How to work with a web designer

Making the most of your web design investment

A well-executed, custom-designed website will pay your company dividends every day for years... and yet engaging expert web designers to redesign or upgrade an existing website can make even the most seasoned CEOs take a deep breath. How can you make the most of your investment?

Below, you'll find practical tips you can use to make the most of your custom website... and to make the web design process itself as pleasant as possible!

Client review working with Aio Design "We’ve really enjoyed working with Aio Design during our rebranding, a significant undertaking done few times since our firm was established in 1945. Tiffany and her team went the extra mile to understand our business and our clients in order to develop a strategy that would be extremely effective. [Afterward] a major competitor called to tell us he thought our new website had set a new standard for our industry."

— Robert Epstein, CEO, Silverman Consultants

Choose the right natural design style

Like interior designers or architects, many web designers develop a natural design style. Locating the best possible design match for your customer base will set you up for success in the custom web design process.

If your target market is made up of affluent women or members of the baby boomer generation, for instance, you'd be wise to stay away from web design companies whose natural design style features images of distressed graffiti overlaid with tiny text and mysterious, unlabeled links. Better to seek a web design firm with a clean, upscale design style featuring clear text and intuitive website navigation.

How can you determine this? Visit the design portfolio page of the web design company you're considering. The samples included on these kinds of pages tend to be work that represents the firm's web design style. (Don't be alarmed if you find some outliers; a good web designer should be able to work outside his or her natural design style if that's what the client's business case calls for, but the majority of the samples should have a cohesive feel.)

However, be aware that the design portfolios of web design firms often represent the best of that firm's work. Before you sign on the dotted line, make sure your company won't be assigned to a set of interns or others who haven't produced websites representative of the firm's best work.

Small businesses, take note: if the web design company you're considering doesn't have a portfolio page or a website, it's worrisome. (A web design firm without a website of its own or samples of its work available online? There's just something not quite right with that picture.)

Budget realistically

We've all heard the well-worn adage "You get what you pay for." In the "wild west" world of web design, that's both more and less true.

On one hand, simply because you pay thousands of dollars to a web design firm doesn't mean you'll enjoy a high-quality result right for your target market. Sadly, we've been approached by clients who paid other web design firms thousands of dollars, only to end up with (a) a design that was not at all a fit with their target market, (b) no design at all, and in one case, (c) a single web page featuring one logo and an email link. Sadly, the web design industry has one of the worst records with the Better Business Bureau in terms of complaints.

On the other hand, if your budget is in the hundreds of dollars for a custom website design, you're less likely to enjoy profitable results and a pleasurable design experience. For optimal results, it's best to seek a reputable web design firm with experience marketing to your company's target audience, but hundreds of dollars won't usually purchase much from a firm of high caliber in the US. Instead, your options are likely to include taking a chance on an inexperienced and untested web designer (frequently someone who is moonlighting in addition to a full time job, which takes priority over your website design, often for months at a time) or offshoring your web design to third world internet programmers. No offense to the latter, they just have very little idea of what it's like to make buying decisions as a member of your target market.

Not sure what to budget? Visit our web design pricing page for some figures. Expect to pay a deposit upfront, but not the entire amount.

(This said, we understand the reality of budgets! If you own a startup or small business and aren't yet able to budget as much as you'd like for a top-of-the-line custom web design, read our website tips for small businesses, particularly the section titled "Should you invest in a custom web design?".)

View your website from the perspective of your customer

Always remember that the purpose of your website is to attract your target customer and convince her to take the next step toward doing business with your company, whether that's contacting you for an initial meeting, requesting a free report, or ordering a product online.

Your target market may not have the same tastes as you do; you may prefer forest greens and mahogany browns in a houndstooth pattern while your target market prefers a clean, spacious design set against a clear white backdrop. If that's the case, save the ornate patterns for the interior of your home where you'll enjoy it; for your company website, choose the clean, spacious design set against the clear white backdrop. Your customers will reward you.

How can you determine what appeals to your target customers online? Ask them! Form an informal focus group of willing customers and show them a variety of websites, asking what they like and dislike about each one. (You might be surprised; many will consider it an honor to take part in helping craft a company's image, though you should be careful not to take advantage of their time.) Carefully listen and take notes without leading them in any particular direction. Better yet, arrange for your web design company or a market research firm to do the asking; customers are likely to be more honest with their responses if they're freed from the responsibility of pleasing you. If anything, while talking with you, many customers are likely to be too nice.

Regardless of who asks the questions, thank the members of your focus group with a gift card, cash card, or significant discount on their next order from your firm. It's an elegant touch they'll appreciate, and they may well tell their friends about you, garnering you positive publicity.

Even if you're only able to gather two or three members to form your focus group, that's better than none. Do your best and sleep well each night.

