Choosing a Web Site Designer

How much experience does the web design firm have? Selecting a professional to create your website is important. Choosing a professional web design firm requires careful planning and research. You want the best results for your website and your project. Make sure the Web Designer you select can help you keep up with your competition.

If you need someone to develop a simple website for you, then a freelancer will charge a lot less than a professional, and a freelancer might might be more accessable. Make sure you request to see samples of web designs they have already done.

You should use a freelancer and explain exactly what you want. If the project itself is very simple and the design work necessary for the job is not too extravagant, then this might be your best solution.

How does the web designer work?

You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. Building trust for your online visitors cannot be achieved by just a single action. Trust is achieved by many little actions you do throughout your website and when its taken together, give users a sense of stability, honesty and legitimacy for your business and services youprovide.

Make sure to understand how your web designer works. The more time the web designer has to spend designing the basic look and feel of your site will mean the cost will be higher, A simple website with a basic number of pages and no fancy flash graphics will have a relatively low cost and can be produced quickly.

Check the web design's client portfolio. Do they offer a wide range of website styles or do they all look like cookie cutter web sites? Ask for references, or better yet send emails to the web design firms clients and ask them directly how their web site has been handled. Were they quick to respond to requests?

You want great results for your company. Make sure the firm you select can keep you in the same ball park as your competition. What Are You Looking For? Never Compromise! Find a few websites that you feel havethe design and feel of what you are looking for in your own web site. Be sure that the designer you choose can deliver that look and feel you want for your company presence on the web.

What Are You Looking For?

Make sure to understand how your web designer will communicate with you. Email is usually the most used form of communication and gives everyone a written record of conversations and prevents misunderstandings. Make sure the designer you select will communicate progress on the website to you at regular intervals and of course be ready to respond when your web designer asks you questions so they can move forward with your project in an orderly and timely fashion.

Be prepared to describe what exactly your company does. Giving the web designer a complete picture of the type of business you run, how sales are generated and the future plans for the business will prompt new ideas you have not thought of and give the designer an indication what future features the web design needs to be able to incorporate at a later date.

As part of your preparation for moving the business to an online prescence, a list of goals for the website is required as a tool to measure the success of the website.

Who are your competitors? What are they providing their website visitors? Have you taken a look at what your competitors are doing with their websites? Are there things that are missing from those websites that you could provide to make your website different and more useful to potential customers?

Being different from the typical website for your industry can make your website more memorable than the competition.

Are you prepared?

Are you prepared? Be prepared! There will be a lot of information that the web designer will need. Things like hosting account user names and passwords, and descriptions all typed out for data entry and many more items as the website progresses. How many pages and sections of the website will be required?

Some web designers price projects by the page, some by the amount of time they expect the project will take to produce. So having a clear list of the pages and sections in hand will result in a firmer understanding of what you want.

What is your budget? Don't be afraid to disclose a budget figure. Do you have special requirements? Disclosing up front that you have a product launch, an article coming out or any other special items is the best. Both parties are clear on when the completion date is then. If you have a short completion date and a complicated site, then don’t expect to get a sharp price and quality work.

What level of assistance will you require to maintain the website? If you plan to maintain the website yourself then it may need to be constructed differently than if you were going to hire the web designer to maintain the website as well. Your level of expertise on website coding would also influence how a self maintained website would be constructed.

How accessible is your web designer?

As you can tell, choosing a web designer isn't as easy as it seems. The more research, preparation and clearness that you know about before calling for quotations on your website design, the better pricing you will receive and the clearer you will be on what you are receiving for the price quoted.

Be sure to have the quotation in writing and that the legalities of ownership of the website design and graphics need to be stated.

What is your budget? Have a realistic budget in mind. We recommend always getting a few quotes when having a website built, but, make sure that your budget is realistic. Many clients are not aware of the complexities involved in website design and programing and think "all the designer has to do is push a few buttons" and everything will work. Don't expect a web designer to build you a website that requires database administration, a content management system and a shopping cart all rolled into one and expect to cost $500.00! Most designers will ask you what your budget is, not to find out how much money you have to spend, but rather, to estimate if your budget is anywhere close to the level of complexity of your web design project. There is no point giving you a quote if they can not meet your expectations.

What kind of support do I get?

Most web design firms want to have a great relationship with their clients and are more than willing to maintain your website for a fee of course. Some companies will charge by the hour for additional work that falls outside of the original website design contract, others offer monthly maintenance fees. Just be sure to ask your designer how they manage that aspect after your project is complete.

1. Your website design is the first impression. Make sure it is professional and relevant to the subject matter.
2. Navigation must be intuitive. If visitors can't find what they are looking for easily, they will question your competence in providing what they want.
3. Make the website personal by giving it its own tone and voice. People buy people.
4. Follow the HEART rule of creating online content. HEART stands for Honest, Exclusive, Accurate, Relevant and Timely.
5. Use language that is appropriate to the audience. It will build empathy.



































Here are 40 simple actions you can take to get started.

1. Your website design is the first impression. Make sure it is professional and relevant to the subject matter.

2. Navigation must be intuitive. If visitors can't find what they are looking for easily, they will question your competence in providing what they want.

3. Make the website personal by giving it its own tone and voice. People buy people.

4. Follow the HEART rule of creating online content. (Reminder: HEART stands for Honest, Exclusive, Accurate, Relevant and Timely.)

5. Use language that is appropriate to the audience. It will build empathy.

6. Regularly add new content to your site. It shows that the business is alive and kicking.

7. Review all links. Doubts will quickly form in your visitors' minds if links don't work or, worse still, take them to error pages.

