Questions To Ask Your New Orleans Website Designer

Before you make any decision about a New Orleans Web Designer and begin work on your site, interview her or him. Maybe you don't know what to ask just yet. My goal is to arm you with enough information so that after you read this Hub, you'll know exactly what to ask and weed out the sub-par designers out there.

While it's absolutely critical to have a sense of who you're dealing with and their credentials, you should use your judgement when deciding whether to physically meet with a potential New Orleans Web Designer. Personally, I have developed entire websites without physically being in the same city as the client.

Technology has given us the wonderful opportunity to work with people across the world and connect instantly.

The most important thing to convey to your New Orleans Web Designer is your technical level in current technology. If you are struggling to send email and attach files, it may not make sense to have your New Orleans Web Designer contact you via webcam. Mkae sure she or he understands your technical level and speaks your language.

There are several questions to ask regarding your website. Should you use flash, audio, video? What will be required of me to begin work on my site?

You should ask the following as well:

1. What are my design options?
2. How will the design be approved?
3. Can I make design changes once the initial design is completed
4. What will mark completion of my site?

You and your New Orleans Web Designer should set these goals together and make sure you both agree on what the milestones, phases, and goals of the site will be.

There is no right or wrong answer to this one. However, your New Orleans Website Designer should be able to give you a basis for the quote you receive based on the complexity of your site and the amount of site customization. Additionally, features such as audio and video are typically add-on costs since they can go outside the realm of your web designer depending on her expertise.

As a business owner, it is vital that you or someone in your organization have control of your site. You must consider who will maintain your site once desig nand development is complete.

Do you want to have the New Orleans Web Designer maintain your site for you each and every month, or do you want access to your own site.

There are pros and cons both ways. Check the Cyber Abolitionist Blog and download our report on the pros and cons of both. There could be cost savings in maintaining your own web site, but someone will also have to spend time learning how to make the necesary changes.

It depends on the quality of your site. How much traffic it gets. And how deeply the search engines have indexed your site. It also depends on the age of your domain. One other consideration is how many incoming links do you have to your site.

Unfortunately, the more popular your site, the more complex it could be in totally revamping it. Of course, if your site is that popular, why fix it if it ain't broke. It's best to evaluate all of these things before beginning a new development.

On the internet, one of the keys is to retain your sites reputation, popularity, page rank, and strength. Your New Orleans website designer should be familiar with all of these things.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing to a small business owner is not being able to make the necesary changes to her or his website when necessary. Most small business and non-profit websites stay out of date and never catch up or reflect what's actually happening.

That's because their sites were usually programmed by a fancy programmer who wanted to feel good about himself and didn't take into account what his clients needs would be. Conversely, some web designers intentially program your site expecting that you will come back to them each and every month for web maintainance. I call this the perpetual "Web Master" syndrome.

Today, there's no reason you should not have access to your website and be able to manage it without knowing an html or programming.

Check out a Content Management System (CMS) such as Wordpress. My clients have been very happy their sites were designed and built in Wordpress, and only need me for specific programming issues that come up every blue moon.

If you're willing to learn to make changes to your site, it's worth it to make the extra effort upfront. Your New Orleans Website Designer should have no problem encouraging and teaching you, even if there is an additional fee. Beware if he or she is unwilling to share information with you.

If you'd prefer to not have any hands on experience with your site, make sure you understand you will always be at the mercy of your New Orleans Web Designer and her or his schedule, even though you may require immediate attention.

My advice is to learn enough to make moderate updates and changes to your site initially, and learn as you go once you've gotten the hang of it. If you're using a Content Management System (CMS) like Wordpress, you should be making updates like a pro in no time.