Brisbane Business

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Web Design

Choosing your web designer / developer...
A web site is easy. A web site that works well is much harder. You need someone with the right range of skills to get it right for you and your business. Here are some tips on finding a web designer.

• Check their previous work. 
  Ask to see examples of their work - not just fancy front pages, but active web sites so you can check how quickly they load and how easy they are to use. Try to look at the web sites from a potential customer rather than a web site owner point of view.
• Integration into your business
  A web site needs to fit in with the way you do business, the way your customers do business, and the way the Internet works. Professional web designers consider these things before they even begin to think about the colour and layout of web pages. They will also be able to advise you about issues like copyright and security.
• Gaining and keeping an audience
  Developing strategies to get your customers to look at your web site and giving them a reason to return is a hidden part of the web designer's task. How did you get here?
• Integration into the web
  Your web site is part of the big web. Ask web designers how they are going to encourage and facilitate links to your web pages from other web sites and search engines. 
• Measure your success
  Ask your web developer about the sort of statistics you can get to monitor the performance of your web site.
• Watch the price 
  A professional web designer will talk to you, define your needs and give you a fixed quote. The quotes you get will vary - and price is not always a clue to quality. Be careful of hourly rates because, without a set target, the hours can just stretch on forever (which can be a good reason not to let your staff do it)
• Maintenance
  The cost of maintenance depends a lot on the site design and content. The web site you are looking at now has been designed to be quick (ie relatively inexpensive) to maintain. Experienced web designers take maintenance requirements into account right from the beginning of a project. 

Web Design Products

• Site Build It is an all-in-one site-building, site-hosting, and site-marketing product that makes it easy for you to build a professional, popular, and profitable business. This software provides the marketing as well as the technical knowledge needed to build a website that sells.
   
• Word Tracker It's all very well being in the top 10 of the search engines if you search for what you know is on your website - but are you using the same search terms that your customers use? Word Tracker provides a service to help you target the keywords people actually use. They offer a free trial.