Having a website designed for you is perhaps one of the most important decisions you'll make in your on-line business. Whether you run an off line business in New Orleans or you have an idea for an on-line business, choosing a web designer will be critical to your success.

There are several things to think about when considering a New Orleans Web Designer to develop your web site.

Have at least three goals for your new online business. Remember, whatever you market or sell off-line can possibly translate to an on-line venture. Consider the following goals as examples

1. Will your site be used for lead generation, e.g. set a goal to acquire x number of new potential clients, etc.?
2. Will you sell a physical product requiring e-commerce and shipping?
3. Will you sell an electronic product requiring on-line fulfillment?
4. Will you do on-line consultation, coaching, or training?

All of these things are very possible and absolutely feasible with the right New Orleans Website Designer. If you interview web designers who are unwilling to explore these options with you and unable to show you what they've done in these areas, reconsider their services.

It's just a matter of brainstorming with a knowledgeable expert who can help you monetize your idea. We'll talk more about monetizing in another hub page.

1. You must think of your on-line website as more than just a website. You must think of your website as the beginning and hub of a wide reaching WEB PRESENCE that you will create. You will create this through the use of social media and rich media.

In today's on-line world, having a website just isn't enough. Today, at least 50% of the on-line content produced is video for the web. And search engines like Google and Yahoo love it!!! The search engines actually rank video and sites with video hire than a website with just text. We'll talk more about that in another hub.

If your New Orleans Website Designer has no idea what social media is and how to get video easily onto the web across video sharing sites, run the other way.

Like most service based industries, web designers rely on referrals as a significant part of their business. You may get a good feeling about a potential web designer based on a recommendation, but take the time to interview at least 3 web designers before making a decision.

Like interviewing a contractor to work on your house, you must look at your website in the same fashion. Your relationship with your web designer will be intimate and could last quite a while, depending on who will be responsible for maintaining your web site and actively building your web presence.

Decide straight away if you want to be involved in maitaining your website. And make it clear upfront.

The "webmaster" relationship can be challenging if your web designer becomes unresponsive or unattentive while dealing with other clients. And, let's face it. Web designers make more money with new site design and not maintenance.

Discuss upfront with your New Orleans Website Designer how you will be trained to maintain your site or how a representative of your company or organization can participate in the process.

There's no reason you can't have access to both your site and your web server, so again, if your web designer becomes secretive or unwilling to share this information with you, you probably shouldn't work with him or her.

Here's the bottom line....No traffic, no potential clients. No clients, no revenue.

Decide to work with someone with a proven track record for helping clients get track to their website. But how do you validate this

One possilbe tool is the Alexa Tool bar. Alexa is a fairly accurate representation of a website's traffic and history. Alexa can be added to your toolbar in most versions of Firefox and Explorer (except Windows Vista -Explorer 7). Download the toolbar here. And remember, the numbers don't lie.

A beautiful website does nothing for you, your products, and services, if you can't generate any traffic to your site. Think of it this way, if you were to open a store front, it would be unacceptable to have no customers visit your store. Location. Location. Location. Your on-line presence works almost the same way. However, it's not about location, it's about keywords. I'll be doing a hubpage on keyword selection soon and will add a link for your reference.

The term SEO should be as common as water to your potential New Orleans Web Designer. If it's not in their immediate conversation, than again...run the other way.

Along with using rich media ans social media, SEO or Search Engine Optimization will be the life blood of your site and the key to attaining the maximum amount of traffic it can handle.

Spend some time figuring out with the help of your New Orleans Web Designer, who your audience is. What are they actually looking for on-line, not just what you sell or market.

It's important to know where you will be getting traffic from and what people are actively looking for on the web. There are several free tools and paid tools to help you do this. Your web designer should be versed in keyword research or else..

You guessed it...run the other way.