If you are at the outset of growing your small eCommerce business, then you might not think you require a professional web designer. However, unless you can do it yourself, this will mean you will probably make use of a hosting site or sell through a third-party channel such as Amazon, Etsy, eBay, or Shopify.
Depending on your budget – and budgets can of course be small at the start – this might well be the best option for the time being. Azola Creative, a company specializing in lead generation services and eCommerce web design, say that it is well within the interests of any eCommerce business to create a unique (and uniquely attractive) website before long.
This is something that will normally require a professional. Web design is a serious discipline as well as a massive industry these days, and it is something that takes hours of specialized training to learn. So, it might well be wise to get the professionals in. However, anyone can claim to be a web designer, and the industry certainly isn’t regulated to the extent that you can demand some kind of certificate. Therefore, to avoid spending an excessive amount of money for a substandard result, one thing you definitely can learn is how to hire a web designer.
Table of Contents
Understand What You Need
So, how do you actually go about this? Well, the first thing is to understand precisely what you need. Of course, this is something that will vary depending on what type of eCommerce site you have.
The first thing to do here is to work out what kind of web designer you need, and you might also look into a combination of the different types of web design. There are web graphic designers, who design the graphical layout of a website; there are UX designers, whose job it is to focus on customer interaction with your site. These two alone cover the two main bases of web design;a site should be both attractive and as user-friendly as possible. If customers are either put off by the look or cannot find what they are looking for, then the web designer has failed.
Beyond this, you should also consider the time frame for the job and what the payment structure is (hourly or by project). The choice here will be heavily influenced, of course, by your budget.
Searching for a Web Designer
Searching for a web designer is not particularly difficult when you are armed with the information set out above and know exactly what you want. Google searches are fine and will lead you to all sorts of web design services. You can also investigate the freelancer marketplaces, which is perhaps the best way to vet your web designers before you hire them (especially if you have absolutely zero knowledge of web design yourself). These sites will feature reviews and appraisals from other clients the web designer has worked for. You will not get this on a web designer’s own page, as here all they will be doing is offering you the world.
Another great tip is to browse other eCommerce sites – preferably businesses at roughly the same level as your own – and, if you like the way they look, you can scroll down and find out who designed them. If there is no info to that effect, you can keep searching until you find a website you like and where the contact info of the designer is stated.
In summary, then, a good web designer is one you can vet – but only when armed with a firm knowledge of exactly what you want.