Given the huge role that the internet plays in our lives, all dentists should hopefully have realised by now that their dental practice needs to have its own website. Now assuming that your skills and experience relate to dental matters rather than web design, it is a safe bet that you are going to have to hire someone to build you that website.
That then brings us to the question of where to find a reputable web designer, and it is a process that needs to be done with care. Bear in mind your website is the first thing people who find you online are going to see, so you want that first impression to be a good one.
The first place many people start their search for a website designer and developer is to ask those that they know such as friends, family, and business associates. As a dentist, you could even ask those patients whom you know have websites themselves.
Word of mouth recommendations are a great way to discover the experience the person who tells you about a website designer had when they hired them. However, do not just rely on their word. Check out the website that was built for them, and if you have can, ascertain the name of the web designer’s own website, and visit it to see if there are reviews and references.
If you have no first-hand recommendations, then your first place to look is online. The simplest is to type in searches in Google and see what results show up. Google should be showing local results but bear in mind it is not always the case that someone who designs a website has to operate locally.
In fact, you will find that the vast majority of website designers who build websites for clients, do not even live in the same country as their clients. That being said, if you would prefer to work with a local web developer, then simply add the name of your town or city to the search.
What you should see near the top of the results is a section that you can click and see more information about these businesses. Most importantly, it should include reviews from previous clients, and many of them will have some detailed information about how good, or bad, a job a web designer did.
Another online source of web designers is freelance websites such as Upwork. Here you have freelancers who offer a multitude of different services, and that includes web design. The people who work through freelancer websites rely heavily on review and success score systems to attract clients, so it will be clear to you who are the designers on there with an excellent track record of work.
What you can do on freelance websites is post what work you need, and within that post, you can be extremely specific about what you need to be done. Once you post your job, what you will find is that freelancers with the relevant skills will bid for the work.
What this does is allow you to check through each freelancer’s track record, including their client reviews and their portfolio. You will also be able to compare what each web designer is quoting in terms of what you pay them. This is not to say you should choose the lowest quote, but you can at least ensure that you employ a web designer whose fee is within your budget.
