Mistakes You Should Avoid When Hiring a Web Designer

Hiring a web designer is one of the most important choices you can make as an online business owner. A great web designer or web design agency can create an excellent digital storefront you can be proud of.

But to make sure you get the website you’re imagining, let’s go over the mistakes you should avoid when hiring a web designer in the first place. 

Moving Goalposts

When you agree to a contract with a web designer, be clear about what you expect and what you need for their time and effort. In return, be sure that they are upfront about their costs.

Neither of you should try to move the goalposts by changing the prices of different services or by expecting extra work or objectives to be completed by certain deadlines.

Confusing Spheres

Let’s break this down – when hiring a web designer, many business owners accidentally confuse their responsibilities with those of their web designers and vice versa. Web designers have specific skills, and that’s what you hire them for!

For example, they may expect their web designer to come up with excellent branding that elevates their website or company above all other competitors.

Simultaneously, they may try to micromanage the efforts of their web designers, offering feedback and opinions that are not only unhelpful, but that may actually slow down the project.

The bottom line is this: you should trust your web designer to make all of the appropriate web design decisions and give them the high-level feedback they need to represent your brand appropriately.

Stick to your lane and do your job – don’t expect a web designer to do it for you and don’t try to do theirs.

Emphasizing Cost Over Value

We get it – you’re trying to launch your website on time and under budget and you have to emphasize cost to some extent. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that you should always go for the most affordable web design agency.

Web design is a serious art. Excellent web design agencies can produce fantastic websites and digital spaces for your customers. But you need to pay them an affordable price and not skimp on costs.

This doesn’t mean you necessarily have to pay for the most expensive web designers in Canada. But it does mean that you should factor real, skilled web design costs into your overall budget.

Expecting Extra Work

As touched on above, web design agencies design and build web pages and websites. They are not copywriters and editors, nor are they producers of other types of media.

It’s crazy to think, but lots of business owners expect web designers to produce all the content that will fill the eventual site. Alternatively, they may try to add additional work or chores into the project contract in an attempt to save money.

Remember, every aspect of your site needs to look professional if you want it to be the best it can be. This means either filling in the content yourself or hiring specific content creators based on your needs.

Not Reviewing Deliverables

Lastly, many website owners failed to review deliverables when going over contracts with newly hired web design agencies.

Most agencies worth your time and money will explicitly outline all of their deliverables (i.e. everything they will actually produce and provide). But some business owners are surprised when they expect something as part of their contract package and don’t get it.

Review all of your deliverables so you know exactly what you’re getting for every dollar you spend.

By following all of the above tips, you’ll avoid hiring a web designer that wastes your time and prevent yourself from misleading a web design agency by accident.

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