Why Should you Go for Web Designing?

It’s an age old question.  Website plays vital role following ways. If your goal is one of the following, you may need to have a website designed:-
:- Connecting new customers for selling online / off line.
:- Sharing business profile, information and resources and in effective and un-disturbed way. While one to one conversations and presentation have own value, a salient presentation which on sees on own time can very valuable too.
:- Become important resource for education, employment, government, commerce, health care and more.
:- Interactive platform for getting views / reviews of customer about services / products and product survey.
:- Maintaining close interaction with customers.

What to look for in Your Web Site?

:- Think of most popular websites, google? bbc? Try a website design like these.
:- Appeal customers not yourself. A nice looking website is fine, but one comes to a business website to get information about business and not to listen to Music or seeing things moving right and left and keep waiting for flash pages to open.
:- The world most popular websites like google, Wikipedia etc do not have flashy web design.
:- The website is designed / developed using standards outlined by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). These standards ensure websites look and feel consistent across a broad range of devices and platforms.
:- Faster loading time – Research says a site visitor stays on a page for few seconds.
:- Easier to maintain, that when the developers leaves you at your own, you / your team knows what to do.
:- Lower maintenance cost.
:- Search engines friendly.

Why Websites / Online Business in Pakistan has not Flourished?

:-There is little or no formal education in most parts of Pakistan on web designing. Web development is part of curriculum of some of Bachelors and Master‘s degree programs, however, mostly it tends to be theoretical or too less for the job.
:-The business ethics of the developers do not grow under a well framed business culture due as online industry has not matured effectively as yet in Pakistan.
:-Most web development companies are owned by Pakistanis settled abroad, hence, there are issues related to management.
:- Till couple of years back, the business executives in Pakistan were clueless about online business. Resultantly business owners were lured into web designing ventures by un-professional web designers, who looted the owners as much as they could before disappearing to do labor work in West.
:- Even in cases where the development houses ensured effective online presence of the business, the business owners failed to capitalize, partially due to lack of their own know how and partially due to poor IT infrastructure (due to which the overall enjoinment of online work remained rather frustrating).
:- As of today, the web designing companies in Pakistan can be categorized in three ways:-

1. ONE -  free-lancers, mostly low or semi skilled boys who work from homes or net cafes in hope to go big one day. They learn from experiment (your websites) and grow with time taking many businesses down in the process. Are mostly clue less about business ethics, quality control and related stuff, but are at times good in graphics and certain part of web applications.

2.  TWO -  Educated illiterates employed by foreign based Pakistanis, who work in relatively costly offices, thus charge as much as you would need to pay to a western company. Their initial education is poor (very few well trained / well groomed Pakistani Becholor’s go for web development jobs, as these jobs are not many and does not offer good salaries). However, owning to owners of such companies, somewhat better business practices may be seen. At the end of the day both categories are learning by making your websites. However, this category may have adequate tools and business relation management to lure you better.

3. THREE – A combination of the two of the above, where some of the senior developers from category two start own work or some of the ones from category one get matured with passage of time. This category also includes highly skilled web designers working at Free lance sites.

:-Most web designing companies in Pakistan would not mind using copy righted images, templates and cracked scripts without permission or license. Thus you should be careful when it comes to license else you may land up in trouble.
:- Most designers in category one and two will take up web designing work from any one without being sure, how they will accomplish it, ie without even having requisite skills to do it. Resultantly the web design projects ends up in dispute or close down of the website of the developer’s company.

Will Your Website be Successful?

The main reasons on goes about website design  is either to make a profit, provide information to entertain, for pubic service or for any of the combinations of these. So if you want you website to be truly successful at what it does then there are certain points that you need to take into consideration when it is being designed. These points are as follows:

:-Website design should have good navigation for easy surfing web pages, rather than getting confused due to complex layout.
:- Identify you audience and develop the sites content and design elements for them. A website for children’s game and a website for serious business professionals should have different appeal.
:- The business / information / offers to be demonstrated in effective manner so that users can get what they want.
:- The points of contact for your website should be clearly visible.
:- Website should not be cluttered with useless information.
:- The text that is placed on your website needs to be inviting to read.
:- Good web designer should always look to use good colours combinations and ensure that the design is easy to navigate.
:- Good web designs should not only look pleasant on the eye but should also make sure that the whole of the site is accessible to anyone who wants to use it.
:- Each of the websites design is planned with a clear defined purpose or goal of the site.
:- Inter activity is one of most demanded elements of present era. You can add interactivity to website through forum, blog, comments, reviews, survey, and membership and so on.
:- The website tone should be friendly and conversational.
:- There is no ONE RECEPIE for a web design. Hire intelligent web developer. See his profile to find if he is sensible enough to take your job.
:- Always remember to keep backup files of the website with you, do not leave it to web developer, more so, if he is not your company’s in house developer.
:- Never leave design completely to web developer, not matter how professional he may be.

How to find / Select A Good Web Designer?

:- How is website design of the web developer’s site itself. Anyone who cannot make his own site meaningful, how can he …..?
:- Check for profile of the developer. If he has not listed on the website, ask him to provide it. The website he has developed can give you fair idea of his work. Prefer ones who have the portfolio listed on their website.
:- Does his portfolio offer variety i.e, web development of various kind of websites.
:- Does he has website of the kind you need in his portfolio, it can make things much easier for you as well as web developer, if he has worked on similar project earlier.
:- Check with the web developer on what are his measurable of quality control in various areas of web development. You may be surprised, if any of them can tell you what quality is all about. Mostly they will reply in terms of beautiful graphics. Very few, if any web designer in Pakistan would be able to tell you his quality control metrics.
:- Is the site of web designer free of adz, meaning he is not making his living out of advertising?
:- Does he offer clear and acceptable option of updating / maintenance of website.
:- How clear and methodical he is in offering a quote for web design. One who starts with clarity will end up with clarity.
:- Check rates. Note the in many cases the web designers in Pakistan may be uneducated, learn few things by coincident or accident, get some SEO ranking in little competition and start believing that they are good enough in web design and SEO to start offer to do business. On the other hand, if you are lucky, you may get some, who are having lab education, maturity and intelligence behind them to understand what web development and quality is all about.
:- Is the web designer providing multiple services other than web design. A developer offering web hosting, domain registration, SEO, graphic design etc may be more settled and also you will not have to go around for each service separately.
:- Its better if the web designer is located in same country, more so if you have doubts that will be able to complete the job or otherwise, that your money is not insecure.
:- Modes of payment the developer offers also make you certain of his capacity, background and experience. A web developer who does not offer adequate online payment options is less likely to have adequate experience of handling off shore customers. 
:- If you want individual attention then getting a freelance web designer is the way to go rather than a big web design firm. On the other hand a firm is more settled. It all goes with your ability to strike a balance of your need vs cost vs skills. Some designers provide information about the design of the websites they have worked on and how the sites ranked after the sites were finished.