How I pick a web designer

by Paul on October 26, 2011

I would, of course, suggest you select me.  However, to help you feel good about that choice you will want to check out the competition.  I did that too.  In my case I was checking to see if I thought I could do a better job than the other guys.  Some of my decision was based on technical issues.  However, I did find one surprising test that can be used by anyone.

I did a Google search for some phrases like "mobile website designer", ""Best mobile website designer", and "How to design a mobile website".  I looked through the results and visited those that looked interesting.  There are some large companies with really impressive websites chasing business in this niche.  I'm sure many do good work.  And charge accordingly, of course.

For those that looked good my final check was to go to their website from my iPhone.  It seemed to me that any company which made it to the first page of Google search results for one of these phrases would have a mobile friendly site.  They don't.  In my mind that eliminates them as a serious competitor.  How can you brag on your skills and not even apply it to your own business? I think you should load any vendor you are considering on your mobile device and see  how it looks.  If their own site itsn't ready for prime (mobile) time they don't deserve  your business.

I suspect the problem is they couldn't stand to "dumb down" their site, with all it's nifty graphics, to run on a mobile device.  I understand the problem, but that's the reality at this moment in time.  The way you make a user friendly mobile device website with the hardware and software tools currently available is to eliminate all non-essentials, all frills, and all fluff.  You keep ONLY the essentials.

Of course there can be some debate about what is essential, which is where I come in.  My current sites generate over 50,000 page views per month, most from long tail searches.  That provides a lot of practice figuring out exactly what visitors are looking for.

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