7 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Web Designer to Create Your Book Promotion Website —Part 1 of 2

By BNI & Referral Institute - Aug 26 , 2008

By Beth Sobiloff

Many web designers are out there, eager for your business. They know that authors and others in the book industry need to have a web presence.

A lot of them are well-trained in the technology of building a website, and are quite good at what they do. Still others are graphic designers who need to offer website design as a service, as this is what many of their clients want.

Then there are large companies offering template websites with enticing functionality, who have a team of website salesmen, essentially. There is no web designer involved in the sales process, only a technician on the other end of the phone.

Then there are those who have taken an online HTML course and start selling their services as a web designer. No wonder authors are confused about who to hire and how to decide who to hire.

Your website is the online face for your book, and it must represent your book well. If your website looks unprofessional, potential buyers will get the impression that you’re not a serious author. A website that looks unprofessional is worse than no website at all.

Here are some specific questions to ask that will give you clues as to whether a web designer you might hire can produce the results you want for your book promotion website.

1. How will you build a website that will load fast, capture the attention of the visitor within seven seconds, and keep them coming back again and again?

That’s right; you only have only 7-9 seconds to capture the attention of your visitor before they leave for another website. Therefore, any designer you hire must understand how to build web pages that load quickly, with content that grabs the visitor’s attention, and tells him that he should order your book if you’re an author, or hire your services if you are a literary agent.

2. Do you know how to set up an email-capture form and hook it up with an autoresponder?

Without a way to capture the email addresses of your visitors, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table. That visitor may hesitate to buy your book, or other products or services, and may have every intention of returning in the future. If you have his email address, which you have enticed him to give you in exchange for free information, book chapters, or some other freebie, you can build a relationship with him until he is ready to become a customer.

3. Can you design my site so that the call to action is clear and prominent?

Again, a good web designer will understand that, without a clear call to action, you are wasting your resources. The visitor needs to know what it is you want them to do, whether it’s buy your book, sign up for your newsletter, or call you to find out more about your services.

4. Will you optimize my pages for search engines, and how?

The web designer you hire should understand the uses of keywords in the content as well as the coding and linking strategies. This is vital to the success of your website. Your website can be beautiful, but if potential clients fail to find you on the Internet, what good is it? Even if you are a well-known author, you want your website to pop up in search results ahead of any reviews or articles about your published work.

Come back next week for the completion of this article. I’ll give you the final three questions plus a couple of bonus tips. ______________________________________________________________________________
Beth Sobiloff is the owner of Birchwood Enterprises, a web design, Internet marketing and search engine optimization company located in Hanover, Massachusetts. Beth is the author of a DVD entitled “Search EngineOptimization: How to Grab Your Customers Online”. She has been creating websites for small businesses and entrepreneurs for over eight years.