Disaster Web Designers: Choosing The Wrong Design Team | Web Design Relief

An online presence is essential for any successful writer. In order to gain readership, promote your work, and network with writers, editors, and agents, you need an author website. At Web Design Relief, we know that the web designers you choose can make or break your online?author platform. Not all web design companies are created equal, and you could easily end up with a disaster on your hands! Here are the warning signs to watch for to ensure you don’t hire the wrong design team.

?

Disaster Web Designers: The Warning Signs

A poorly designed, dated website

A reputable web designer or agency should use their own website as a shining example of their best skills. So you should be wary if the designers’ website is slow, clunky, hard to navigate, or just plain ugly. If the web designers can’t produce a high-quality website for themselves to showcase their abilities—they certainly won’t be able to create one for you.

Poor, spotty communication

If your web design team is nearly impossible to reach, that’s a definite sign they may not be the right fit for you. Your web design team should be available by email or phone (ideally both) in order to answer your questions or walk you through the design process. Outside of holidays and weekends, there is no reason why your web design team shouldn’t respond to you within twenty-four hours.

Making assumptions and disregarding your input

How your web design team treats you is also a good indicator of their professionalism. A quality web designer or team asks you questions, respects your input, and takes your opinion and ideas into consideration. After all, it’s your author website! And if a web design team is discourteous or even downright rude, it’s best to cut ties quickly.

To start off on the right foot, make sure you have a?list of questions?ready for when you first get in touch with the design team.

No portfolio available to review

A reputable web design team should have a full?portfolio?showcasing their previous clients’ websites. If they don’t have a portfolio available, you’re either their first client (aka guinea pig)—or they’re embarrassed by the quality of their prior work.

A web design team’s portfolio should show a good grasp of the latest trends in website design as well as thorough knowledge of what?elements to avoid. If a web design company doesn’t have these available for your review, you might want to think twice about working with them.

?

Unclear pricing

Costs for creating the author website?and payment methods should be discussed prior to beginning the web design process. Any web design team that isn’t trying to scam you will have the prices clearly stated and won’t charge you additional fees without prior notice. Make certain to discuss all costs and fees before signing a contract with a web design team.

No preliminary mockups

You should have a basic idea of how your website will look before it goes live online. A professional web design team will provide you with mockups, proofs, or samples of your web pages during the design stage and will ask for your feedback. All of your author website pages should have your full approval before they are made available to the general public.

Only bad reviews (or no reviews)

A client who is satisfied with the work and loves the final website will usually be happy to offer a positive?review or testimonial. If your web design team doesn’t have any reviews from clients, either they’re extremely new to web design or they simply do not have any happy clients.

At Web Design Relief, our many happy clients love how easy we make the web design process from start to finish.?Schedule a free consultation?with us today, then rest easy knowing you’ve taken the first step to ensuring you’ll avoid all possible web design disasters! And here are just a few of the reasons why:?10 Reasons Web Design Relief Is The BEST Author Website Service For Writers.