If you’ve ever hired a web designer, then you know the process isn’t as easy as it looks. It can be a seriously scary ordeal. Combing through hundreds of possible web designers hoping one of them can build the website of your dreams. But if you don’t know what to look for when you hire a web designer, you can find yourself in one of these nightmare situations:
- You finally hire a web designer only for them to ghost you halfway through the project.
- You hire a cheap web designer who builds a website that you hate, so you have to keep paying more and more designers to fix the problems that the last one gave you until all the payments start to add up.
Something similar happened to a client of mine. Let’s call her “Julia.” Julia was exactly the type of female entrepreneur that I LOVE working with for web design projects. She’s enthusiastic, driven, and passionate about her business. But before she met me, she went through a ton of issues building her website.
Before meeting me, Julia had spent over $50,000 on multiple web designers who all gave her the same result:
- Websites designed entirely without her strategic or creative input
- Designs that did not reflect her brand’s personality or values
- Websites built on platforms that were too difficult for her to update herself post-project completion
- Websites with broken components that made her company look totally unprofessional
Julia was soooo frustrated by the time she met me that she was (understandably!) skeptical. I’m sure she was thinking I was just more of the same kind of unresponsive, uncollaborative tech nerd agency who would just tell her what to do with her digital marketing without any understanding of her business.
But (thankfully!) she was wrong! My custom web design services at Moonbeam Creative aim to work WITH female business owners to infuse your brand with the personality that your clients crave.
Let me take you on a journey of Julia’s web design nightmare so you can learn from her mistakes and avoid the same pitfalls when you’re hiring your next web designer.
Julia’s First Web Design Hire
In the beginning, Julia was sick of the website she DIY-ed herself. Tech and design just weren’t her thing (and it showed in her website 😬). So when she officially decided to start looking to hire a professional web designer, she was super excited.
She imagined how modern, sleek, yet friendly her brand would look on her new website. How she could finally send new clients to her website without apologizing first. So when she finally decided on a web design agency, she was filled with hope.
Unfortunately, the web design agency she picked just did not deliver. She had no idea what to expect when working with a web designer, so when they told her to sit back and wait for them to deliver a final design, she thought that was a good thing.
But what really happened is this web design agency went back to their cave and churned out a design all from their own brains and absolutely no input from Julia. So when they delivered the new website, Julia was a little underwhelmed. It wasn’t exactly what she envisioned. Not bad! It just didn’t reflect her business. But when she asked for design changes, she was told it would cost way more to make any major updates.
A Quick Tip about Web Designer Tendencies
So I’ll just put this note right here: The practice of refusing to go back and change a design after the website has already been built is totally normal in the web design world! Why? Well let’s think of it like a house.
If I built a house for you and at the end, you suddenly decided you wanted a basement added to it, well now it’s MASSIVELY more difficult to accommodate this change now that the whole house is already finished!
It’s similar in web development. And if you want to make any major design changes at the end of the project, it’s gonna cost you. That’s why my web design process addresses stuff like this waaaay earlier. But I’ll talk more about that later. 😊
Anyway, Julia wasn’t quite thrilled with her new website but she thought maybe it would grow on her. It was at least better than her DIY website. Right?
Well later on, she would learn that that undercurrent of dissatisfaction would eventually rear its costly head.
Recurring Web Design Nightmares
Somewhere down the road, Julia’s business was going through some changes which would require some minor website adjustments. But the website she had never quite grew on her like she thought, so she jumped at the chance to start over fresh. New look, who dis?!
So instead of some minor tweaks, Julia started shopping around for another web designer to make her a brand new website.
You probably know where this is going. She shops around, hires a web design agency, they disappear, they come back with a finished website that makes Julia feel “meh.” Right…?
Wrong. Oh no, it was so much worse.
Foreshadowing…
This time, Julia wanted to try harder to give her input. Like what kind of style she wanted, what she wanted the website to do for her company, and how the last web design company got it wrong. Yet this new web design agency she was working with just shut her down. They basically told her something along the lines of, “We’re the experts. We’ll build you a beautiful website. Don’t worry about it.”
Which sounds good, right?!? They should know what they’re doing, right??
But did they know how she interacts with her clients? Did they know who her clients even were? Did they know the personality and culture of her business processes? Did they know what the website would need to do to make those business processes way smoother?
Spoiler, the answer to all those questions is NO.
So this time, this web design agency came up with a website that was even further from the style she wanted. It was cold and corporate and bland. But get this…. Julia’s clients were primarily CHILDREN and their families!!! So parents are supposed to trust her with their children but the first impression they get from her website is basically a robot dungeon???
