This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 2:07 am and is filed under Free internet advice by Ian Blackford. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
Website design marketing and hosting in Telford Shropshire
Design Conscious .com
What to ask for when you call a website designer
This week I’ve had 2 phone calls from potential new customers, both of which totally confused me. Now I understand that people not in this industry don’t understand the technical terms, but there is no excuse for not knowing what you want.
The typical opener I get is: ‘Hello, how much does a website cost?’
OK, lets try asking that question at a garage: ‘How much are your tyres?’ Who can answer this question without getting some further information: what size wheels, type of car, how many are needed?
A website can cost anything - it could be a holding page at £75 or it could be a shopping site the size of Amazon and cost £30k upwards.
Here is a quick list of info that you need to have and the type of questions you need to ask:
Tell the designer:
- if you have a domain already registered
- if you have hosting
- what type of site you want and the type of content you have for it
- what other sites you have seen that you like
- if you have a budget to consider
- if you require photography, or if you have the photograph, or if you need stock photography purchasing
Ask the designer
- whether you can see their previous work
- what are their techniques regarding search engine optimisation
- if they have payment options
- whether they work from templates or design bespoke
Try and think of any useful information and offer it in the conversation, I quoted at least one of my potential clients an incorrect price because I didn’t fully understand what they wanted.
The incorrect price was in their favour by the way!
