Where to find high quality (affordable) web designers?
-
Hi everyone,
I am looking for find high quality web designers that are affordable. I am open to many options.
There are several things I have looked into.
1. I have looked for designers via CSS galleries, but I don't really know how to get in touch with designers or find them. Rand recently talked about this in a webinar, but if anyone has specific insights on how to find people this way, please let me know.
2. I have also looked into website design contests from sites such as:
I haven't used these services and I was wondering if anyone has experience with design contests.
3. I have looked into the option of hiring a freelancer on oDesk or a similar freelancer site. I don't really know the cost, how to find a good designer, how to avoid inexperienced but cheap designers and all the other such roadblocks that come along with freelancers.
If anyone could provide insight into this, it would be greatly appreciated.
-
Spec work is terrible and undervalues the industry. I say you get what you pay for. http://www.no-spec.com/
-
I think it's about what you want to get and for how much.
It all starts from there.
For example:
budged : 1k - for a 8-10 page website with no complex features you should be able to find good designers.
budged : 300 - for a 8-10 page website with no complex features you should be able to find poor designers that could still do the job.
It's also about luck to find a quality and reliable designer. (depends on background, location, etc)
Hope it helps.
-
Around $500 for now. The project I am working on is a family one so I didn't charge them nearly as much as I normally would.
-
I've always had a great experience with 99designs but you want to make sure you give a lot of requirements and inspiration if you want to get exactly what your looking for. I've only used them for logo work though so i can't give much feedback for other types of projects. What are your price points?
-
Probably best to say where you are based, then get personal recommendations from that area and meet the designer in person.
I can give you great designers in London and I know Luke Jones is a great UK based designer and also contributes to SEOmoz a lot, so maybe get hold of him via DM www.seomoz.org/users/profile/139920
You could try here as well http://www.seomoz.org/marketplace/resumes/service/2 <- people who have tagged themselves with design (altho its a bit spammy)
-
Any insight on the design contests? They seem interesting.
-
Very good points, I will take everything you said into consideration when going into this web development project.
-
Email sent
-
I have had some experience doing this, like when shooting a video, I find an intern at a local TV station who has access to nice equipment and have them shoot some video for me, it worked out great!
I like the reminder!
-
This is so true and what makes this designer recruitment process even harder. Finding that balance and even someone that is near my area that is good.
-
One quick opinion:
We have used a number of developers from eLance.com and have always been satisfied. As with any design project, the more information you are able to provide (in terms of what you want), the happier you will be with the finished product. Most designers will have a portfolio with samples of their previous work.
Prices will vary depending on the scope of the project, time frame, and how experienced/qualified the designer. You can get an idea of what people are paying for different projects by searching the job listings that other people have posted, and how much they are offering.
In our experience, eLance and similar sites are best when you know exactly what you want and the scope of the work is relatively small. Often times those developers are in different parts of the world and communication can be difficult (time zones, language barriers). For large, detail-intense projects, you might do better to find someone local or at least within the U.S. It might end up costing a bit more, but like Steve mentioned "you get what you pay for" and if you end up with a website that you don't like, the money you saved won't matter.
-
email me!
I have an intensive design background, but am fully aware of and skilled in SEO and SEM.
-
You could always check for colleges around your location that offer interns/co-ops for college credit. Normally there is good design talent with relatively affordable prices.
-
High quality and affordable don't always go hand in hand. The whole thing of "You get what you pay for" is usually the case so I'd be careful if it's too cheap. Even if the designs are awesome, maybe their customer service is bad.
Anyway, I'd get a real live person who you can meet with if I were you, instead of a random off a website that you only deal with via email. Design is way too subjective to not have face-to-face meetings in my opinion.
