t specify exactly what will be done, by when, and for how much, then be sure to ask yourself why that is. At the very least, you should insist that these details be put in writing; but a vague agreement could be a big clue that you’re working with someone who doesn’t have their act together – or doesn’t want to be bound by specific agreement.

They have given you low quality work. While this one should speak for itself, I’ve met too many marketers and business owners who have been persuaded to give a lazy design team “just one more try.” Granted, not every layout or concept is going to be to the client’s taste. But even so, the difference between great work and a bunch of code and images that have been slapped together is usually pretty easy to see. Your time is money, and working with someone who isn’t going to give you their best effort won’t help you reach any of your business goals.

Having a bad designer or team on your company’s payroll is a drag on your productivity – not to mention the bottom line. It might be hard to cut ties with someone who isn’t pulling their weight, but the sooner you do, the more quickly you can get someone who will build a site that looks and works like it should.

Would you like a free web design quote?  MaryDesigns clients are all satisfied with both our creative work and quick response time!

It’s hard to think of any business bigger than a lemonade stand that can’t benefit from a functional, professional-looking website. And so, it’s not such a big surprise when clients come to us saying that they need to establish an online presence for their company. More often than not, however, they have no idea where to begin.

I can understand their confusion. Merely mention that you’re thinking about getting a new website, or updating the one you have, and you’ll soon find that there’s no shortage of advice on what you should do – including plenty of technical-sounding terms for “must-have” features.

Lost in all of this, though, is that websites are rarely built just to sit online; they’re usually designed to sell, inform, or serve some other purpose. And knowing what your site is all about before you hire a designer can save you an enormous amount of time, money, and frustration.

Here are three things to think about before you hire a web designer:

Who your visitors will be. What kind of person will be viewing your web pages? Will they be existing customers or new prospects? Colleagues or competitors? Having an idea about whom you want to draw in – and what you want them to take away from your site – is a critical first step toward building a concept that works. Try to form a specific image of your ideal visitor and then relay that to your designer so they can create something that attracts the right kind of attention.

What you need your site to do. Will you be selling online, or merely providing information? While there are obviously dozens of other things your site could do, this basic question can tell you a lot about the kinds of programming, hosting, and functionality you’re going to need. There’s no point in paying for complicated e-commerce packages if you don’t need them. Likewise, you’re going to be very disappointed if you expect your site to generate orders and it ends up working more like an online brochure.

Your budget and deadline. These might not be your first consideration, but it’s important to set the right expectations with any designer. Some companies can produce a simple website in just a few days; others require a minimum of a month or more. In the same way, costs can be across the board. While it’s a safe bet that quality work is probably going to put a bigger dent in your budget, it’s helpful to start out with a figure or range in mind.

Every Web project is different, and it’s not uncommon for a client’s needs or wants to change throughout the design process. But by having some basic ideas about what you need your site to be and do before you start collecting bids, you greatly increase the odds that you’re going to end up with a finished product that looks exactly like what you want.  Get a free web design quote from  MaryDesigns!

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.

The thought of placing my credit card number out on the web unprotected is appalling. I can’t imagine doing it! I thought everybody understood the principles of shopping online—how to check if a site is secure or not. But, yesterday, I talked with three people who did not understand this, and I realized that not everybody understands the importance of making sure that an eCommerce designed website is conducting business securely.

A long-time client left MaryDesigns last week to launch a new website which they had been building with another web designer. I didn’t know about their plans; in fact, the first I heard about it was after the new site was complete and the client wrote to tell me the decision to go with another designer was “nothing personal.”

Out of curiosity, I went to look at the new site, and I gasped when I realized that they are NOW selling products “unsecured.” This was not the case in the solution they had with me! Tip: If your web designer doesn’t know that you need to secure the payments of your customers at your website, you need a new web designer! I feel badly for my ex-client and hope nobody steals their customers’ credit card information. They made the choice to leave MaryDesigns, so what they do is no longer my affair, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn a lesson here today!

As a shopper purchasing products on the web, what should you be looking for? The industry standard is to use SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption on the page where the credit card information is taken. There are two elements you should look for—every site using SSL will have these two elements.
1. Look for “https” in the URL on the actual purchase page. The “s” in “https” stands for “secure.”
2. The second item is the padlock in the browser window. If the checkout page is secure, both these items will be present.

If the checkout page is not secure, anybody using a credit card on that site is asking for the card information to be compromised.

Remember: The entire website doesn’t need to be showing the “https” and the padlock. Just because those two things do not show on the pages of the site doesn’t mean the site is not secure! But the “checkout” page where you enter your credit card details SHOULD have both the https in the URL and the padlock.

Here’s the principle you should strictly follow: When you are shopping online, always look before you put in the credit card information. When it asks for the credit card, stop and look for both of these items. If you don’t see them, don’t buy, no matter how much you want the merchandise!

When it comes to domain names…how should you go about getting your domain name?

1. Don’t pay tons of money! By that I mean anything over $10 per domain name! Here comes my shameless plug LOL MaryDesigns.net sells domain names for only $10/year! Some places we won’t name that are very popular on the web sell domain names for $35/year and up! We make it affordable to …

2. Buy more than one if you can afford it! It’s a good idea to buy common misspellings of your domain name or other versions of it and then forward these to the real domain name. For example: MaryDesigns is the name of my company BUT many people commonly mistake it for MaryDesign. I don’t loose these people when they leave off the “s” because I also own the version without the “s” and have it forwarded to the real site Also, if there are other versions of your domain name available…purchasing them is a small insurance policy that nobody else can.

3. When choosing your domain name…try to keep the name as short as possible. It should be as short as possible while still allowing it to be something people will actually remember. Make it something relative to YOU.

4. While we are talking about the “naming” process, abandon any ideas of getting rich buying a domain name that has something to do with somebody else’s identity. The time of “Oh I’ll by this domain name and when it’s discovered that I’ve got it they will pay big bucks for it” is pretty much over. Not only wasn’t or isn’t this a very nice thing to do…it almost never works. If you decide to do it you should probably make sure you have enough saved up for a lawsuit. They don’t pull out the checkbook and pay up anymore guys! They either blow you off and get another domain name OR SUE YOU! This same thing applies to buying domains with well known companies in them because you hope your website sales will do well. Do it at your own risk. Example: motorolaphones.com <----Motorola actually owns this but it's an example of something I wouldn't suggest doing. Just saying!

5. My last piece of helpful (I hope) advise is … If you search and find that a domain name is available and you really want it…BUY IT THEN. Buy it EVEN IF you aren’t going to build on it in the immediate future. Don’t go searching for domain names to see if they are available and go away to think about it. If you assume it’s still going to be there waiting on you when you get back you are probably going to be wrong. Buy it before somebody else does. I’ve seen clients do this over and over. They go away to think about it and when they get back…it’s gone.

We just got through launching American Basement Solutions and after working with them on this site I know exactly who I would refer to anybody having a crawlspace, basement or foundation need That’s just one of those things you reach for the phone book or search online for and hope you get the right company isn’t it?

You won’t have to wonder if you go to them for your needs because I can tell you from working with them that they have integrity and are really easy people to deal with. Not just that of course they really do know what they are doing and that helps doesn’t it? *wink*

I actually learned alot about this subject while building this website. Of course that’s one of the things I love so much about my job!

Hey…if you need this service make sure you choose them…they have locations in Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee! Tell them Mary sent ya LOL…I don’t get anything out of it but I think it would be cool if they got a client because of this post