Huntington Beach Web Design Firm

Call me now to discuss your web design & SEO strategy at 310-736-2848

There are more web designers in Huntington Beach, and across the Los Angeles basin, than you can imagine. They offer products and services at every level of price and competency. With so many to choose from, the decision of which design firm to choose can become overwhelming. Knowing what kind of features you want built into your website and having a general design in mind can help you narrow your search down to web designers who are capable of building a website that meets your criteria. Whatever you needs may be here are a few simple rules you can follow to avoid when choosing a web designer.

1) Don’t get your website designed on the cheap

In this economic climate, we all want a bargain. We want those jeans that fit perfectly to be on clearance. We want our mechanic to tell us that he’s giving us a break on labor (and we want him to actually mean it). But when you think about it, when was the last time you got something really good without paying for it? As a business owner, you know that quality costs money. That’s why you charge your customers for the products and service that you offer, instead of just giving them away. If you want a product that does its job well and lasts a long time, you need to be willing to pay for it. The same principle applies when you are looking for a web designer in Huntington, CA.

There are plenty of options out there for getting your website designed for free or on the cheap. You can hire a student who can use the project for a grade or to pad his resume. You can advertise online and find a cheap designer or possibly one who will do it for free (yes, people will still offer to do it, times being what they are). You can hire your employee’s boyfriend’s roommate who moonlights in graphic design and website building. All of these options are out there. But what happens when they present the site to you and it’s horrible? If it is poorly coded, or can’t handle the traffic flow, or is just ugly, what are you going to do? Complain about something you got for free?

The same logic applies to web designers that are just starting out and charging you practically nothing. There are times when it’s a good thing to help out a kid who needs a break (don’t forget that someone gave you that break somewhere along the line), but designing a complicated website that will be the face of your company online is not that time. You need a professional.

Which is not to say that you need to hire the most expensive web designer you can find either. Watch out for designers with a style-heavy and content-light portfolio. They probably have a very expensive design school education to pay off, and they will bill you for everything they can think of to cover their next payment.

2) Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

In addition to being a complicated virtual machine with a host of moving parts, your business website is also a creative project. That means that choices have to be made about color palettes, graphics, balance, and object placement. Like any creative endeavor, your opinion can differ wildly from that of your Huntington, CA web designer. You may want a color scheme on the cooler purple side of the palette, while she prefers a warmer orange color scheme. If you don’t discuss these artistic aspects right off the bat, then it is pretty certain that you are going to get some part of your website that you don’t like, and that ultimately doesn’t work for you. Even if the rest of the site is fine, that one aspect is going to throw the whole project off, and you’re not going to be pleased with your website.

Call me now to discuss your web design & SEO strategy at 310-736-2848

And it’s not just the aesthetic choices about your website that you need to communicate about. You will want to ensure that you and your Huntington, CA web designer are both clearly on the same page with regard to content, marketing strategy, social media integration, price, timelines, and other issues that may complicate the project. You should keep in regular communication with your web designer, so that any given day you could be reasonably sure what stage of the project he has completed, and what else needs to be done. You don’t want to harass the poor guy. But if he seems unwilling or unable to communicate in a regular and informative fashion, then you should probably find someone else who keeps their lines of communication more open.

That being said, it is neither necessary nor wise to go into meetings with your web designer with all the answers about every aspect of your website. After all, your Huntington, CA web designer is a professional with graphic and web design experience. It is entirely likely that she has good ideas about how to design your website, and what shape your overall web presence should take. As with everything in your business, don’t be afraid to listen to the experts, but also don’t act on things that you don’t think will help your business achieve the growth that you want it to.

In either case, it is important that you communicate with your web designer as well. Let him know at your first meeting what your goals are for your marketing strategy, the website, and your business as a whole. Once you have the basic framework worked out and work has begun on your website, don’t be afraid to ask for updates, problems that he has encountered, and suggestions that either you or he might have. Like any creative business project, a website can unexpectedly change direction in the middle of development, and sometimes that works out for the better. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the outline you and your Huntington, CA web designer agreed to in the beginning is the one you have to cling to until the bitter end.

3) Don’t Mistake a Tree for the Forest

A website is an important part of your marketing strategy. Chances are good that it will be the primary means for your customers to find you online, and the most powerful tool to point them toward you in the real world. But don’t think that just building a website is the only thing you need to do. Your website has to be part of an overall marketing strategy to increase your exposure and grow your business. Focusing all your marketing efforts on a website would be like planting one tree and calling it a forest.

To be really successful these days, your marketing strategy has to include many tactics, both online and off. You will want to think about integrating social media marketing, like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube into your marketing strategy. You should also consider Google AdWords, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques, and email direct marketing to keep in touch with your current customers and win over new ones.

Social media integration allows your business to harness the power of social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp to keep your customers informed about the latest developments in your business, and to keep up to date with their opinion of you and how your business is doing.

Google AdWords and Search Engine Optimization are powerful tools and techniques to improve your company’s ranking in search results, meaning that when your customers search for certain terms, your business website will appear closer to the top of the search results. Search Engine Optimization is a method to create specialized content for your website that, in addition to being informative and relevant to your customers, also contains keywords and phrases that your customers are likely to search for when they are looking for a business like yours. The more of those keywords and phrases your website contains, the better your ranking will be on major search engines Of course, search engine algorithms are evolving and upgrading all the time, so it is important to hire a Huntington, CA web designer who knows SEO techniques, and can increase your websites ranking in Google organic search results. Google AdWords takes that one step further, so that you can actually buy search results on Google search phrases. Keep in mind however, that AdWords also employs a unique algorithm for ranking advertisements in order of relevance to the search term – therefore a successful campaign requires much more than just throwing a bunch of money into advertisements. Hiring a Huntington, CA web designer who is also a Google Certified Partner in AdWords and fully knowledgeable and experienced in the best SEO practices can make the difference between being ignored and getting your website noticed.

There are a wide variety of marketing methods and techniques that can grab your customers’ attention on the internet. Having a well designed, well built, aesthetically pleasing and stable website is a good first step, but it should by no means be the only thing you do to increase your web presence. One of the first questions you ask your Huntington, CA web designer is how he can help integrate your website into a broader web marketing plan, and into your overall marketing strategy.

Call me now to discuss your web design & SEO strategy at 310-736-2848

Published by

Joel Gross

Joel Gross is the CEO of Coalition Technologies.

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