Having a website constructed can turn into a costly exercise that may or may not be sensible in terms of effort and costs. Before you embark on the scheme, and even before you choose a web designer think about your business and what it essentially wants to achieve from a website. Once you have some answers to this question it will give you a good idea what style of designer (if any) you want and a basic overview with which to begin.
Do you simply want to have your business details listed on the internet so that customers who already know about you can discover basic information such as your telephone number or your opening times? If this is all you really want, because your business is say for example a hairdressers shop on a high street you will almost certainly find that your wants are already catered for by the many business directories that are now on the internet.
Do you want to provide a facility for existing customers, providing them with information, help and service once they have already found you via another way. In this case your site may well need to be technically very sturdy, easy to bring up to date but will require no Online Marketing to emphasise it to the search engines.
You may wish to sell goods online, having a product which can be purchased without been seen as it is standard, for example dvds or cds. If this is the case then spending on a website that can cope quickly and easily with payments is essential, the site will need to have a good Search Engine Placement so that a great number of searchers are alerted to the products but the detail of the items themselves may be minimal.
If your product is a niche one, for example say you dealt in antique silver perfume bottles, you may find that there is very little need for any search engine marketing as there are so few competitors for your items on line. You may find that you consequently achieve a good enough Search Engine Placement position without spending on the services of a SEO Company. People looking for these niche items are prepared to root through a few more search engine results pages than they would for an every day item. However if you expect to get business from the site you will have to think very carefully about how you show information about your products, you will probably need access to a designer who gives a cost effective ongoing service to keep the site updated and also a decent photographer as images will be key.
Try to think about which of these examples would best match your business and then pick your designer on that basis, if you still want one!
