Choosing the Right Web Designer

Choosing the Right Web Designer

Thanks to Facebook and their ridiculous algorithm change, we are seeing more ads by businesses everyday. What was once a great free tool for businesses of all sizes has now been chewed up and spat out to focus on a more profitable process for Facebook, paid advertising! As a web designer and digital marketer, I have noticed a massive difference in post reach but this isn’t a rant about Facebook and the fact they are punishing small businesses by making them runs ads and boost posts so THEIR OWN followers get to see what they want to share. No, it’s a rant about the type of advertising that I’m seeing!

As you all know by now, I hate misleading sales speak and downright lies when it comes to business. The reason I say this is because I’m now seeing more and more advertising from businesses that are claiming to use certain techniques and leading technologies to deliver their final product.

Let’s just clear something up first!

Let me be clear on this, I don’t have a problem with the technologies and the techniques most of these businesses are using, of course there are exceptions but I won’t go into that here. My problem lies with the manner in which they are being sold and delivered!

One ad that appeared on my own news feed stated from a business (I won’t mention any names) that the website packages they are offering are “hand-coded” and “created from scratch” when I know this is absolutely false! Working with clients on a daily basis, I couldn’t imagine they’d be very happy if at the start of our working relationship, I just completely lied to them to make money. That’s what these businesses are doing and it really does not sit well with me at all.

If you are a web designer and your client asks you what platform the site will be built in, just tell them how you plan on building it. They have come to you for your professional expertise so do your job! You’re creating the site using Joomla? That’s fine. Actually it’s not fine, take Joomla and throw it in the bin! You’re creating the site using Magento? That’s perfectly fine but just make sure it’s the right platform for what the business is offering! You’re creating the site using WordPress? Also completely fine. Make sure the website is secure and you have backups of the site just in case.

What are these platforms?

These platforms are known as CMS or Content Management Systems, which is what most businesses now want to have in place because upon completion, they can control the content on the website with the right training from the web designer. The software you use could be frowned upon by other web designers but it’s not being built for them, so their opinion is irrelevant.

With my view that other web designers’ opinion is irrelevant when it comes to the actual build, this may sound like a contradiction but it simply must be said. If you’re using Wix? Get out, you’re not a web designer and you shouldn’t be trying to pass yourself off as one! Same goes for any other “free website builder“.

Admittedly I don’t advertise my services on Facebook as much as I maybe should but I do use it to showcase what I’ve created for businesses and hope that my followers would share it with friends. I don’t plague people’s news feeds because I wouldn’t want my own feed to be inundated with the same advertising all day, every day. The fact I’ve written this shows how annoyed I am with it all because what I really should be doing is showcasing my latest projects and updating my portfolio in between projects but that will have to wait until the end of this article.

Thanks for reading, thanks for sharing. Remember that it’s okay to ask questions before you buy something!