Getting Started: Guide for having your own website

Ask the right questions to your web designer before you begin your project. We have listed some things to consider before you choose a web designer.

1. Does the designer have a formal website design agreement?

2. Are you comfortable with the payment schedule required by the designer?

3. Is the designer located close enough to meet in person if the need arises? And is the designer willing to meet in person?

4. Is the designer reachable by telephone when there is a need? Sometimes a phone conversation is much more effective to resolve difficult issues that are hard to resolve by email communication.

5. Can the designer adapt to both a “hands-on” approach as well as a “hands-off” approach when interacting with you?

6. Is the designer using proprietary software to design the website that will lock you with the designer for maintaining the website?

7. What exactly is the designer agreeing to deliver after the design is complete?

8. Who owns the copyright of the images and any photos used in the website?

9. Who owns the copyright of the website design?

10. For how long does the designer maintain the website after the initial design?

11. Will the designer interact with the web hosting company directly to resolve any problem in making the website live?

Tips for having a good interaction with the website designer:

1. Give the designer a good indication of the theme, colors and the overall style you like for the website. This will usually depend on the primary audience that you intend the website for.

2. Be ready to spend time with the website designer to indicate what you like and don’t like about the sample designs that the designer shows you.

3. Be upfront in telling your designer what you really think about the sample designs even if you dont like any of the designs. This will be helpful for the designer to more quickly arrive at the desired design.

4. Have the content (text and any images) ready when starting to work with the designer

5. Do not ask the designer to teach you any techniques in the graphics design software to achieve a desired result.

Website maintenance

1. Ask the designer explicitly if they will help solve any problem with the web hosting company as well.

2. Ask how much the designer will charge if the maintenance activities exceed the monthly limit for the number of maintenance hours.

3. Confirm the payment schedule for the maintenance fee.

4. Ask the designer what type of maintenance activities they will perform. Some designers will not perform certain activities as part of maintenance. Examples:

• “design” activity like adding a new page
  
  
• activities that require a different skill like search engine optimization
  
  
• non-technical activities such as contacting the web hosting provider or the domain name registrar to resolve any issues with the website

Do’s

Use your designer to interact with your web hosting provider if there is any problem with the hosting of your website. Give appropriate authorization to the designer to interact with the web hosting company on your behalf. The designer is able to communicate with the web hosting provider using the technical jargon that each other can understand.

Dont's

Avoid trying to maintain the website by yourself and getting outside help only when you get into a problem.

Also avoid asking one designer to fix the problem created by another designer. A designer does not enjoy constantly having to fix problems in the website that were introduced by other persons, especially when the other persons have been using different software to make changes to the website that the designer is not familiar with.