Some Advice Please and Hello...

Hi Folks,

Firstly, I'd like to say hello and introduce myself. My name is Gareth and I am a freelance web designer and developer based in Cumbria.

I'm currently in the process of redesigning and developing my online portfolio, which will be a major point of contact for potential clients.

I've been in the industry professionally for about 4 years, and working with the web on and off for around 15 years.

My portfolio will be responsive, i.e. it will adapt to various devices and resolutions, showing the most important and appropriate content.

Over recent months I've been tackling projects using a new approach which involves mobile/content first. So the key here is to develop a detailed content strategy plan to then design and develop the website around. As part of the content strategy development, I am performing some market research if you will, to guage businesses opinions and gather information on how individuals and companies go about finding and selecting web designers and developers for their business projects.

The key here is to gather as much information as possible as to what people are looking for in this area. What the most important aspects are, and to find out their thought processes and methods when selecting creatives and developers.

Essentially, what do people percieve as important on a portfolio or company website when searching for contractors. I'd like to cut out the fluff and provide my users and potential clients with useful, targeted information so they can see exactly what I'm about and get to the important information straight away.

I've put some questions together below if any of you guys would be so kind as to answer them for me. Some may be relevant and some may not. That's what I'm here to guage. Thanks again in advance guys.

1. When looking for designers and developers, do you favour freelancers or agencies? Why?
2. When arriving at a contractors website, what would you consider to be the most important information that you would like to have access to straight away?
3. When contacting a contractor would you prefer to use email, fill in a small form, fill in a detailed project brief or contact them directly by telephone, or a combination?
4. When deciding whether or not a specific contractor would be right for your project, would you like to see a list of skills that they have, a description of what they specialise in, a description of how they can help your business or a combination?
5. Is it important that a freelancer doesn't use jargon or technical terms? Or would it be wise to use a combination for those that do require more detail?
6. Is it important that you get a sense of the persons personality, through the use of humour, interests and unrelated activities?
7. Concerning contact forms, locations and contact details. Would you prefer these to be on the home page or on a contact page, or both?
8. What would you consider to be the most important when viewing a portfolio of past work, descriptions/case studies of the projects, images, or both?
9. Do you consider testimonials to be important?
10. Would you read articles from the persons blog to gauge whether or not they are an autrhority on their subject, or is this not something that you would consider as important? Do you expect to see a blog?
11. Is having the ability to connect with these individuals socially (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) important to you?
12. Would you like an idea of overall costs? Most freelancers have a standard pricing model, would this be useful to you and how important is this?

I hope I've made myself as clear as possible, and I'd like to thank everyone in advance for their contributions.

Regards

Gareth

Wow Gareth... that has to be the longest introduction I have seen on this site.. I have no ultimate need for a web review but my previous company I was entrusted with appointing someone outside the company to 'upgrade our website' so I will happily answer your questions

1, Freelancers generally have a smaller portfolio of clients and so you would get a better service at the beginning of the project. The lack of support after the project has been initially completed was a concern and so we went for a more expensive option via an Agency.
2. Contact Details!!!
3. Mixture, I work with Businesses face2face and so the initial contact is generally by email/phone.
4. Testimonials that are legitimate are always the biggest gauge, good or bad comments would need to be shown to make it realistic, like Trip Advisor
5. Not relevant as a working professional website should portray this to all potential customers.
6. Both
7. A transparent view of work including budgets/costs and timescales
8. Yes very important as per no 4 above.
9. Blogs or Newsletters are a nice way to keep the content fresh and up to date
10. Not with the contractors as should be professional and not personal level anyway.
11. Standard costings and tailored costings are generally two different things... we have a standard admin fee of £50 but this has no baring on the cost of the insurance product.

Not sure if this is going to be of any use but as I was the first to respond I am quite proud of my answers.

Thanks

__________________
Steve Jones
Bluefin Insurance Group
t : 07584 489546
steve.jones@bluefingroup.co.uk

Hi Steve,

LOL, yes it is quite a biggy.

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions, I really do appreciate your input here.

I think you may have missed a question or slightly matched the answers to the wrong questions somewhere, though your answers are valuable to me.

Thanks again Steve, I really appreciate it.

Regards

Gareth

Welcome Gareth, that's certainly an introduction, though in the guise of seeking info

Anyway, I look forward to seeing the responses, and interesting to see Steve's. I believe that for many of your questions there is no right or wrong answer. Some people will prefer one thing and others will prefer something else. One thing that everybody should agree on (related to Q.7) is the importance to have contact/location details easily accessible.

Hope to hear more from you over the coming months.

__________________
Web: mrb design
Twitter: mrbdesign

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Welcome aboard Gareth

Moved you over to the intro forum, although you obviously have quite a question there!

Just to answer a few of your points, developer wise, we go for long term commitment and relationship, so trust, gut feel and results works for us.

Agency means expensive with fancy offices and staff to pay for, so prefer small biz or freelancers.

Costings is easy, everyone has an hourly/daily rate, or if its a big job then we'll negotiate a fixed price job once we have both agreed a project plan and timeline.

But I suppose it depends on your market, either aiming for the cheapy 3 page sites and turn them out like a sausage factory, or build up a client list of happy bigger customers who regularly come back for more.

We've had our main Dev now for 5 years, he handles all of our major project work. We have mutual trust and respect, and in business that's priceless.

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cheers Steve
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I prefer freelancer with experience rather than agency. But,I try to make sure the freelancer is connected enough to outsource the things he cant do best.As far as marketing yourself is concerned,I will say 3 things
1)Portfolio
2)Portfolio
3)Portfolio

Do not write adjectives.Impress them with your work by giving examples.
Make sure your website stands out in crowd. Try to get footer credits from your clients . Offer free maintenance in return for link.
Write a brief case study.
Best of luck.