Hiring a Web Designer: Biggest Mistakes to Avoid (2024)

You may have just started a new business, are a creative type or invented a new product and are ready to take the next step, which would be hiring a web designer to build your site to grow your business.

Or, maybe you want to get a makeover for your existing website or add some needed functionality, such as, eCommerce so your customers can shop at your online store.

That certainly is something to get excited about. And, I applaud you for making that step.

But, you are not a web designer yourself and aren’t willing to take the time out of your busy schedule to become one.

So, before you go headlong into building your website, I would like to share with you some of the biggest mistakes that businesses make when looking to hire a web designer.

It’s always best to sit down and count the cost before making a big decision, because we all know that it is the fool that rushes in.

Let’s begin.

Not Controlling Your Domain Name

Your domain, also referred to as your website name (patrickwhitson.net) or URL (Uniform Resource Locator), is a valuable asset for your business and brand.

You don’t want a hosting provider, design agency or web designer to control it.

This may be common sense, but I’ve had to rescue many a client’s domain name from being held hostage after a relationship gone south or help them gain back control of their domain because they didn’t know or have the email it was registered with.

Here is the best course of action to keep your domain under your control:

Register your domain under your own business name & address. I exclusively use Namecheap.com for domain registration.

Register it for multiple years. Five plus is a good place to start. If you can’t do that, start with yearly.

Keep a credit card on file so the renewal will be automatic. Be sure to keep your card info. updated.

Use an email account you check ALL the time. This will allow you to receive correspondence from your domain registrar when needed.

Record the login credentials for your registrar account and place it in a safe place.

Follow these steps and your domain name will be under your full control and no one can hold it hostage.

Not Knowing What You Want

It is important when hiring a web designer that you have a clear and concise understanding of what you want and your goal(s) for your website.

Think this through and write down everything you want, be specific and note what things are must-haves.

Many people who wish to build a website, rush to speak to a designer to ask “how much does it cost” and “how long it will take” before they really know what is involved in building a website. Don’t make this mistake!

The time you take to do this part of the process will help you immensely, as well as, the designer you will be hiring.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself before hiring a web designer. This will make your initial meeting much more productive:

1. What does your company do?
2. What is the history of your company?
3. How would others describe your business?
4. Who is it that you provide solutions for? Also called your target market (age, tastes, income, geography, etc.).
5. What is the main purpose of your website? To get leads, calls, advertise products or services…
6. Who are your top three competitors and why?
7. Explain why you are different then your competitors?
8. List 3–5 website designs that you like and why?
9. If you have an existing website:
• Do you have full access to your site?
• Can you provide log in credentials?
• What do you like most about it?
• What do you like least about it?
10. Where are you planning to host your website?
11. What do you want your website to look like? Do you think it will need to be custom designed or would a premium template work?
12. Do you have existing branding (logo, colors, other design elements)?
13. How many pages do you think you need? The minimum pages you will need are home, about, services, and contact.
14. Do you need a custom form for booking or scheduling consults, giving quotes, etc?
15. Is there any specific functionality needed? Blog, eCommerce, membership, bulletin board, or other?
16. Will you be providing content for your website? Or, do you need someone to write the content (copy) for you?
17. Will you perform keyword & competitor research, or do you need someone to do this for you?
18. Will you do the on-page SEO for your most important pages?
19. Are you looking to have your website display properly on ALL devices (desktop, mobile, tablet)?
20. What is your estimated timeline to have the website completed?
21. Do you plan on making changes/updates to the site yourself? Or, if available, would you subscribe to a care plan and have the designer do that for you?
22. What is your defined budget or price range to design your website?

If the web designer you are hiring doesn’t ask you questions or have some kind of discovery with you, that is a red flag. Move onto one that does.

You’re Confused On Which Designer You Need

During this process to hire a website designer, you may ask yourself the question, “What kind of designer do I need?”

Herein, I will briefly discuss the many “Designers” to better help you decide on which one(s) to choose for your specific needs.

Generally, there are four types of “web designer:”

Graphic Designer: They create the visuals (logo’s, banners, etc.) for your website that captivate, inform and inspire your visitors. If you don’t have any branding for your business, start here before hiring a web designer.

UX Designer: Ensure that visitor’s to your site have a smooth experience. They create prototypes or wireframes to show where things on each page are laid out. They tend to work closely with UI designers.

UI Designer: They are mainly concerned with the “look and feel” of your website and how visitor’s will perceive it moving through information.

Visual Designer: They will focus on the aesthetics (buttons, icons, etc.) of your website and be sure that there is a balanced blend of these along with user-friendly functionality.

Among the four listed above, they may have overlapping skillsets, but they are not the same. Each designer takes many years to become specialized in their field.

Depending on how complex your website design project may be, it’s possible you will need to hire each one above. Of course, that is only in the case of having an unlimited budget and time to complete your project.

In most cases, you don’t fit in that category and should look for a generalist designer who has several years experience. It may cost more, but it will be well worth it.

Now, that you have a better idea of what designer(s) you may need, the next step is to do your due diligence.

Not Doing Your Due Diligence

In order to hire the right web designer for you, due diligence is required. You’ll need to put together a list of web designers. Here are a few ways to make that list:

1. You’ll want to grab that “3 to 5 Websites you like” list you made earlier.
2. Ask for referrals from other business owners in your industry who they chose to design their website.
3. Search online using terms such as “website designer city state”, “plumber website designer”, “freelance web designer near me”, etc. Most worthy web designers will have a website show up in the search results.