I know some great web designers but they're here in the UK, and not so cheap... but then if they were cheap maybe they wouldn't be so great
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Core Web Vitals hit Mobile Rankings
Hey all, Ever since Google announced "Core Web Vitals" are mobile rankings have nose-dived. At first, I thought it was optimisation changes to the page titles we had made which might still be part of the issue. However, Desktop rankings actuallyy increased for the same pages where mobile decreased. There is the plan to introduce a new ranking signal into the Google algorithm called the "core web vitals: and this was discussed around late May. even though it's supposed to get fully indexed into a ranking signal later this year or early next; I think Google continuously test and release this items before any official release. If you weren't aware, there is a section in Google Webmaster Tools related to "core web visits", which looks at:1. Loading2. Interactivity3. Visual StabilityThis overlays some of the other basic requirements of a good website and mobile experience. Taking a look at our Google Search Console, it appears to be the following:1. Mobile- 1,006 poor URLs, 100URLs need improvement and 475 good URLs.2. desktop- 0 poor URLs, 379 need improvements and 1,200 good URLsSOURCE: https://search.google.com/search-console/core-web-vitals?resource_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.griffith.ie%2FIn the report, we can see two distinct issues with the mobile pages:CLS Issue: more than 0.25 (mobile)- 1,006 casesLCP issue: longer than 4secs (mobile) - 348 case_CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)This is a developer issue, and needs fixing. It's basically when a mobile screen jumps for the user. It is explained in this article: https://web.dev/cls/Seems to be an issue with all pages. **LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)_**Again, another developer fix that needs to be implemented. It's connected to page speed, and can be viewed here: https://web.dev/lcp/Looking at GCS, it looks like the blog content is mostly to blame.It's worth fixing these issues and again looking at the other items on page speed score tests:1. Leverage browser caching- https://gtmetrix.com/reports/griffith.ie/rBtvUC0F2. https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=griffith.ie- mobile score for home page is 16/100, https://www.griffith.ie/people/thamil-venthan-ananthavinayagan is 15/100I think here is the biggest indicator of the issue at hand. Has anybody else noticed their mobile rankings go down and desktop stay the same of increase.Kind regards,
Web Design | | robhough909
Rob0 -
Looking for a new Web Developer and Graphic Designer - Where to look? Job Description in Post
Hi All, I know I can go to Guru.com, etc. but is there a place here that I can look for a web dev that can help with my tasks? I have a good bit of work to offer them and my current web dev who has been a great asset has suffered from health problems and it has affected his output, so I'm sad to say I need to look for someone that can help me get caught back up. If anyone has any suggestions on someone that is a knowledgeable web developer that has access to their own graphic designer (or can do graphic design themselves as well) please let me know. I am not opposed at all to hire a separate graphic designer to send work over to the web developer. SOMEONE WITH SEO EXPERIENCE WOULD BE VERY HELPFUL AS WELL AS MY CURRENT WEB DEVELOPER HAD IT AS WELL. The current projects going on are: Changing the header graphics on the home page to meet compliance. Constantly adding and editing my websites with small tweaks almost daily. Creating PDF's with content we give and uploading them as well as images to the sites. Keeping in mind that editing the site can affect responsiveness and we have to make sure our logo is a certain size compared to other metrics, etc. Creating web banners, tile ads, etc. Creating facebook main photo for biz page. I will be happy to share any info via PM or if anyone can point me in the right direction in finding someone that would be awesome! Thanks!
Web Design | | Veebs1 -
Avg Page Load Time Increase After Responsive Web Design
The Avg. Page Load Time has been steadily increasing after our website went responsive. What could have cause this?
Web Design | | JMSCC1 -
Javascript with Responsive Web Design
The company I work for are looking to go responsive which is high up the list on our development plans. Further on down the development plan they want to add more javascript into the website. Is this recommended as we plan to go responsive ?
Web Design | | jmurphy70 -
Re-designing a homepage
Hi all, Of those who've done it or have valuable advice to impart, what are the things to look out for when re-designing a homepage? In the same breath, what are vital considerations and elements to include/features to bear in mind when 'prettying up' a primary landing page as a homepage essentially serves as? UX fundamentals? Thanks folks
Web Design | | Martin_S0 -
How to bounce back after a new url & new site design?
About a month ago, my company changed domains (from the long-established www.imageworksstudio.com to the new www.imageworkscreative.com) and also did a complete overhaul of our site. We tried to do everything necessary to keep Google happy as we went through this change, but we've suffered a drastic loss of both rankings and traffic. I know that can happen as a result of a redesign AND as a result of a new domain, but I'm wondering how long you would expect it to take before we bounced back and also, what can we do in the meantime to improve?
Web Design | | ScottImageWorks0 -
How to find internal pages linking to a URL?
Hey, I had an issue where a client found a bad link on their site then I went to fix it and couldn't figure out where on earth it was. I tried using different software which would find the link, but not tell me where it was linked from. I asked for some help from someone in my office and they found it in about 15 seconds. Their strategy was "think like a client - just click everywhere". Is there a way to quickly find what URLs are pointing to a specific URL? Cheers
Web Design | | renegadeempire0 -
How do I optimize a site designed to be one scrolling page of content?
Our website uses section ID's as its navigation so all the content is on one page. When you click About Us, the page scrolls down to About Us. Products, the page scrolls to Products section, and etc. I am getting crawl errors for meta descriptions but will this go away once the main domain has this info? We just added the meta keywords and description to the header and since the navigation sections use the same page, I assume it will correct the errors. Any other advice on optimizing for site designs like ours would be great. www.theicecubekit.com is the site. Thanks,
Web Design | | bangbang
Chris0