Finding a good webdesigner

How do you go about finding a good webdesigner?

Start by searching for local webdesigners. If you live in Hoboken, New Jersey, they search on Google, Yahoo and MSN for
"web designer" + Hoboken <<(exactly as shown)
Browse around the listings and write down some names, website addresses, telephone numbers and emails.
Then search for a slightly different term. e.g.,
"web developer" + Hoboken
"web developers" + Hoboken
Hoboken + "web designers"
Hoboken + "webdesigners"
Hoboken + "shopping cart" + web designer
etc..

Next thing you do will be to contact them by phone and set up appointments. You will be working with one of these web designers over a period of time and he/she will be an integral part of your business success. So you definitely want to meet him/her and get the feel, vibe whatever you want to call it.
BTW, let them decide the place to meet. You can tell how experienced they are by the place they decide to meet also. A webdesigner who doesn't hasn't met many clients will need time to think of a place to meet at. An experienced designer will tell you a place and a time in an instant. ..well not instantly perhaps...he/she might need to look up the daily planner.

Anyway, let's continue.


You are looking for the following in a webdesigner:

1. How compatible he/she is with you.
You shouldn't work with someone who you can't stand, even if he seems to be really good at web designing.
I, as a webdesigner qualify my clients. Of course, a long time ago, when I was just starting out, I took every customer I could find. But now, I am very selective. If I think a certain customer is going to be difficult to deal with when it come to payments, I suggest them to find another web designer (nicely of course).

2. Skills and experiences
You should try to find out his skills and experiences. The ones with experience will tell you. Still, their word is not good enough. You want to ask them a list of their websites, some done in the past and some recent ones. You also want to ask them if you can contact some of their previous customers. Ask them for the customer's name and telephone number and the website address.
TIP: Don't forget to match the customer name or address against the whois info for the domain name. If you don't know what that is, just email me at vijay@sainju.com or just leave a comment.

3. Prices
After your webdesigner understands what you want on your website, ask him/her for the price range, method of payment. The web designer might not be able to give you an exact price but will be able to give you a rough pricing.
Ask also about the method of payment.
Do they take credit card? Paypal? Persona check?
Try not to work with cash.
How much do they ask to start?
Most professional web designers (including us) take up to 50% up front.

...to be continued...

Web Designer - STEP 3 to start website

OK, finding a web designers could actually be STEP 1 if you are very, very new to the idea of getting a website. The web designer you choose could help you through STEP 1 (choosing a domain name) and STEP 2 (choosing a hosting company). However, it's STEP 3 for those who know about getting domain names and finding a host. Also the major part of the webdesigner's work comes after the domain and host are set up.

Let's get into finding a webdesigner now.

The first thing you need to do is write down what functionalities you need in your website. Get a fresh notepad and a pen. Yeah, I mean it. Don't just start thinking of what you want in your website in your head. Get a notepad and a pen. Let me stress that.
GET A NOTEPAD AND A PEN.

OK, that' s better.

Write down the word "FUNCTIONALITIES" at the top of one of the pages in your notepad.
Now you are going to start putting numbers and writing down what you want.

By the way, when we talk about functionality it we are not talking about the pictures you want on your site or the size of the text or the colors you would like on your site. By functionality we mean, how your website should interact with the customers who visit your website.

If you want a simple non-ecommerce site that just talks about your services/products but doesn't charge credit card online or anything else that requires your customers to write anything then the work is pretty simple. These simple websites don't have a lot of functionlities (technically speaking).

For other types of sites, like a shopping cart site you will need to figure out what your shopping cart sites should have.

Let's do an example to understand functionality better. Let's say you want to sell sporting goods online. One of the items you sell is lets say soccer t-shirts. Now, a particular T-shirt can come in varieties of colors and sizes. Let's say this soccer T-shirt comes in 3 different sizes (large, medium and small) and for each size their are 5 different colors (red, green, blue, white and black)
So in you functionalities you want to write down
"At least 2 attributes for some products like T-shirt".
Your website should not display this T-shirt as 15 different items.
It should not say "Soccer T-shirt, red, large", "Soccer T-shirt, blue, small", "Soccer T-shirt, green, large"......etc.
It should simply be one item "Soccer T-shirt" with 2 different attributes - size and color.

Now if you think deeper, some of your other items also might have these same attributes (color and size), but they might come in more varieties. e.g., Soccer shoes also come in different sizes like T-shirt, but soccer shoes will not be as simple as small, medium and large. Soccer shoes are likely to be 'size 5, size 6, size 7, size 8, size 9, size 10'...etc.

I hope you got my point there.

Another example of funtionality.
You might want your customer to get a discount of 10% if they purchase more than 5 T-shirt at a once and a discount of 14% if they buy more than 10 T-shirt.
But you also want 5% discount if they purchase more than 2 soccer shoes and 10% discount if they buy more than 5 shoes.
This is easy if you are just going to mention this on your site but it's difficult if you want your website to automatically calculate these options in.

I guess you got the idea of what I meant by functionality now.
One thing I would highly suggest you to do is to search for your products on Google, Yahoo and MSN and do a little research by browsing around these other (perhaps your competitor) sites.

Don't forget to write down the URL (website address) of the sites you liked for a certain functionality or even colors and graphics. You will want to mention it to your webdesigner ultimately.

Now let's find the webdesigner.
continued in the next post.....

