The Captain Coder Podcast

6 Questions to Ask Your Web Designer

September 13, 2022 Marisa VanSkiver, Captain Coder Season 2 Episode 17
The Captain Coder Podcast
6 Questions to Ask Your Web Designer
Show Notes Transcript

Ready to upgrade your DIY website to one someone else builds for you?

Hiring a web designer can be great because you no longer have to worry about making those updates yourself and you can finally get a website you’re proud of.

But how do you pick the right web designer from the seemingly endless supply of them on the internet?

I put together 6 vital questions you should ask any web design agency you are thinking about hiring to ensure that they’re looking out for the most important part of the process.

Your business’s growth.

To me fall is about more than pumpkin spice and pumpkins and leaves and hoodies <laugh>. It is somehow unofficial website season when fall comes around and we come towards the end of the year. So many people start thinking about the next year and that they're ready to improve their businesses online presence and get a website that actually works for them. Now, if you're one of those people and you're looking to hire someone to build a website for you, how do you know who to choose? There seems like there's an endless amount of websites in the world, but in this case, it goes beyond the price you pay and a lot more about the quality of the website that someone is going to build for you now to make all of that easier. I've compiled a list of questions you should ask. Any web designer or design agency you're thinking of working with let's dive in. You're listening to the captain coder podcast each week. I take you through actionable strategies that can help you grow your online business. I'm your host, Maurice scriber, AKA captain coder. Now, before we dive into these questions, I just want you to one, maybe grab a notepad or head over today's show notes at capt C a P T coder.com/17. So that you have these on hand, because these are all really important questions to ask in the initial discovery call. Any good web designer or design agency is going to take you through a discovery call at process where they're gonna vet. You make sure that they're a good fit, or just try to get an idea for your project. This isn't just about the design agency interviewing you. This is also about you interviewing them and making sure that they are the right fit before you move forward in any part of the process. Okay? So let's get to question one, because I could talk about that all day. The first question you should ask, what platform do you use now, unless you have a really expansive budget and you need completely custom work. It's likely that your web designer in any agency that you talk to is going to be using some type of platform. Now, whether they use Squarespace, Wix or WordPress can make a huge difference to your business and your website's ability to grow with your business over the next few years. Now, if you're just starting out, you're looking for something that's a little lower budget. Maybe this is your second website. You're ready to have someone do this professionally better than you can do on your own, but you still don't wanna spend a ton of money cuz your business is still in flu Squarespace and WICS are, um, they're fine resources. If you are a student of mine, especially in my digital marketing class and you have stumbled upon this episode, this was wrong. This was a lie. Okay? Just don't bring this back to me. But if you are a service provider and a business owner look Squarespace, Ws, they have their place. They, they really do. They're really good for that. Just starting out business that needs something needs a professional online presence, but they're not really ready to invest in something more right now. But if you're at that place where you're done with a DIY, you want a website that's going to grow with your business and you want it to last longer than a couple of years, you're gonna wanna invest in WordPress. Now of course, I'm a WordPress developer. I talked about. I've talked about WordPress, a lot of this podcast. I talk about WordPress a lot throughout my social media. If you've been following me for longer than five minutes, this is not surprising. WordPress is incredibly flexible. It gives you the ability to make changes and make adjustments rapidly. Just kind of depending on how it's built. And it's far more flexible to grow with your business. Now we're gonna get into some more of the reasons why I like WordPress in the next few questions, but typically speaking, not all, not always, you're gonna find either newer designers and develop rely, honestly, newer web designers, developers don't really touch score space in Wix because it's not code based. But if you're looking for a new, like a newer agency, who's got less experience. So their cost is gonna be a little lower. They're probably gonna work on square space. Maybe WICS if you want someone who's more experienced, who's been around a little longer. And honestly they're gonna charge more likely, not always, but they're probably gonna charge more because there's more involved. Then you're gonna wanna go with somebody for WordPress. You're probably gonna pay more for a WordPress website than you will for something else. But that's because you get more out of a WordPress website. Just some things to keep in mind. Now the second question you wanna ask, okay. Do you use themes or some kind of building tool? Now say you have picked a WordPress designer for your project because you listened in question one and got the subliminal, not very subliminal messaging. I was trying to provide that. WordPress is the clear solution and it's, you're gonna waste a lot less money if you just start there. I did I say that out loud. Okay, look, great. Start. Obviously I'm openly biased, but say you've picked a WordPress designer now. Now you wanna actually ask them how they build your website. All be a hundred percent honest, not all web designers, not a whole WordPress designers are built the same. In fact, there's a lot of people in this world who call themself WordPress developers, who are not. Now that part doesn't matter to you so much, because again, that's another rabbit hole I could go down, but WordPress can mean a lot of different options. So there are page builders that are plugins like Elementor, which is the most popular one right now, especially with the DIY crowd and beaver builder. And then there are premium themes