There are stories on the internet about people who hired a website design company only to find out after they have paid the full price that it’s a bogus company and they run away with their money. There are also stories about designers who left substandard work and cannot be bothered to go back to fix what they have done. There are businesses who entrusted their websites to a friend because they design sites for free only to be left with a non-functional site. How many stories like these have we heard? Too many to tell. Hiring a website design firm should be made with as much care as holding your baby for the first time.
Your business is your baby. You are trying to protect it from the ills of the world and yet trying to arm it also with what it needs to survive in this cutthroat industry. When you hire a web design company, your job as the business owner and the client is to make sure that the designer has the right components to build your website and that the firm can answer all the questions thrown their way. Before you give them your hard-earned money, you must be 100-percent sure that this firm is legit and can build your site the way you want them to.
Look for a real business
Your website design firm should be a real business; one that is not doing this for free because he is a friend, a relative, a fellow church-goer, etc. When you hire a close friend to do your site for free and he does a bad job at it, you will have a hard time criticizing him for the job. How can you criticize someone who did a site for free? You are also risking your relationship with that friend. On the other hand, hiring someone who’s actually being paid to design a website will allow you to criticize, complement, and make demands.
Do not be afraid to ask for references. If the company is truly legit, you should be able to get a couple of names from actual clients they have worked with in the past.
Look for a website
A real firm should have a website. Can you imagine a web design company not having a website for itself? That alone should raise all the red flags. The site doesn’t have to be designed the way you like, but it should be functional and it should be well-designed. Do not believe companies that tell you they are too busy to build their own website. If they don’t know that a website is like a calling card for businesses, then they probably shouldn’t be working in this industry.
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