Oh and that’s not all. Half her links were either not set up or didn’t work. I’m talking about stuff like the link to her Facebook page just goes to the Facebook homepage, instead of her business’ Facebook page. Most of the links in the footer (that section that’s always at the bottom of the page on most websites) go absolutely nowhere. And did I mention some of the images would just *poof* disappear? Leaving giant, empty white spots all over her website.
Remember how I mentioned earlier that most web designers will either charge extra or refuse if you decide to make major design changes at the end of a project? Yeah, that doesn’t apply when the final product is just BROKEN!! A decent web designer will at MINIMUM make sure your website WORKS!
Yet the web design agency just wiped their hands of her and moved on. So she was stuck with an even worse website. Of course when she was able to gather the funds, she went out looking for a new web designer as soon as she could.
Different Flavor, Same Disaster
And this new NEW web design agency basically did the same thing the last one did. Sure, the links at least worked this time. But the design was even uglier and nonsensical. And later on she also realized that the forms on her website that were supposed funnel in new clients? Yeah the forms were sending those messages to an email no one used. No one on the web design team told her they had connected that particular email with her sign up form. So she ended up missing months and months of potential new clients.
Not only that, but when she tried to get people on her team to help update the website and make minor changes, it was too difficult for any of her non-techy employees to change the website without accidentally making chunks of content disappear or teleport across the screen. 🤯
So you’re probably thinking Julia must have been so traumatized. How could she possibly trust another web designer again? Well that’s when she finally met me. 👩🏾💻
The Light at the End of the Tunnel
Luckily a friend of a friend recommended me to Julia. When we had our first chat, I could tell Julia was frustrated, tired, defeated, and highly skeptical. Wouldn’t you after all she went through?
But lucky for her, my web design process is specifically designed to avoid all the headache, wasted time and wasted money.
Working With Me as a Web Designer
During our discovery call, Julia was obviously skeptical at first, but that started to melt away when I told her about my highly collaborative process. Basically I don’t finalize anything without my client’s feedback and approval.
And I’m sure she was surprised that I actually asked her questions about her and her business during the call. Like, a lot of questions. Because, like I mentioned before, how else am I going to understand her clients and her business enough to build the website of her dreams?
Considering how awful her previous experiences had been, you can imagine how excited I was when she actually signed the proposal I sent her after our discovery call! I was confident I could be the web designer she needed and help her create an online home for her business that actually represented her business values, connected with her clients, and, you know, actually WORKED properly! 😂
When Julia officially secured a project start date with me, I can’t tell you how THRILLED she was when I assigned her homework. 🤣 Part of my process is that my clients do some pre-work before we start the project so I can really pick their brains and understand what they need for their company.
Julia was just so excited to be a part of the process and participate in building her brand and website with me instead of being told to sit tight til someone just cobbled together an entire “solution” without her.
This homework included filling out a strategy questionnaire, submitting all her website content (including text and images) to Google Drive, and completing a mini mood board to capture the vibe she envisions for her brand.
The Moonbeam Creative Web Design & Branding Process
Once all the pre-work was done, we were ready to hit the ground running during our Day 1 Kickoff Meeting. We talked a lot more in detail about what she needed for her business’ branding and website.
I love meetings with women like Julia because she was so full of passion for her business and she understood herself so well. She just needed someone with experience to capture all of that into a brand and website that could help sell her services to clients for her.
So the rest of our project was highly collaborative. I picked her brain about which design direction to pursue. She chose from a selection of design samples and mood boards that fit her clients and her business the best. She gave feedback on the logo suite I created.
By the time we got to the web design phase of the project, the visual design system was already solidified. And it was actually in line with what Julia and her clients wanted for her business.
Remember when I mentioned before about how it can be difficult to make design changes after a website is already built? Well my process is what avoids that whole issue. That’s because all the revisions and tweaks and design direction shifts are done EARLY in the project. It’s easier and cheaper to erase a sketch than it is to rearrange or even re-code a website that’s already built. And it’s possible because 90% of our project goes into PLANNING, PLANNING, PLANNING.
So by the time Julia got to the final day of our branding and web design project, there were no surprises and she got exactly what she wanted: A bomb website and branding package that communicates her business values and draws in her ideal clients like bears to honey.
Final Takeaways for Hiring a Web Designer
I genuinely hope reading through Julia’s journey helped you while you navigate the twists and turns of finding a web designer for your business. Here’s a summary of things you can take with you as you venture toward hiring a web designer:
- Make sure you’re part of the web design process
- Hire a web designer who actually cares enough about how your business works to ask questions
- Good communication is one of the most important qualities you should look for when you’re hiring a web designer
- Remember: Good web design is a worthwhile investment. Bad web design is an expensive headache that costs you more and more over time.
If you need an elevated website and branding experience for your business, let’s chat! I built Moonbeam Creative specifically to help female business owners skip headaches like Julia’s and reach their goals in style. Book your Website in a Week with me and step into your confident boss babe era.
