Questions I Should Ask To Pick A Web Master?

wackman

It's been recommended to me by Nathan to have one of the sponsors on this site to build my first web site.

I'd like to know what kind of questions I should ask to evaluate these guys (and a few guys I personally know who build web sites as well).

Since I know nothing about this stuff I have no idea if a guy knows what he's doing or not and I could use some help determining the right guy for me.

Thanks for your help, I appreciate it.

Wack

Ed the Roofer

Wack,

I'm in the same boat as you, but I don't want to over analyze things that I don't know enough about.

For some starter information, click on the www.Visionwebservices.com icon to the right of this screen and click on the link to request the construction website starter kit. Fill out the information request form and you will get a very informative packet, regardless of who you wind up choosing.

I think that www.footbridgemedia.com has some information on their site that can be helpful to answer your questions too.

For additional more involved information, go to www.webworkshop.net

Thats enough for now.

I need to do something and be quick about it myself.

Keep me posted if you find out anything revealing please.

Ed

Diesel65

www.volwebdesigns.com,

Martyn is young but a true proffesional, I do not know if he has mine on the portfolio page yet or not.

Highly recommended

woodmagman

Not so much about asking questions as it is telling the professionals what your require.... if they can fill in the blanks of all your requirements and come recommended by someone you trust then put the shoes on and wear them....

Cole

do you have a link to your website?

__________________
Tulsa's Leader in Outdoor Living Construction | Facebook | Tulsa Pergola Builder | Tulsa Outdoor Kitchens

RobertCDF

I would find out some of the pages they have made roughly 18-24 months ago... Look the pages over and see if you like them... THEN Google test them. If its a painter in Miami google miami painters and see what number that webpage comes up. That will tell you if they are any good at SEO.

__________________
Robert Shaw
Colorado Springs Custom Decks
Colorado Custom Decks
Custom Composite Decks

Second Look

I respectfully disagree with this advice. Seek out a designer based on their design work, and find a good SEO provider to do that work. If they turn out to be one and the same, so be it, but it's not a necessity.

Each task is deep enough to be a specialty, and they are quite different from each other. Limiting oneself to people/companies which only do BOTH well needlessly cuts a lot of good talent from consideration.

__________________
Second Look home improvement www.SecondLookHome.com
Handyman and Home Repair Specialist in Rhode Island
RI Licensed Lead Safe Remodeler/Renovator, RI Registered & Insured Contractor

woodmagman

The theory behind that is great, but if you can not afford to have someone ranking your pages on a continues bases then just because the page is ranking high today does not mean the competition will not spend some money and rank higher tomorrow. The design is your main concern as a web purchaser. Unless your pockets are deep ranking wars will put smaller companies at the bottom of the list.

Second Look

Here's what I would ask:

Do I get ALL the files upon payment? Otherwise you could be locked into an expensive hosting agreement and your site would go down if the company went bankrupt or was served with a court order to temporarily shut down.

What level of cross browser compatibility is guaranteed? Will it look fine to an AOL user? What about a laptop user with a WIDE screen? Do you detect the visitors resolution so the wide screen user gets more than a tiny strip down the middle with big white gutters on either side?

Do you provide content management tools so a non-techie can easily update the text of the site?

Make absolutely SURE they are skilled enough that they are not using Front Page. Front Page generated material can be a bear to edit/modify.

__________________
Second Look home improvement www.SecondLookHome.com
Handyman and Home Repair Specialist in Rhode Island
RI Licensed Lead Safe Remodeler/Renovator, RI Registered & Insured Contractor

woodmagman

Make absolutely SURE they are skilled enough that they are not using Front Page. Front Page generated material can be a bear to edit/modify.[/quote]
Our staff of no tech have no trouble with Frontpage. What would you recommend for those that would like to use other.

woodmagman

Frontpage seems to have operated very well for everyone I do business with, other then those that do webdesign. A non tech person can generate a web page in about 8 minutes following the tutorials.
Edit it anytime and completely change it when you want. Hire a graphics designer to make a logo would be a recommendation

George Z

We stay consistently high in a tough market,
just need to stay a step ahead.
Design is great only if someone will see it.

__________________
Toronto Painters Commercial Painting Commercial Painting Toronto Toronto Office Painters
Painting Toronto Blog

George Z

Great points.
Add to that the marketing part.
Good SEO is not necessarily good marketing.
Good SEO will get you the visits, will it get you conversions?
That's why the all in one solutions are usually just average at best.

__________________
Toronto Painters Commercial Painting Commercial Painting Toronto Toronto Office Painters
Painting Toronto Blog

wackman

This is really good stuff. I'm learning a lot. I don't even know what SEO is let alone all the rest of the stuff.

I'm mostly concerned about the types of questions that second look has mentioned. I don't want to set something up that has to be flushed if one thing goes wrong.

I definitely would like to be able to go into it myself and fix some small details or reword things, update company info etc..

Please keep the pointers coming.

mickeyco

Make sure you aren't buying AA Paint's website, by that I mean material ripped from others, it sucks to pay for something and then have to take it down.

wackman

What do you mean?

wackman

Here's the delima I'm having. I know two people who do web design and now I've been speaking with Dub from Vision, who seems very professional and knowledgable.

One guy I know does my graphics stuff, he's good, he's been doing it awhile and he's EXPENSIVE.

The other one is new to this and I don't know how good he is but he is way cheap.

Then there is vision who I don't know personally, live far away but I'm sure are very good at what I need and they're in the middle on price.

I need some opinions on some of the sites these guys have built.

Check these out and tell me what you think:

Expensive guys own site is www.creativevibe.com and a site he built for my cousin for about $20k is www.ryanolsenhomes.com He says he can do some real basic thing for about 2k.

Inexpensive guys own site is www.nlemedia.com and he says he'll build me a site that has tons flash animation (if I want that), update it within hours of me calling as much as I want unlimited, build me as many pages as I want, picture and video galleries etc.. for like $500. plus $50 per new page after the initial build and he'll do what ever upgrades and changes I want every month for $25mnth.

Then there is the vision stuff that looks good and clear, easily navigated and geared towards contractors already. For a basic 5 page, 3 email entered into the top 20 search engines, only 4 hours of updates and changes a year and this includes hosting they cost $1300.

If I don't use the guys I know personally I want to be able to tell them why.

Susan Betz

Any site that has flash on the front page (which both these sites have) will NEVER place well in the search engines. This guy know design - but knows nothing about how the algorithms work.

Am I the only one who sees blurry text on the front page? Unlike the first designer, this guy's site is ugly.

$20K for a site sounds pretty steep to me. $500 is too much for the second. If you're willing to do most of the work yourself, $1000-$2000 is about right.

__________________
Fences of Distinction, Ocala, FL
http://www.fencesofdistinction.com

wackman

Why is it that flash on the front page will screw up search engines?

I also see fuzzy text and think his site is ugly. Part of me says if I don't like what he does then I can scrap it and only be out $500. Plus what he thinks looks good isn't necessarily what I need to have. I can say this is what I want and as long as he can make that happen I will probably be happy.

I don't know, I'll probably just go with the middle road that is neither fancy and expensive or cheap but at least they know what they're doing for a reasonable price.

Susan Betz

The search engine robots only "see" text. A flash animation is all pictures. As the only door into your website, the robot stops looking. That's bad.

Flash can be used well. Embedded inside the site, as you would a picture, a flash animation can be a focal point of the site.


Middle of the road works the best in business. Eye candy is great for grabbing attention, but it's the text that makes the site work for you.

__________________
Fences of Distinction, Ocala, FL
http://www.fencesofdistinction.com