Lost in Translation

If you’re coming in later in the game, you may want to read Part 1 of the series.

Ok, so you’ve found a lot of potential web designers out there. Now how do you choose one?

THE THREE WEB JOB SPECIALTIES

It helps to understand that the web design field is like any other: there are specialists for each aspect of the website process. Just as there are doctors who are general practitioners, endocrinologists, surgeons of one specialty or another, pediatricians and so on, so it is in IT and the web field.

Bear in mind, just because someone can fix your computer doesn’t mean they know anything about web design. And vice versa. Also, just because someone is a programmer doesn’t mean they know anything about web languages either.

When it comes to web design, there are 3 types of designers: graphic artists, web designers, and web developers (programmers who handle the non-artsy stuff). There may be some individuals who do a bit of overlap between each, but I would go so far as to say there is no one who is 100% proficient in all areas (and if such a person exists, most people can’t afford them).

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This is the first post of a series on finding, hiring, and working with web designers. This post is aimed at business owners that may be looking for a web designer to hire for a project or various members of management looking for a designer or small firm to outsource to. This series is also helpful for those who are deciding if they should hire someone else or do it themselves.

Some of you that are reading this blog already have a web designer (which may be me!). But many others will stumble here in search of a web designer. And you lost souls are probably feeling overwhelmed and not so sure where to start. Who better to tell you what to look for in a web designer than another experienced web designer?

So the first question is: how do you find one? More importantly, how do you find a designer of good quality?

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A lot of individuals are taken in by the hype surrounding email marketing. The websites look great, the results sound promising. I’ll say it before and I’ll say it again: “if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is”. The Internet is just like your offline life. Never believe the two are different. Just because it’s in writing, doesn’t mean it’s true.

So why would I say buying an email list is bad when so many say it’s so good?

For starters…those saying its so good are frequently after your wallet. Ask yourself: who’s saying its so great? Are they in the business of selling those lists? Or in a business that is in any way related to that? Or maybe they’re a novice touting themselves as experts, just parroting what they’ve read (and believe me, there are a lot of those).

Ok, that doesn’t really answer the question. So why is it BAD? Two good reasons. (more…)