Having a website designed can turn into a costly exercise that may or may not be worthwhile in terms of effort and expenditure. Before you embark on the venture, and even before you select a web designer think about your business and what it actually wants to accomplish from a website. Once you have some answers to this question it will give you a good indication what kind of designer (if any) you could do with and a basic overview with which to get going.
Do you merelt want to have your business information listed on the internet so that clients who already know about you can find basic information such as your telephone number or your opening times? If this is all you really want, because your business is say for example a hairdressers shop on a high street you will probably find that your requirements are already catered for by the many business listings that are now on the web.
Do you want to provide an offering for existing clients, providing them with information, backing and service once they have already found you via another way. In this case your site may need to be technically very strong, easy to bring up to date but will require no Online Marketing to emphasise it to the search engines.
You may wish to sell goods online, having a product which can be bought without been seen as it is standard, for example books or cds. If this is the case then investment in a website that can deal quickly and easily with payments is essential, the site will need to have a good Search Engine Placement so that a large number of searchers are alerted to the products but the detail of the things themselves may be negligible.
If your product is a niche one, for example say you dealt in antique silver tea pots, you may find that there is very little need for any search engine optimization as there are so few competitors for your items on line. You may find that you for that reason achieve a good enough Search Engine Placement position without spending on the services of a Search Engine Optimization Company. People looking for these niche items are willing to browse through a few more search engine results pages than they would for an every day item. However if you expect to get business from the site you will have to think very carefully about how you lay out information about your items, you will probably need access to a designer who gives a cost effective ongoing service to keep the goods updated and also a decent photographer as images will be vital.
Try to think about which of these examples would best match your business and then choose your designer on that basis, if you still want one!