Not Protecting Your Domain Name There are still web designers out there who will steal your domain name and try to sell it back to you. I personally know several small business owners that this has happened to and they can't afford the legal costs of a resolution. Make sure you are the "Owner" and/or "Registrant" of your domain name. The best way to ensure this is to go to a domain registrar website and register it yourself -- even if you've been promised a "free" domain name from your web designer. You can get name for less than $10 these days. If you do register the name yourself, don't get seduced into buying additional domain-related products that you may not want or need (email accounts, hosting, SSL, privacy, etc.) and make SURE the registrar website allows easy access to a control panel that lets you modify your nameservers - sounds a little techie but that is crucial. And, don't forget the name of the website where you registered the name!
Overpaying for Web Hosting A lot of web designers will offer to handle your web hosting as a convenience to you (or themselves). This is fine but beware, some of them will attempt to fatten their pockets here at your expense. Do you have a simple brochure website with no streaming audio/video, databases, e-commerce or other advanced applications? Then, you shouldn't be paying over $25/month for web hosting - and that's even throwing in an extra $10-15/month for your web designer's trouble! Be careful not to go too cheap on web hosting, though - price isn't everything when it comes to web hosting - features and reliability are most important. But even with a solid, reputable hosting company, a 300-page brochure website complete with Flash, dynamic menus, PDF downloads, and web-to-email forms costs next to nothing to host - usually under $10.
Not Signing a Contract I've heard enough web designer horror stories to emphatically tell you to ALWAYS sign a web design contract. Verbal agreements are for suckers-in-the-making. I'm not a lawyer, so don't take this as legal advice, but my web design contracts, at minimum, specify:
Estimated project cost (in terms of hours or dollars)
Payment terms
Estimated project completion date (or something related to timely progress towards project completion)
Cancellation policy
Who owns the completed design and related graphics (logo, stock photos, etc)
Who owns the domain name (just as a backup to Mistake #1 above)
Non-disclosure terms (so your competitor down the block doesn't see the final site before you do!)
Not Having a Project Schedule This ALWAYS helps a project along, even if you don't stick to it 100%. Project schedules should show who's doing what and when and include weekly progress checks. This way there are no surprises.
Not Getting a Copy of EVERYTHING Related to the Creation of your Website What happens when you need a change to your website and your web designer seems to have dropped off the face of the earth? Immediately following project completion be sure to request:
All website graphics including LAYERED (that's important!) graphics files (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.) and any stock photos the designer purchased on your behalf.
All access info (website, username, password) for your domain name, hosting company and email control panel, and the websites for any special software needed to maintain any portion of your site (like your menu or search application).
When your business needs to make an urgent change to the website, you will NOT want to be wasting days, weeks or months trying to track down the above information from a web designer who is Missing in Action. And when you do get the information, remember to keep it in a safe place.
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