Choose a single decision maker

It has been said that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Believe us, we've seen it, and we're here to tell you the same principle applies in web design! Having multiple people giving contradictory direction to your web design firm can drive up your costs faster than you think, too. Your web designer may have supplied a quote that anticipated one or two revisions, yet now she's encountering several people from your company coming to her and requesting changes. If your contract specifies you'll pay extra for extra revisions, that's extra money you could put to a better use.

Save yourself unnecessary time, money, and grief: designate a single person—ideally someone with both diplomatic skills and a firm backbone—to take charge of the web design, and stand behind her decisions. If you can't avoid the existence of a committee, designate one person from the committee to distill the entire committee's feedback into a single non-contradictory directive, and deliver all requested changes at one time, so you'll only be charged for one revision.

For instance, if your director of marketing requests a single dark green background on the website and your director of sales wants a pure white background, the designated contact should not ask the web designer to design a website with a dark green AND white background; you cannot have a white background that is also green. Instead, the designated contact should sit down and hash out a compromise with the two directors, and deliver a single directive to the web designer. Better yet, the designated contact should consult the your company's focus group notes and request what your target market prefers, first explaining the reasoning to the two directors.

Let your web designer use her expertise on your behalf

If you've chosen well, your web design company is not only competent at what they do, they're experts in marketing to your target audience, something they live, work ,and breathe full time. Even though you're likely to know more about your firm than anyone else, it’s less probable that you’re an expert at marketing, design, or website coding… and if you micromanage the web design process, you're likely to subtract some or all the value your web designers could bring to your company—the very expertise and value for which you're paying them.

That said, you shouldn't be afraid to ask questions or give honest feedback. Communicate kindly but clearly, being as specific as possible... within limits. It would be entirely appropriate to say something like, "My focus group of customers has said they're attracted to the nostalgic aspects of our product; would it be possible for our website to have more of a nostalgic feeling?" It would be less wise to say something like, "I don't like yellow; please change all instances of yellow to royal blue, center that text, and change the font to Arial." The former gives your web designers a specific direction to go; the latter ties their hands.

Be timely in your communications

As with any professinal services business, good web design companies carefully plan their workload to ensure they can deliver the best service to each client. If your web designer's schedule is fully loaded, she may have even turned down new work in order to have the necessary time to commit to you. If she later requests an important item from you but you aren't able to provide it for several weeks, it could throw a major wrench into both of your schedules.

What's the remedy? Emergencies can happen, causing delays on your end; if this occurs, let your web designer know right away and do your best to get the needed item to her the moment things calm down. Keep her posted along the way if you can, and allow her a grace period after you provide the item—this will allow her to rearrange her schedule to fit your project back in. (If she is able to quickly fit you back into her schedule, don't take it for granted; she may have made heroic efforts to do so, so be sure to offer your genuine thanks!)

Most of all, don't make delays a habit; reserve delays for genuine emergencies. Your website is key to your business and will serve you best if you make it a priority. Remember, if you can stick it out during the design process, your website will be working for you 24 hours a day, all year, without further effort on your part!

Request rush work strategically

We live in a fast-paced society, and most people experience pressure on many sides—we understand! But you're still likely to experience better luck and more well-executed results if you reserve your rush requests for genuine emergencies.

The best strategy is to discuss deadlines with your web designer at the beginning of the project, allotting the time she recommends for each stage of the project so as not to rush a website with which you'll be living for years to come. If due to circumstances beyond your control you need your project completed yesterday, be prepared to pay a rush fee if necessary, as your web designer may need to ask her other clients for permission to delay their projects while she handles yours.

Clarify your assumptions

In the world of web design, what looks simple to you could indeed be easy... or it could require many hours of work. Before you request a change, even a seemingly simple one, protect yourself by asking your web designer how much time it will take and whether it's included in the cost you initially agreed upon.

Use your new website to full advantage

Imagine you've invested thousands of dollars and weeks of your time in a stunning custom website design or redesign. It's a thing of beauty, incorporating more marketing strategy and design theory than you knew existed. You sigh happily, lean back, and go about your life.

That's one way of approaching it, and certainly it's lovely to see any design client sighing with contentment! It would be even better, though, if you were to actively promote your website, getting it in front of even more admiring eyes... the eyes of those who will turn into new customers for you, or recommend others to you. Don't let a single email, business card, ad, company sign, PowerPoint presentation, blog post, or press release go out without your company's web address included. Consider driving others to your website using social media like Facebook or Twitter.

A specialty in marketing to women online

If your company sells to a female target audience, we're here to help! We specialize in appealing to mass affluent women, including moms and baby boomer women. We take the latest research on women's buying habits and thinking patterns, and utilize it to strategically design web pages and other marketing for women entrepreneurs and other companies selling to women consumers.

We always seek to reduce our clients' investment of time and money by gathering information efficiently, requesting items sparingly, and using "tricks of the trade" to save money, which we pass along to our clients in savings. And many of our clients have been delighted to find out how fun and rewarding the web design process can be. Read some of our web design customers' comments here.

What else would you like to know?