like salient and the most popular one that I have seen lately. Divvy that can be customized and can create a website with basically zero code written, maybe some CSS styling changes. So you have somebody who knows just enough to go tweak that beyond what the builder and the theme gives them. Now look, <laugh>, this is another one where yeah, that's fine. Look, themes and builders are perfectly fine ish, but they can provide bloated solutions that look kind of like every other website on the block. And especially every other website that your competitor has. They require less time, lower skill sets. And unless they're being heavily customized, they should come with a lower budget. I heard of a client who shall not be named a project that I lost, that I was gonna custom code that they ended up going with somebody who built them an element or website. So with this drag and drop theme builder and they pay 20 grand for it. Now, to me, that is just outrageous because while Elementor is definitely the best solution that I have found of the DIY page builders, it's still a DIY page builder. You're there's not a lot of custom code involved with this. Basically. Anybody could use it. And so it was just mind boggling that a professional agency who charged that much used Elementor. Now you guys can probably guess personally, as I slam every other option out there, I custom code the WordPress websites that I build. Now look, this means I am coding a WordPress theme. That's what it's called. The kind of package that makes your website look and behave the way that we want it to. I am coding that 100% from scratch more or less. I have a starter theme that saves me time. Make sure I'm doing my processes right every single time. But this helps me keep my websites lean. I tailor them 100% to their businesses and my websites include custom copy and designs. So you're not getting the website that your friend got from the same guy over here. You're not gonna see 10 of the same websites in my portfolio. In fact, none of the websites in my portfolio look anything alike because they're built for my customers. Now this is largely different because instead of purchasing the theme I'm, I'm working on, I'm building it myself. I'm coding it from scratch. I am a WordPress developer. I code in PHB. I code in CSS, HTML, JavaScript too. When I have to <laugh> that's a whole nother story. Now, a website designer and developer, that custom codes like I do that custom codes, a WordPress theme. They're probably gonna cost a little bit more because it's a more advanced skill set. I've been doing this for 10 years. I know WordPress code inside and out. So I get charge a little bit more because it provides extra value to your business and the website. Now there's a lot of things I can go into about how custom code and especially custom themes are more secure. They're faster. They perform better. But the bulk of it is if it's built custom for your business, it's going to be built for your business. So page builders are not bad, but just when you ask that question, it helps you understand, okay, this is the expertise level and maybe their expertise. Level's great. But for whatever reason, they like that, ask them why they use a page builder, ask them why they don't custom code, because I can tell you too, if anything goes wrong with your website and they don't know how to code, and that's why they're using Elementor, they're gonna be stuck. So if you want someone who can take care of everything from a to Z, with your WordPress website, go for somebody with a more in depth skillset into the WordPress code itself. Again, I'm 100% biased. And I totally recognize that, but I promise these are legitimate reasons because I have been there, dealt with this. Okay. Number three, do you build for best on page SEO? Now this one is really important because frankly, why would you be spending money on a website if it's not optimized to appear on Google again, can you tell, I'm dealt with this in the past where I've come up and cleaned another designer's mess. You'd be surprised how many web designers, how many web developers, they build beautiful websites, but they miss basic SEO items like meta titles and descriptions. Again, obviously I'm a little biased <laugh> but you wanna ask them if they have an SEO checklist, how they approach the copy on your website, because copy is part of your SEO. In fact, it's the bulk of your SEO. If they tell Google that your website is live or changed, if you're rebuilding a website after launch or at the bare minimum, if they utilize a tool like the Yost SEO plugin. Now on page SEO has multiple factors involved. How you code, how you write, how you tag images, how you tag videos, how you do a lot of things has a big impact on your appearance of Google on Google. But if they tell you that they don't provide on page SEO or they fumble over the answer to this question, it is probably best to walk away because there's no point in having a website that no one can find. And honestly, I could just in the episode right here and there, because that's, that's the most important question that you could ask and I've stuck it in the middle, but anyway, now, number four, what kind of quality control do you perform before launch? Now? My personal launch checklist is about three pages of different items that I go through to ensure my any website I launch is ready to go live. Let me tell you just a really brief story about a year and a half ago, I was brought in as a consultant to a rather large client to help them with their website. What had happened was they had converted a previous website to WordPress. When they launched the WordPress website, they started having all sorts of speed issues, performance issues, things weren't working correctly. There were problems everywhere. Do you wanna know why? Because the developer didn't have a checklist. He just was like, okay, this looks good. And he flung it live. And there were tons of broken links. There were tons of issues that were really, really simple issues to catch that he didn't do anything about catching. Now you can imagine, after we fixed the website, we improved the site speed. We improved the performance, they fired him and they hired me. And it was not because I'm just that amazing in comparison to who this guy was, which I mean, that was also part of it. But it was because when I showed them my three page launch checklist, they were so impressed that I was that prepared that they were like, we can't