Tips & Tricks
11 tips on how to best prepare for your meeting with the web designer
So you are planning to implement a new website and you meet with a web designer who is supposed to make you a quote about it.
To make this initial meeting as effective as possible, I have listed some questions below. These will help them get the planning of the new website off on the right foot in advance. The web designer needs to get an idea of what your new website is all about. Only then can he create a good product for you.
I won't distinguish here whether you already have a website or this is your first. Many questions fit both situations.
Points to prepare for the conversation with the web designer:
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- Explain to the web designer what your company does
- What purpose do you want your website to serve?
- Is there a particular service / product that needs to be highlighted?
- Give their web designer a list of websites they like
- Do they really need a maintenance system (cms / "content management system")?
- Do you want your website to be multilingual?
- Make sure that a visitor statistics software can evaluate the page views in the future
- Should there be any special features on their website that the web designer needs to take into account when calculating?
- What could the navigation of your website look like?
- Who creates the texts of your new website?
- Are there already photos for their website?
Explain to the web designer what your company does
As with the implementation of a company brochure, when implementing a website very basic things become important about which you should be as clear as possible.
What purpose do you want your website to serve?
Possible purposes are:
- Simple presentation of products, services and company - which is in many cases also completely sufficient
- The visitor should look at their products and services and then call to get individual advice from them
- The visitor should get information on their website and then request a free catalog or brochure via an online form (For address generation).
- Concrete sale of one or more products or services directly through their website.
Does this require a real store or is a simpler online form sufficient?
Is there a particular service / product that needs to be highlighted?
Consider whether you always want to advertise an important product in a prominent position on your website, so that the visitor does not have to search and find it in the navigation first. Discuss with the web designer whether this product should perhaps be put in the spotlight with a guided tour film or an animation.
Give their web designer a list of websites they like
This way, he knows where the journey should go in terms of design. So, for example, rather a restrained classic design or something wacky. Of course, this does not mean copying a website design.
Do they really need a maintenance system (cms / "content management system")?
Should the website really be maintainable by them? Do they have the time and personnel resources to do this? Basic rule: If new news and dates have to be put online every week, a maintenance system certainly makes sense. For changes that are implemented every half year, you can save the higher costs for a maintenance system. After half a year they also don't know how to use the maintenance system. A care system will also never make them completely independent of the agency. There are always areas that cannot be changed via the maintenance system. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Do you want your website to be multilingual?
If so, it would be important to ask the web designer if multilingualism can be integrated without having to rebuild the whole website.
Make sure that a visitor statistics software can evaluate the page views in the future
Ask them about Google Analytics, Piwik or Etracker statistics solutions.
What is not sufficient here are so-called server statistics, i.e. the statistics that are included with the Internet package (e.g. at 1&1, Strato, Hostgator, etc.).
Should there be any special features on their website that the web designer needs to take into account when calculating?
- Product database with selection filter
- Search function
- Product galleries
- Email-Newsletter
- Online calculator
- Product video
- Own online store
- …
Here, too, please be as specific as possible about what you want and how you want it - it's best to give examples from other websites. Do not rely on the fact that your counterpart intuitively has the same image in his head as you do.
The worst misunderstandings are those where both think they have understood the other.
What could the navigation of your website look like?
Think about how the navigation of your website could look like and discuss it with the web designer. Example of a classic website navigation:
- Home
- Company
- History
- Team
- Philosphy
- Products
- Product group a
- Product group b
- Product group …
- Service
- Contact
Who creates the texts of your new website?
Will the texts for your new website be supplied by you or one of your employees? Or is it perhaps better to entrust a copywriter with this important task?
Are there already photos for their website?
Show the web designer here a selection of the available photos so he can decide whether he can work with them or whether they should hire a photographer. In the greatest need, photos from online photo catalogs are also sufficient... (such as Istockphoto or Fotolia).