| Picking a web development firm |
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Picking a Winner Back in the dot com go-go days, i worked for the largest web design firm in the world. Then they went bankrupt. But that's another story. During my time with them I got the chance to work with some of the world's best designers, artists, and technologist as we built award winning successful sites for customers around the world. Here are a few things I learned from building multi-million dollar sites (yes, that's right!) that might help you get the most out of your online budget. #1 Not just a pretty face Your website is not on the web to be pretty. It is there turn visitors into customers. In the early days it was all about the pretty pictures, the dramatic moment. Today's internet users know what they are looking for, and they are impatient. . The four most popular sites on the web are Google, Amazon, Yahoo and eBay. Not the prettiest, but good business models that start selling on line one. Notice that there is no splash or 'intro' screen in the content on those sites, no blinking text or dancing snowmen, and no other extraneous matter. Real content starts at the top of the page on those sites, not halfway down below a large but useless pretty picture. If your visitor has to scroll to get to the content they are looking for, they'll click away first. There are many web designers that are incredible, creative visual artists. They create glorious sites that are a wonder to behold and sometimes impossible to use. How can you tell if they are web designers and not web developers? Here are a few clues.
If, on the other hand, the firm asks questions about the reasons for the site, the customer profile, and then actually listens, you're in the right place. You'll want to hear about actual implementations of items such as:
Evaluating the firm A website is four things:
When you look at reference sites from your prospective design firms, look those four aspects. Ask the site owners about tracking, change control, site updates, and what they would do differently if they were starting over. #Common Sense Use your common sense. If they speak in lots of technical or designer jargon, and cannot explain what they mean in language you can understand, find a firm that can. There are lots of good design firms. You'll need one you can work with. Any firm should be able to give you a good estimate, the resumes of the staff that will actually be working on your project, a project schedule that shows what gets done when and the critical milestones where you will be able to measure their progress. Make payments based on progress. #2 Fire your nephew (or niece) When my niece designed her first web page in middle school, I realized that the bar was so low anyone could be a web page designer. A typical new customer to a professional web development firm starts out by saying, "My nephew knows a lot about computers, and he designed our site, but..." The rest of the story is usually that the nephew got a real job and has no time, or that sometimes free is just too expensive. Anyone can go to the hardware store and buy a saw, and maybe put up a shed. But would you want them to build your store? Same thing on the internet. #3 Marketing or Selling What is the purpose of the website? Is it because your buddy said "You've got to have a website, everyone has one."? They may be right, but why do you want one? What is your dream? How does it fit into your sales and marketing strategy? Answer these questions before you go shopping for a web development firm, and your work with your design firm will be less costly and more successful.
#4 Replace your site Now that you have a website, all is well, right? Nope. The average site should be reviewed and redone every few years. Certainly the content on your site needs to be renewed at a rate that attracts repeat customers to the site and provides something fresh and relevant for the search engines to find. Remember
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