Remember one thing that stays true. A Web Design Firm is only as good as their last design. My name is Anthony and I will be your guide today(saying this is a professional but fun voice). Ok, lets get down to business. A web design is there for one thing, remember this. That is to make money. Like most businesses they are offering a service to you in return for payment. Yes they do want you to be satisfied with the work they do, but do they want more? Do they want to show off their best skills and amaze people every time they go to your website? Allot of Web Design Firms will only do this if the right dollar amount comes along. So you have to be careful that the reason they want to deal with you is not all about the $$$ for them.

Well then, you may ask. How do I know if I have a good Design Firm on my Hands? From my own personal experience here are some key things to watch for.

1. How they answer your questions. Yes I can understand a company having to wait to get back to you on the exact price. Though if they can not tell you right there and then if they can do what you are asking then they are probably outsourcing. Outsourcing is not bad, but the more people involved outside of their company the less control you have over what is going on. Not all companies who outsource are like this, as some have got it down to a science and really have a smooth system going.

2. Reliability. This is so important especially when it comes to trust. If the company you are looking at for design work takes a long time responding back to you then this could be a sign of delays down the line(if they get your project). See (and this is where it comes from experience) a company should be more eager when trying to get the project and be ready to assist you. Now I am not saying that they should be emailing you every hour, but they should respond back in at least 12-24 hours during the weekdays. This lets you know that someone is here for you and ready to help.

3. The final thing I will look at is trust. Which means simply CAN YOU TRUST THEM? If your the type of person who’s gut is usually right then you should follow it. Take the time to make the right decision and know you can trust the firm that you are not only giving your money to but also trusting the success of your website too. Make sure you get references, check them out and make sure you make contact with at least 5 of the people on their list. It may not be possible to get phone numbers but at least contacting them via email will give you some protection.

Just remember to take your time and protect yourself. You are the only one who is looking out for you. Yes some Design firms want to do the best for their clients but there are also others out there that will leave you high and dry. Don’t worry about if a company has 2 employees or 1000. If their service is subpar then the final product will also be subpar.

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Anthony Jewell has over 6 Years experience in the Web & Graphics World. You can visit my business at http://www.logo2d.com

©Copyright 2005 Logo2D.com : Feel free to use this article freely but please keep in the copyright

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Learn from them

Approaching retirement age I was made redundant last year and decided to create my first web site, initially knowing little about it. I hope that, by reading about my experiences, I may save you both time and money if you ever find yourself in the position of wanting to build a site with little initial knowledge.

eBooks

I bought five or six ebooks on how to make my web fortune from the one-page web-sites that you see on the web. The prices ranged from $9.95 to $29.95. It would be unfair of me to say that they were of no use, as you can always pick up the odd pointer, or contact. However, with the benefit of hindsight I would not have purchased any of them. Instead there are free, better written books which give you at least the same pointers, and often have more substance. You can download from my web site, for free, two excellent books by Ken Evoy, which will provide you with a good basic knowledge to move forward. Don’t get carried away with the sales hype contained in some of these “get rich quick” single page sales letters that offer huge free bonuses and an imminent price increase.

Universities and colleges

There are various colleges and universities on the web which promise you the ultimate in web creation, site marketing, search engine optimization and much more, “all under one roof” They usually have libraries of “how to” books and membership is by monthly subscription with some offering a lower fee for the first month. Have a look, by all means, I looked at three and claimed my refund within the stated period. I found that I could obtain similar information offered for free with a little searching, and that what they really offered was convenience.

Web Design software

I initially purchased a web site building package for $69.95 and was soon disappointed by its lack of functionality. I then looked over the shoulder of a friend whilst they showed me the workings of a top-end product costing nearly $400.00 but I found it to be too complicated with too steep a learning curve too be quickly productive. I posted a request for help on the Warriors forum and there were more recommends for a particular product than any other. So I decided that my first web site would be a review of that product, which I would create as a trial, before I went on to build a site that would aim at generating income.

What should the web site be about?

Several of the books that I read suggested that the subject matter should be about something that you enjoy doing and therefore you will create your site with more passion and enthusiasm. Whilst this is sound advice I found that the need to create a trial site, which would force me to learn the basics, was more than a sufficient driving force.

