With so many web design companies to choose from, how do you know which one to choose?

It is a fact that there are many great web design firms as well as many not so good. The reason there are so many bad companies is that the web design industry doesn't have any governing body that keeps companies in check or even requires them to know what they're doing, so virtually anyone can put up a website and say that they are legitimate.

 

Take a look at this horror story that happens all to often:

Genma Stringer Holmes, founder of Holmes Pest Control in Nashville, hired a Web designer in 2005 which she had met through a local organization in her community. She hired the company to develop two web sites to potentially boost sales for her 11-employee, half million dollar company.

She wasn't looking for anything too fancy, all she needed was a simple informative website about her company. After two years she needed to do some updates to the websites only to find that the designer was no where to be found and not only that but they held all the control of the domain name and website.

Since the designer registered the domain names himself, only people he designates can change them. Holmes can't shut the sites down or have another Web developer redo them. The Web designer hasn't returned her phone calls or e-mails since February, 2006. (He did not return calls from BusinessWeek SmallBiz either.) Says Holmes: "I was naive and didn't know what I was doing."

Story compliments of BusinessWeek.com

Let's talk about how to go about picking the right web design company. Below is a simple list of questions and qualifications that you will want to print out and keep handy when interviewing potential companies.

  • How long has your company been in business?
  • Will I own the rights to the design work?
  • Will I own rights of the domain name and have administrative rights?
  • Do you have a list of clients that can be contacted as a reference?
  • Does your company have a portfolio of resent as well as older projects?
  • Has your company ever successfully completed a project similar to the one I'm considering hiring you for?

Things to do in addition to the questions above:

  • Contact the Better Business Bureau to see if they are in good standing.
  • Contact clients in the companies portfolio to see how they were handled.
  • Review websites completed by the company looking for errors or things left undone.

It will take you a little time to perform the tasks above, but the frustration it could save is priceless.

These days more and more business owners are not getting what they bargain for when they hire a web deign firm. The complaints are on the rise. The Council of Better Business Bureaus in Arlington, Va., received 1,971 complaints against Web design firms in 2006, compared with just 603 in 2003.

People think they are getting a reliable web design firm to build their website, and they don't think about details, such as ownership. When things go wrong, the designer often comes out ahead and the business owners are left in a learch with no recourse option available.

The problem begins when the web design firm registers the domain name as opposed to the actual business owner. This can be ok if the business owners makes sure that they are stated as the administrator on the domain name. The administrator has the control of transferring and accessing any changes with the domain name. It's sad, but often times web design firms will just vanish before the website is even finished.

There's little recourse if you believe your web design firm has cheated you. If you're still able to contact them you may be able to buy back your domain name. The next step is court. Small-claims courts may help you to recover any money that you were out, but these courts generally won't be able to help much due to the complexity of the cases.

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