Hosting - STEP 2 to start a website

What is hosting?
If you have a furniture store you are probably paying a landlord a monthly rent to keep the physical store space. Your website is also going to occupy some space. The space will be on a special powerful computer called a server. The landlord who owns these servers are called a hosting company or simply hosts.
So just like you would pay a landlord a monthly rent to occupy a space for your brick and mortar store, you would pay a monthly fee to a hosting company to rent a space for your website.

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How do I get a hosting for my website?
Just like getting a domain, you would go online (go on the internet) to visit a hosting company. There are many, many, many hosting companies. Here is a list of few well known ones.
www.hostgator.com
www.iPower.com
www.BlueFish.com
www.MidPhase.com
www.ApolloHosting.com

You will make the payment online using your credit card.
It's a good idea to have a web designer next to you or on the phone when you get your hosting.

TIP: Try not to give this work to your web designer to handle. Try to do it yourself. If you are serious about your business, you owe it to your business to at least try and learn something by doing it yourself. I say this because getting a hosting account is not that complicated for a layman but the process of getting one will educate you a lot.

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So how do I decide which hosting company to go with?
Different hosting companies provide different amounts of facilities for different prices. So the best thing for you to do will be to determine what functionalities you need on your website and what you are willing to pay for it. Then you can start searching for hosting companies on the web and decide for yourself.
If you are new to the whole hosting idea, I would suggest you to consult a web designer. In fact consult a few different web designers. Most of them will give you free consultation....and this may be a good way for you to decide on a web designers also.

I will write some more details on figuring out a suitable host based on your site needs in my next post.

Domain Names - STEP 1 to start a website

Previously, I had mentioned 4 things to get a website.

1. Domain Name
2. Hosting
3. Web Designer
4. Merchant Account

Now I am going to go in some details on #1 ... Domain Names.

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What is a domain name?
A domain name is the address to your website.
Here are some examples of domain name.
www.google.com
www.php.net
www.cancer.org
www.whitehouse.gov
www.harvard.edu

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Do I need a domain name to have a website?
Not necessary. You can have a website address like this example below...
www.tripod.com/HudsonOfficeFurniture
That's an example of a website address where you are using someone else's domain. Tripod.com is a company that specializes in providing space for your website without you requiring to have your own domain.

Now let's compare that to having your own domain name.
www.HudonOfficeFurniture.com

If you had an office furniture store in Hudson which website address would you like to tell your clients about?
www.tripod.com/HudsonOfficeFurniture
or
www.HudonOfficeFurniture.com

The 2nd one, of course.

The 1st website address is too long and unprofessional. It's only suitable for personal websites. For business purposes the 2nd website address is proper.

If you didn't understand that. This should make it clearer.
Would you prefer dealing with a business that has PO Box for their address or a proper physical address? In the same token would you prefer doing business with a company that has no telephone number or a company that has a toll free number?
One can certainly run business using a PO Box number and no telephone but one can't expect to get far with that kind of attitude toward ones business. Period.

Hence, it is important to get a domain name.

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Where do I get a domain name from? and how much does it cost?
You can buy your domain name online using your credit card at websites called registrars.
Here is a list of a few registrars.
www.godaddy.com
www.eurodns.com
www.moniker.com
www.register.com
www.NetworkSolutions.com

The price will vary from registrar to registrar.
Godady has domains for around $10/year currently.

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Do I need to register a legal company like a LLC or an S Corporation to own a domain name?
No you don't. You can purchase a domain name like you purchase a bottle of water from a convenient store. You will be asked to fill out a form online that will require you to provide your email, your full name, full address, your credit card information for payment and a few other details.
You can change the email, name and address anytime once you own the domain. To change the information, you simply log in and change the information.

Caution: The process of purchasing might be slightly confusing if you are doing it for the first time. It's a good idea to have someone who knows about it over the phone or next to you when you make the purchase. Having said that, I would highly reccomend you to make the purchase yourself instead of asking your web designer to do it for you, even if he were to use your credit card.

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If you want more details on domain names visit www.UncleDomain.com

Next time I will talk about the 2nd item on our list of "Thing you need to start a website".....HOSTING.

I want a website

I have been in web development business for over 10 years now and all these years most of the businesses I have targetted for clientele have been small businesses. By small I am talking about businesses profitting 50K to 200K per year. Before I get to even know what they want, they usually ask me a question. Guess what this very first question they ask me is? You probably guessed it right. It is "How much does a website cost?"

Now what does this mean? It means that most small businesses have very little clue about the process of getting a website. Otherwise, they would have known that the cost of getting a website varies a lot depending on how much work is involved.

For most of my customers I can almost guess how much it could be. With years of experience, I can almost 'feel' what they want in their website and therefore I can guesstimate a price range. Sometimes I am wildly wrong of course.

Now there is a ton of information for these small businesses regarding starting a website. However, most of these information seem to be a bit too much for most of the small business owners. If an article starts talking about choosing PHP versus ASP or SQL vs. MS Access, then they have already lost the layman business owners. Hence, I have decided to write a little article for this mass.

So here it is:
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To get a website you need 4 things.

1. A Domain Name
e.g., www.momocha.com
Price: $10 / Year

2. Hosting
This is like renting a space to run your office/company/store, except it's not a physical space like your company location. But you pay a monthly fee with your credit card over the internet, just like you pay your office landlord.
Price: Usually from $3 to $20 per month

3. Web designer
You will need to find one. There are many many web designers out there. Contact a few and get some ideas. Then choose one that you like the most.

4. Merchant Account
This is only necessary if you are planning to accept credit cards from your customers over your web.

That's it.

Your web designer should be able to hand hold you through all these steps. I will get into more details on each in the next articles.

vj