not have you do this. We want somebody who's thinking through all of these things. Every single time we're messing with our website and they're a large institution. That's a big deal. Now, any agency or a web designer or a web developer, they should have some kind of quality control to prevent issues like that. Before they launch a website on the primary domain, on the domain that it's going to live on, like on your business.com. Now checking how it appears on mobile devices, on phones, tablets, different browsers, all of that is paramount. You wanna make sure everything has been migrated properly, that you have an SSL certificate installed. That's also super important. You wanna ask what their own launch procedures look like, because you wanna know that you're going to have a smooth transition from your old website to your new website. And you wanna also know that they're putting some thought into ensuring your website is ready to go. And to be discovered, there is nothing worse than your customers getting to a website that has problems because your web designer didn't do their due diligence. Now, number five, it's another good question to ask, where will my website live when we launch it? Now, when it comes time to make a website live so other people can see it. And it's the first thing that your customers are going to see. You'll want to ask your web designer where your website will be hosted. In other words, where it will live now, many agencies like myself offer hosting services in house, or they'll help you launch your new website where it currently lives. So if you're hosting with say GoDaddy or blue host, whatever, they'll help you launch it where you're at right now. If you wanna stay there. Now, if someone doesn't host with me, I often recommend a higher quality host like WP engine, which is linked in today's show notes, because they're the best because I know it offers the best customer support for my clients, that your host will need to be able to power your new website. It has to fit. If you're adding a whole bunch of advanced features to your website that you didn't have before your current hosting may not be built for it. You may have performance issues like my large client did because their host wasn't built for it. Now, WordPress can actually live pretty much anywhere that supports a WordPress website. You may need a more powerful server just depending on the features. And that's something that your web designer should be able to handle. You shouldn't have to be worried about picking a host. They should be helping you pick a host. Now, if you choose to go with say a square space or a WICS website, your website lives at Squarespace at WICS, they can't be moved. They stay there. That's your host and your website platform. It's kind which is another reason I don't like it. <laugh> there's I, I really need to do a whole episode again on WICS versus Squarespace versus WordPress. If only because it's highly entertaining. I think now, number six, do you provide training on how to update my website? This is a big one. To me ask your web designer, what kind of post launch training they offer? I'll be honest most don't here's the thing, though. This is your website and you paid for it. You have the right to know how to keep it updated without having to pay your digital agency a hundred dollars an hour plus to do so, especially if your website is built in WordPress or Squarespace, R WICS. The entire point is to make it easy for anyone to update without breaking things. Now, I offer all of my own clients, video training. I walk them through the main tasks at minimum certain clients I have gone to in person and done in person training with their teams, whatever we need to do to make them feel comfortable about taking care of their own websites. Now like a lot of my clients, they don't ever wanna touch their website. They're hired me to take care of it. They don't wanna touch it. Even the client that tells me I never wanna log in here. Again, I make them go through the training. I send them the training videos, because I want them to know that it's possible for them to update things. I have a lot of business owners too, that just love maintaining their own websites, or at least like being able to make minor tweaks without having to reach out to me every single time. Now, having a web designer that provides training is also important because it'll tell you what kind of web design agency they are in practice, whether they'll actually give you control of your businesses, main marketing asset or not. And believe me, there's a lot of agencies out there who do not want to give you access. They wanna control it. That's not right. So make sure the contract, the copyrights are yours and you have a hundred percent access to everything or that you can get access. If you need it. Now, you always wanna pick someone who offers training and really that these six questions, honestly, they are just supposed to help you answer the main thing you need to be worried about Willis website, get your business results or not. Now there are plenty of beautiful websites on the internet that probably cost their owners. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands of dollars that were ROI wise, a waste of money. You wanna choose a web design agency that will care about you helping grow your business online and giving you the tools that you need to really succeed. It's not just about the here and now ironer baby. Well, I don't know where that came from. Um, I'm gonna keep that in there cuz I'm entertained. Anyway, the ma webs design agencies aim to build you a website that will work for years to come. Can't make that guarantee, but that's the goal growing with you and your business. Now it's a principle that I personally apply in every website I build and frankly, I am tired of seeing service providers. Like you get taken advantage of web designers who just care about impacting their own bottom line. If you wanna refresh your website with a designer that cares head over to Capt, coder.com/start. I'd love to talk about what that would look like. Thank you all for tuning in to our show this week to catch more captain coder, you can subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast app. Now, if you have any questions or you wanna learn more about digital marketing and how it can help grow your online business, follow us on Instagram@captaincoder or visit us online at captcoder.com. Can't wait to talk to you all again next week.