Follow these steps to determine which web designer is right for you:

1. View each of the web designers websites in your browser
2. Examine their portfolio carefully. Things you should consider:
• Do you like what they have done?
• What other services do they provide?
• Do they have mostly positive reviews and testimonials?
• Do you feel this would be the right person to work with?
• Are the sites from their portfolio responsive and flow well on a mobile device?
3. Reach out to their previous clients. Find out how easy the designer is to work and communicate with, and if they designed their site on time.

Once you have put together 5-10 web designers you’d like to hire, contact each one to get to know them a little better. Here are a few key pieces of information you’ll need to provide to the designer:

• Information about who you are and your business
• What kind of functionality you need (static page, basic site, ecommerce)
• Will you be selling a service or products
• How many pages you need
• What is your timeline for completion
• Your budget or price range

Give the designer one to two weeks to respond. If you don’t hear back, you can either follow up with them or move onto the next designer.

Not Knowing What the Project Includes

Due to there being many aspects to a website design, it is important to understand what your project includes, or what is going to be delivered. Here are some things to consider:

Contract: Does the web designer you chose have a contract. Many use a boilerplate contract, but it should be customized to your specific project and should include a Statement of Work (SOW) that details the deliverables. These will be line items of what they will deliver to you when the project is completed. Read this very CAREFULLY! If you don’t understand something, ASK.

Mock-Up or Full Design: Some web designers only design what your website will look like (Mock Up) in a software app, such as, Adobe PhotoShop or Figma, and don’t convert it to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc. so it’s viewable on the internet. If this is what your designer does you will need to find a developer to convert it into an active website. Keep in mind, you will pay separately for the design and development of your website. If you don’t want to work with both, find a general web designer to create your website.

Custom or Semi-Custom: Will your designer be custom coding your website from scratch or using a premium template to semi-custom build your site. It will be much more expensive to have your website custom built. A lower-cost option is to get it semi-custom built or have them use a template. Be aware that a template-based website can tend to look cookie-cutter, but can still fill your needs depending on your criteria.

Features: Make sure the features you requested, such as number of pages, blog, etc., are included in your project. If there are any additional costs for specific features, they should be listed, such as, setting up a CMS, ecommerce or any third-party integrations.

Rounds of Edits: Make sure that you get at least one round of edits during the design phase to give feedback and to make changes. If the designer doesn’t have that much of a track record, you should request two to three rounds of edits.

Support: Other then edits, what other kind of support will you receive during the website build? Ask if there is support in website planning, strategy, content, etc.

Not Knowing ALL the Costs Involved

Whether you have a large or small budget, make sure you take into consideration all the costs of building a website. Include these in your budget planning so you know what you are willing to spend before hiring a web designer.

Some costs you will need to consider:

Domain: It’s important to determine what the cost of your domain will be before you hire a website designer. Your domain name, depending on how short the name is could cost you thousands. But, generally speaking, your domain name will run you around $12/year or more based on how many years you register it. Be sure that you keep control over your domain – see section one where I cover this more.

Hosting: Ask your web designer if he provides hosting for your website. This most likely will be under a care or support plan. If you wish to host your website with another provider, the costs can vary depending if it is shared hosting, managed, cloud or VPS. If your site is a standard business website that doesn’t have a lot of specialty features, you will be fine starting out with a good shared host.

Email: I put this as a separate item, because I recommend you don’t get your hosting and email through the same provider. There are many reasons why you should do this which I won’t cover here. Look into using Google WorkSpacee, Rackspace, Zoho, or others to run your email through for transactions and other communication.

Media: It is important for your website to display high quality photo’s and video’s. There are two ways you can accomplish this 1) hire a professional photographer, or 2) use high quality stock photo’s. The difference is, one can cost you hundred’s to thousand’s and the other is less pricey. Determine which is best for you.

Content: Having high quality, converting content on your website will be the difference between making sales and hearing crickets. If you are not planning on writing your own content (recommended), then find out if your web designer offers this. If not, hire a professional copywriter.

SEO: This is the means in which your website is found in the search results and brings in traffic. The visitor’s need to be converted to bring in sales. Even though you can work on SEO after the site is launched (and you should), it is best to do this during the design phase so as not to cause more work.

Failing to be Engaged in the Process

I learned from my earlier projects that we designers can’t read your mind, nor are we magicians. It’s REALLY important that you get involved from the get go in order to create a successful website for your customers.

You know, a website that draws visitor’s, leads them, converts them and brings in more sales for you.

Take the time to do a paid discovery, project kick-off call, answer a questionnaire and provide important details about you, your business, history, products, services, your market and much more.

This helps the web designer get to know you, discuss branding, specific website features, what actions you want your visitor’s to take and what results you want to see. This all takes time to put together, but is well worth it.

If the web designer you are planning to hire does not have some kind of process to dig up the gold nuggets of your business, then you are probably just hiring someone to do the “tech work” and is most likely not going to benefit you or your business.

Designing a modern, professional and successful website is more than handing over some cash to a web designer, sitting back and waiting for the sales to roll in. It’s going to take a significant amount of input from you and the best results come from you being highly engaged in the process.

Final thoughts and words about hiring a web designer and the biggest mistakes to avoid.

Congratulations! You made it the end of this article. I hope you have come to understand that designing a website for your business is not something that will happen overnight.

It’s even more important for you to take your time, do proper due diligence, figure out what it is you want and put together a budget that you can work with before you begin to search for a website designer.

After all, your website is the central hub of your online presence and how your visitor’s perceive this will determine your success or failure.

I hope this article has helped you!

Please leave your questions, comments or share your experience with some of your biggest mistakes in hiring a web designer.

Attribution for featured image: dgim-studio on Freepik