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Girl Geek Speaks Newsletter

Welcome to the February 2006 Issue of our newsletter for the technically challenged and web site wannabe's. We feature articles to help guide you through the process of designing, building, and promoting your business web site. If you know someone who may benefit from this newsletter, please forward it to them in its entirety, or have them subscribe below.

In This Issue
Featured Article: Questions to Ask a Prospective Web Designer ....That Will Save You Grief and Money in The Long Run
Tip of the Month: Find out if your website is accessible to the visually impaired.

Top 20 Questions to Ask a Prospective Web Designer ....That Will Save You Grief and Money in The Long Run

I’m writing this list of questions because of the increasing number of emergency calls I’m getting from website owners who have been BURNED by their web designer because they didn’t know what to ask before hiring them.

1. How long have you been in business? Web designers come and go fast, so find out.

2. What’s your website address? Go look at their site. If you don’t like what you see, keep looking.

3. Do you have a contract I can review before signing up with you? Protect yourself. Web designers are notorious for working with only verbal agreements, then going out of business. Insist upon a written contract so that you will know exactly what you are paying for (inclusions and exclusions), how grievances will be addressed, proposed date of completion, and what the terms of payment are.

4. What is your policy regarding premature termination of the contract? Is there a “kill fee” and how much is it? Will you get a copy of the site or are you just paying for their time?

5. How will updates and changes to my site be handled? Who will do them? What are the options if I want to do them myself?

6. What’s your turnaround time? If you’re working on a deadline or need changes to your website you want to know how soon you can reasonably expect your site to be built or updates to be made.

7. What’s the phone number that I can reach you if I have a question? Again, you need to assess their availability and willingness to answer questions and communicate with you. Many geeks are uncomfortable with interactions with people and so will only make themselves available via email.

8. Who will own my site, including the code, layout, and images? Sometimes when your site is designed the designer owns the code and only leases it to you for your usage.

9. Will I own my domain name? Insist that you, NOT the designer, are the listed as the registrar of both the domain name and on the web hosting package. Beware of designers who are resellers of web hosting and domain names. They may offer you a lower price for the design of the site, but greatly inflate the price of both hosting and domain name registration to recoup their money over the length of your contract.

10. Where can I see samples of your work and read testimonials? If a web designer only has a few sites or none of them are currently online, something’s wrong.

11. Will you be using a site builder to build my site? Site builders, like Mambo, Website Tonight (GoDaddy), Homestead.com and Register.com are inexpensive to start off and designed for the do-it-yourselfer, but are not search engine friendly. Plus, if you stop paying the monthly hosting fee and want to move your site elsewhere, like to another hosting company, you can’t. Your site is captive. In other words, these sites have to stay where they are, as you don’t own the site or the code and the template is copyrighted.

12. Will you be designing the site yourself or using a pre-made template? Don’t be fooled into thinking or paying for a “custom” template only to find out your web designer used a pre-made template that’s available to anyone and is easily recognizable, such as the templates on FrontPage, which look cheap. Don't be cheap when you're wanting people to spend their money on your products or services.

13. Will you be laying out my site in frames, tables or layers? Frames are NOT compatible with search engines and should never be used. Layers are tricky, as they look okay on some search engines, but not on others. Tables is the best, if they are used correctly.

14. What search engines will my site be optimized for? In other words, does the designer know what the standards Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Netscape have for site layout, usability, and ranking. To have a viable business website, it needs to be designed with search engines in mind.

15. Will my site be accessible to the visually impaired? This may or may not be important to you considering the niche you’re going after, but it’s a good idea anyhow. To learn if your site is accessible, view the tip below.

16. If I need to expand my site as my business grows how will that be done and what can I expect to be charged for those additions?

17. If I need custom graphic work (like a logo) or original images for my site, what will that cost and who will do that work? Original images and photos for a site are expensive and may not be included in the design price. Ask before you sign a contract.

18. How much of my site will have text in either images or Flash? You don’t want any text in either images or Flash, unless there’s an artistic reason for it. Search engines cannot read text that is part of an image, therefore, cannot rank your pages as well as those created with text and html. Plus, images and Flash pages take a long time to open and you don’t want to lose visitors because they get impatient with your site loading time. You’ve got 8 seconds before 80% of them will leave.

19. Ask for references that you can call. Don't rely upon testimonials, as those can be faked.

20. Are we related by blood or friendship? I'm not kidding! I've had more clients come to me after having a friend or relative start their website and then their relationship is threatened. Simple advice. Don't do it....even if it's free.

These are the main questions developed from "horror stories" that clients have brought to me. Buyer beware!

Tip of the Month
To learn if your site is accessible to the visually impaired, to go webxact.watchfire.com and enter your website address.

DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS:

The above material is copyrighted, but you may retransmit or distribute it as long as not a single word is changed, added, or deleted, including the contact information. However, you may not copy it to a web site. Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.

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