6. Contact – make sure you can contact your designer by phone or email and see how long it takes for them to get back to you. If it takes a long time, then this may be an indication of what your future contact with them will be like. Are they helpful, professional, polite and friendly? I find this always makes it easier to do business and less stress on yourself, since you will want it to be a strong and stable relationship.

7. Free Consultation – once you have a plan of what you want on your web site (or even if you don't know where to begin), contact your designer for a free consultation before you set up a contract. Most web designers will give you a free consultation if they want your business. This will help you clarify what is expected in design process.

8. Contract – make sure you have a contract drawn up before you make any payments. It should state clearly what is included in contract e.g. how many pages, links, graphics? Does it include marketing and maintenance of your web site? If not, then ask what does it cost for extras. This can include domain name registration, scanning and optimization of graphics and hosting. (see my article "how to choose a hosting company" at http://www.isitebuild.com/webhostarticle.htm)

9. Pricing and Payment – surf around Web to compare prices, so you have a ballpark figure of what to expect for your site design. You can expect to pay half of full price up front. If they are professional, they will accept credit cards for online payments. Do prices include submitting your site to main search engines? (This should be done by hand if it is done properly). Don't be misled by those that say your site will be submitted to 3000 search engines by automatic submission software.

10. Testing – your designer should test your site before it is completed. Will it look good in Internet Explorer as well as Netscape browsers? What screen resolutions can it be viewed in? It should be able to be viewed in all resolutions. Without extensive testing, your site may not look good to a large number of your customers.

11. Ongoing Support - support means that you know you can contact them to get a prompt and courteous answer to any question or concern you may have. Can designer grow with your web site? You may want to make additions or changes to your site in future especially if your business is expanding. Does your designer have other ideas for driving traffic to your site (since this is lifeblood of a successful web site)?

If you follow these 11 steps in choosing a web designer, you can then be reassured of great design and support that will contribute to ongoing success of your business.