Web design and the pretty package.

So what is a pretty package? A nice looking website to impress your friends, but it’s not always about looks, is it?It must be one of the hardest things for a business to think about, who do you choose to build your new company website?

With so many web designers around nowadays it actually is a minefield and who can you trust?

Before you decide who to use for your web design, have a look at some of their previous work; ask if you can talk to some of their customers, read the testimonials on their website, it it really can help you to make make your decision . .

You will in all likelihood find quite a few that don’t really charge very much to design a website but this doesn’t have to mean they are not any good at what they do, others charge a huge fee so many people just presume they are the best, not always, it could just mean they have much bigger overheads to cover.

You must do your research; get at least 3 different quotes and compare, both on prices and also on quality of work.

Possibly one of the most important things to consider in choosing a web design agency is how long have they been building websites?

If they have been around for a few years it’s usually a good indication they will continue to be around for a few more years.

Just like any business, there will be the so called “fly by nights”, those who think they can jump on the bandwagon and make a quick fortune, when they realize? this is not going to happen overnight, they often just walk away, leaving any customers they have just hanging high and dry.

There are numerous very good web design agencies in your area , you see what they can do, you like their style and you want them to build your new company website, and rightly so. However, do remember, just because it looks good and impresses everyone you show it to, doesn’t mean it will ever bring in the business.

Many website designers will use a software program they have bought to build your website , such as Microsoft FrontPage, while others will choose the most popular, macromedia (adobe) Dreamweaver.

The more popular these days is the adobe studio version, this gives you Dreamweaver, fireworks and flash etc. all in one package, the problem with these software programs is the fact that the code is not as uncontaminating as developing a website using something like notepad, though FrontPage is probably the worst culprit out of them all.

The code in your pages are very important to your search engine results, simply because there is less rubbish within the code, its much cleaner and therefore will load a little faster and will conform to the current web standards.

Another point to realise about good clean page code is that the search engine spiders will only read so far down your page code, if all its reading is such things as fonts and javascript, it won’t learn much about what your page is about.

It’s not always possible to do this due to your customer’s requirements, you know, the ones that want this silly thing to happen here and there, with these people, you can only offer advice .

So try and remember, that new shiny all bells and whistles pretty package is not always the right direction, you will realise this after a while when your website is still not listed within the first few pages of any of the search engines, what happens then, you will need to have a new web design, re-built and coded correctly, optimised and marketed.

So “don’t be fooled by a pretty package”, this phrase has fooled many a small business and your new website will probably never experience any business simply because of the way it was constructed.