Does Your Website Designer Pay You Enough Attention?

When you send your website  designer a list of work you  need  performed, how long  does it take  for them to  respond? 6 hours? 1  day? 2  days? Do you feel that this  amount of time is acceptable?

    Many designers are always  trying to increase their client base. After all, the more clients, the more income. But is having a book that is too full causing them to be spread too thin? This is a common problem faced by many clients and designers. Many designers do not have the business background and knowledge to realize that it is more cost effective to keep existing clients, than it is to sign up new ones. While they are chasing down leads and sending out proposals, the work requested by their current client base falls to the bottom of the punch list. What happens then? Clients who feel they are wasting their money by not getting the attention they need for their most important marketing tool they have, will look somewhere else for their work. I see their posts all the time in social media.

    So how do I as a designer combat this? To me my current clients are the lifeblood of my business. I make myself as accessible as possible to them at anytime, and am willing to go that extra mile for them. The result? My clients stick with me. Even better, they refer me to new potential clients! That is loyalty, and the kind of clients I look forward to working with.

Another thing I do is set a client cap for myself. That is that I can only have a certain number of clients in my book that keep me on retainer. In order for me to take on a new client. I must be able to fit their monthly work into my schedule without neglecting other clients. I also do not take every job offered to me if I feel I cannot handle the workload. Some website builds that have a lot of monthly work once the site is done, will prevent me from keeping other clients happy. That is not how I run my business and I feel that is not fair to my existing client base.

In the end, my clients are happy with my service. They stay with me and always thank you for the great customer service I provide them.

Some may disagree with my approach, but I currently have five new websites in development as well as a few potentials on a two month waiting list. All referrals.

So next time you don’t get an answer from your designer, ask yourself, “is he spending my money trying to get other clients, rather than handling my business?”

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Adaptive vs. Responsive: What’s the Difference?

Everyone is talking about how  your website must be  responsive.  This is very true. Google, as of  April, had started  penalizing sites  for not having mobile versions. So  having a  responsive website is  now essential to continue having  high  index rankings.

     So what does Responsive mean? Simply, a website that is  responsive will look the same no matter the size of the display it  is being viewed on. Most website designers offer their sites as  fully responsive as it is built into the coding language they are using. This means that they will design the website once, and when viewed on another size device, the program takes over and automatically puts the text, images, etc… into the spots that it deems fit. This makes it very easy for the designer/developer s they only need to build the site once.

But now what if you do not like the placement of these items on the mobile version? Well you are at the mercy of the program. So how do we get around this? Is there another solution to let me place these items where I want? That’s where the term Adaptive comes in.

So what is Adaptive? Adaptive editors let you create your own responsive website. Instead of the program assigning your items, it let’s you put them wherever you would like. This means that your mobile, tablet, and desktop versions can be completely different from one another. Or they can be similar leaving out features that may work well on desktop, but not so well on a mobile device. Adaptive editors give total control to the ability of designing any given version of a website, any way the designer sees fit. I have clients that have completely different mobile versions than their desktops and I have clients that have almost exact replicas on each display type.

So do not look down on adaptive editors. They may not receive all the spotlight responsive does, but they deserve much more.

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Should Your Website Designer also Guide Your Business?

Although the primary job of a  website designer is to basically  design your website, could they  also be helpful in guiding your  business? I think absolutely they  can!

Your website designer is  actually in charge of one of your most useful marketing tools. A good designer will build the UI/UX of the website to enhance your products or services. Placement of sections, images, and text, on your website, is all geared toward getting the viewer the info that you as a business, want them to see.

Remember that most website designers are also running their own businesses and are going through the same things that you are. They must also pay attention to social media, marketing trends, advertising, etc… All the same things that you are doing.

I have some clients that I have helped in every step of the way. Teaching them about the importance of social media and how to use it effectively. I also advise them on how to use their blogs to generate more traffic to their websites. I have showed them accounting services, invoicing practices, and the importance of mailing lists and client relations. In some cases even how to monetize their websites.

So while we may just be website designers, you should not hesitate to ask yours for their advice or even their help. Even if they charge you, it may be a small price to pay to bring you success.

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