8. Good grammar and spelling matter. Errors give the impression of sloppiness and carelessness.

9. Don't make outrageous and unbelievable claims, like "Read this blog and you'll be a millionaire by the end of the week." People are used to scams, get-rich-quick schemes and rip-offs.

10. Publish REAL testimonials and third-party endorsements. Try to always use real names and link to websites where possible. Some sites show images of letters sent by happy customers.

11. Publish case studies about customers you have helped, who use your product, etc.

12. Don't put down, curse or insult competitors. It's unprofessional. It is better to offer an objective comparison of competitive services or products.

13. Focus on building your long-term reputation, not on making quick sales.

14. Write articles for humans, not search engines.

15. Make your 'About Us' page personal and comprehensive. It plays an important part in making visitors feel comfortable that real people are behind the site.

16. Publish your photo or the photos of the key people involved with the site. Again, this reinforces the fact that there are real people behind the screen shots.

17. Clearly identify who is behind the site. Nothing creates more suspicion than a site that tries to hide the identity of its publishers.

18. On the 'Contact Us' page, provide an email form, telephone number, fax and address of the company. In Europe, it is a legal requirement for sites taking funds, but even sites driven by advertising will benefit from openness.

19. Provide a telephone number that people can call and talk to a person.

20. Provide Web addresses linked to the website domain, not addresses from free web mail services such as Hotmail and Gmail.

21. Think carefully about reciprocal links. If your site is about organic food and you have links to Party Poker, people are going to question your integrity.

22. Think carefully about the adverts you display on your site. Ensure that they are relevant to your subject and audience.

23. Write and publish your privacy policy. Be clear about what you will and will not do with any personal data you collect. State that you adhere to all data protection laws. Make it easy to read and don't use legal gobbledygook.

24. Write and publish a security policy. State what measures you take to ensure that all transactions are secure as well as how well you handle customers data.

25. Ensure that you have a security and privacy policy which is linked from the footer on every page. Make the link more prominent on all the order pages.

26. Clearly publish your guarantee. I would recommend making it a 100% money-back guarantee if possible.

27. Clearly state your refund and returns policy.

28. If you use PayPal, put the PayPal logo on your site. If you have a merchant services account with a major bank like Citibank or HSBC, put its logo on your site.

29. Use Google search on your site for two reasons. First, it is a great search solution which will help your visitors find what they are looking for. Second, having the Google name on your site instills trust.

30 If there are well-known industry associations for your subject, join up and put their logos on your site.

31. Have a forum on your site and respond quickly to questions. Have the attitude that you are happy to help others without receiving immediate reward. As the old saying goes, 'Givers always gain.'

32. Allow people to comment on articles. Interactivity and an exchange of views build community and a sense of involvement.

33. If people provide constructive criticism or comments in the forum, don't delete them, but respond with your point of view.

34. Use the words 'secure website' whenever you try to get any information from visitors, including newsletter sign-ups, forum input and payment.

35. On every page, state, "We take your privacy and security very seriously." Link the statement to the security and privacy policy.

36. If you are selling a subscription, offer a low-cost, entry-level option. This could be a one-day taster, 'a week before billing starts' or a monthly trial.

37. Only ask for information from customers that you really need. For example, for an email newsletter sign-up, the only information you REALLY need is an email address, so that is all you should ask for.

38. If you have pricing on your website, make it transparent. I recently went to buy a book which was advertised for $10. When I checked out, they added tax, post and packaging, and the final bill was $19.50. I didn't buy it as I felt they had deliberately tried to mislead me.

39. Start a small newsletter of your company/services & circulate it among your clients/employees. Also, publish it on your website regularly.

40. Allow people to “unsubscribe” from your mailing list. This may sound very obvious, but I have found that many websites still don’t follow it.

If you want to know how your site ranks (in terms of building trust online), then visit: http://www.alexa.com and know where your site is ranking.

To ensure that you are continually improving your trustworthiness, every time you go to a website, ask yourself whether you trust it or not. Then ask yourself why you have formed the opinion you have.

Introduction

Parcheesi is a game many people recognize, but few have played. Parcheesi utilizes a crossed board with 68 squares, including 16 that have special marks. Four groups of four differently colored pieces are used. Each player chooses a color and moves his pieces by rolling dice. The winner is the player who gets all his pieces in his respective final square. Parcheesi's not as easy as you think.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Steps

1

Step One

Place four groups of pieces, or pawns, on their respective color circles at each corner of the board. The first player rolls the dice. When the dice has a five, or the two die combine to make five, the player can move one of his pawns out of his circle.
2

Step Two

Move pawns in a counterclockwise direction. You can only move your pawns on the purple and light blue squares in this game.
3

Step Three

Roll again if you roll a double. However, rolling doubles a third time forfeits the turn and the pawn furthest along the board must be moved back to the starting circle. Rolling a double when all the player's pawns are out of the starting circle is a "double bonus" and allows the player to move by both the tops and bottoms of the dice.
4

Step Four

Count each die separately. For instance, if a 2 and a 3 are rolled, the player can move one pawn two spaces and another pawn three spaces. If the same pawn is moved, it is not a total of five spaces moved, but two and then three; if another player's pawns are on a square two or three spaces ahead, the player cannot move.
5

Step Five

"Bop" the other player if you land on a square occupied by another player by exact count; the other player then must start again. It also allows you to move your pawn other 20 squares.
6

Step Six

Complete a circuit around the board in order to enter your pawn into the corresponding color home row. You can only reach the center square by an exact count. You then earn ten extra points that another pawn can use.
7

Step Seven

Get all four pawns into their corresponding color finishing squares to win the game.

Tips & Warnings