Domain name & Web hosting

Go for a dot com registration and pay no more than $10 per annum. Don’t go for free hosting, you get what you pay for. I looked at hosting sites that offered complete package with hosting, autoresponders, SEO and linking software and much more. Whilst everything was conveniently in one place they failed to convince me that each product would stack up well if they were competing in each niche market. I therefore opted for the best of breed approach and a little less convenience.

Search Engine Optimization

This was probably the subject that I was most worried about as I new that it referred to making a web site as easy as possible for the search engines to find, but I had no clue as to how to go about it. I have a free ebook that you can download entitled “Search Engine Optimization Made Easy” which will give you the basics to carry out this process. The book is really a plug by the author of SEO software for his excellent product. I was fortunate in that the web design software I selected also, somewhat unusually, held my hand through this process, carefully pointing out page, by page, what I needed to do.

Article Distribution

I was aware that, in order to succeed, I should submit articles to the numerous Article Directories present on the Internet. There are two ways to do this. By purchasing one of the two major pieces of software to assist me in doing it myself, or to use a company to do it for me. I looked at each way and found that, whilst both software solutions cut out some of the tedious manuals tasks of submitting to over 150 directories, it was still time consuming. Having examined the market place carefully, discounting any company who charged for a fixed number of submissions, I opted for one who for a fixed quarterly fee would submit any number of articles.

Link software

Again, so that I would get more site traffic, I new that I should get other sites to link to mine and that I would have to manage those links and the emails back and forth etc. I initially started to design an Excel spreadsheet linked to Microsoft Word but decided that I would still have to create the links pages by hand. My advice is to obtain software which houses all your links in a searchable database, handles all of the emails, including template housing, and that automatically creates the HTML link pages for you.

© Paul Lewis 2006. Paul Lewis is the author of an in-depth review of web site design and building software, XSitepro.
You can see detailed functionality, and much more, by visiting the XSitePro full review at http://reviewxsitepro.com He is also CEO of Demovision Systems who specialise in Talking Heads. Examples can be seen on the About Us page at http://www.reviewxsitepro.com

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The concept of web designing based on the nature and rapid growth of the Internet is nothing to boast of any more. This is because of the large number of web sites published to the Internet everyday, so as to showcase one’s presence and dominance on the World Wide Web. You may ask why this is so, well, the so simple answer is the rate at which technology is evolving.

An example is illustrated with the popular Microsoft FrontPage and Macromedia’s Flash. They are two different web designing software which have the same basic function (to create an interactive website). However, a person who has used both programs would observe that Microsoft FrontPage, which has been existing over quite a long period of time, deals basically with HTML codes. No programming language or knowledge is involved; that is why I choose to term its use in the category of web designing. Almost everybody, who owns a computer with the Windows Operating System along side MS FrontPage installed in it, knows how to design a simple website. This is because of it’s format which does not require programming skills, but only requires the user to type the text, copy and paste even drag and drop a picture to the potential website. However, Macromedia’s Flash, which was released years after Microsoft’s first release of it’s FrontPage, shows it’s advancement in effects, animations and even graphics. This powerful also shows an advancement in web designing technology. You’re probably thinking, “how incorrect”. Well, I like you to know the programming and designing are entirely two different things. While designing as been discussed about using Microsoft FrontPage as an example let us look into programming on the web.

Now, unlike Microsoft FrontPage, Macromedia’s Flash creates a more animated and effects-filled website that Microsoft FrontPage. However it require programming skills to maximize its use and put it to work. So as a person with ground knowledge of Microsoft FrontPage would call himself a web designer, the other with Macromedia’s Flash would call himself a web programmer so as to differentiate himself to a so called ‘novice’, who may have learnt web designing through the widely believed ‘easy-to-use’ Microsoft FrontPage. But whichever way a website is created, it is important to note that its primary function is to supply information about services, products and other functionaries. So, whether a web programmer or a web designer; if the same work given to them is to create a website, they symbolize oneness, in the sense that however way the site may be created, or how more interactive one’s work may be, compared to the other, they still pass the same information to the website visitors, thus making them both creative in the aspect of ‘web designing’, which almost every high school kid can do.

Yet as one, who is a programmer, I do not see much of a difference between the web designer and programmer, unless a far more advanced form of web programming than we (web programmers) have now, is created. But till then the so-called web programmers would continue to stretch on their differences from the web designer, irrespective to their similarities.

About The Author

As a student I studied the basic and intermediate concepts of Web designing and Web programming. I am also into webdesigning and webprogramming

onaefe@active.ws

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