Tips For Choosing A Website Designer
Choosing a website designer can be a very frustrating and time consuming process. There’s much more involved than just making sure you can afford a designer’s service. Here are a few tips for choosing a website designer.
Taking Part In The Process
While some designers prefer to involve a client as much as possible, others prefer that the customer be entirely hands-off until the site is finished. So you have to ask yourself if you want to be hands-off or if you want to be a part of the website design process.
This choice is purely a matter of your own preferences. If you’re completely clueless as to what you want, often times it’s best to allow the designer to have full control for awhile. However, even if you don’t participate in 99% of the process, make sure you’ll be able to review and approve the work. This isn’t a used car and “sold as is” shouldn’t apply.
Technologies Being Used
Would you prefer that a content management system (CMS) be implemented or do you want everything written from scratch? A good CMS will already have many of the functions you’re looking for. Because of this, using a CMS for your website will generally cut your price down quite a bit compared to a site that’s built from absolutely nothing. If there’s a CMS that you’re already comfortable working with, look for a designer that specializes in that particular CMS.
Who Owns The Site
Once your site is completed, will you be the sole owner? You might assume that since you paid for the work, you’re the owner. However, you’d be surprised how often a designer says that they own rights to not only images & codes, but content and sometimes even royalties. It’s always better to be safe than sorry, so make it a priority [...]
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Be A Part Of The Website Design Process
Even if you know nothing about site design, that doesn’t mean you can’t be a part of the website design process. Whether you’re trying to come up with an idea for a new blog post or a new product to add to your store, thoughts of your website will wander through your mind daily. It’s important that these thoughts don’t constantly turn to “I hate it” and “I wish I would’ve…” or “Why didn’t my designer…”
The only way to avoid these depressing thoughts is to make sure you get exactly what you want from your designer. So, how do you go about doing this?
Know What You Want
Before you search for a website designer, make sure that you yourself know exactly what you want from your website. You can’t expect a designer to give you a site that makes you happy if the only input you have to offer is “make it green” or “butterflies are pretty”.
Not only will your designer appreciate specifics on the layout you want, but the features you want to implement. While you may have some grand idea of the way things should look and work, often times basic principals of design and code aren’t taken into consideration by the customer. Being able to describe what you need will allow your designer to map out problems that they may face and give you options that may work better for reaching an end project that you’ll be happy with.
Periodic Updates & Your Opinions
Before you agree to work with a designer, you should find out what their opinions are regarding contacting you with questions. Do they prefer to make a decision based on their past experience or do they prefer to ask your opinion and wait for a response? Then you have to decide if their choice is [...]
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Before You Search For A Website Designer
One of the biggest mistakes you can make when you’re ready to have a website built is to run out and hire a designer or programmer immediately. There are steps that you should take before you search for a website designer. Steps that will help you be better prepared once you find a designer that you want to work with and steps that will make the entire process go much more smoothly.
The first thing you should do is buy yourself a notebook. Start drawing and doodling and taking notes. Write down every thought that comes to mind when you picture your new website in your mind. Write down colors and shapes, functions and features and seriously, every other thought that comes to mind. The more details you can jot down, the more you’ll love your notebook and eventually, your website.
Do plenty of research about your ideas. Find out if concepts have worked for others in the past or if you’ll be heading down a path of certain failure. Don’t get discouraged if you find that your ideas aren’t going to work. Just figure out ways to make them work.
As you do your research, write down your findings. Don’t ignore the bad ideas. Write those down too and include why they were bad ideas. This will keep you from going back to those ideas by mistake.
Once you’re sure you’ve got everything sorted out and you have a plan of attack in your mind, go through your notebook and make a detailed outline. Then, type out a proposal that includes all of your brilliant ideas. Detail everything as much as you possibly can. The more detail you’re able to give to your designer, the easier it’s going to be for them to give you the website of your dreams. If you think [...]
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How To Backup Magento
In the post entitled “Magento Backups: How To Ensure Your Data Is Safe With Magento Cloud Backup”, Ashley Schroder explains how to create a backup of your magento install. The process will make your backups automated and downloadable and you’ll create a backup of your entire database.
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Irresistible – Free WordPress Theme
CMS: WordPress
License: Free
Download from WooThemes
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Description: This is a great and very unique design. It has a nice grunge feel to it without being overly cluttered with textures. It has a widgetized sidebar and you can choose from 9 different color schemes.
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Damla – Free WordPress Theme
CMS: WordPress
License: Free
Download from New WP Themes
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Description: Damla is a free WordPress theme with featured content option and supports the post thumbnails. Suitable for any niche. Theme Options at admin panel. Colors: Brown, Black, earth tones, dark
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Adding Custom Fonts to Blogger
Using custom fonts can really improve the look of your blogger site. This tutorial from Blogger Plugins will help you achieve this goal.
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BuddyPress – WordPress Plugin
BuddyPress allows users to register on your site and start creating profiles, posting messages, making connections, creating and interacting in groups and much more.
The BuddyPress plugin is like social networking in a box. You can build a social network for your company, school, sports team or niche community. The great part is, it’s all free and installs seamlessly with WordPress.
>> Download BuddyPress
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How To Install A New Theme On WordPress 3.0
Sometimes installing WordPress themes can seem overwhelming to users who aren’t familiar with the backend of WordPress. Even more overwhelming can be the use of FTP programs.
In this WordPress tutorial, Nicole Rosen will teach you how to add a new theme to your WordPress installation without using FTP.
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