Quality Website Designers, Web Content Editing, Web marketing.

Spending an arm and a leg getting a Website Designed in no way guarantees that it will be at all successful. Here are some pointers that indicate how well your site may do:

• Does your site reflect the reason for which you had the site designed?
• Are you paying more than R120 a month for hosting?
• Does your ISP provide you with a server log that tells you who visited?
• Do you know approximately how many visitors a day your site gets?
• How many enquiries do you definitely get through your site?
• Do you know your ranking in popular search engines?
• Do visitors compliment you on your site?
• How often do you update your site?
• Does your web designer search engine tune your site periodically?
• Does he provide small updates free of charge?
• What has your web designer done to increase your search profile?
• Did your designer offer advice on editing your content?
• Do you know how your site looks on other browsers?

A pretty site is only 10% of an effective site (- minus 30% if it takes forever to download). If your site is not effective, then why bother having it? For a site to be a success, all the following must coincide:

• Taut, friendly but highly focussed content.
• Constantly updated content.
• Fast downloading pages.
• Sensible navigation.
• The establishment of trust between yourself and your visitor.
• Content must be understood by those for whom English is not native.
• Some type of interactivity such as a feedback form.
• Appearance that is easy on the eye.
• A resource area that attracts visitors interested in the site subject.
• A good search engine ranking in the popular search engines.

What is your target audience? Do you know? People over 50 have the greatest amount of disposable income and are the fastest growing segment of web users. Have you made allowances in your site to accommodate older visitors? Does your colour scheme confuse those with colour blindness?

After looking at sites with these checks in mind, you should have some idea what to ask a web designer.