How-to Guides - IT & Internet

Tips for hiring Information Technology professionals

Hiring an ICT professional can be a daunting task, full of uncertainties. It can also be an overly expensive process without some basic knowledge.

This section covers a range of professional services:

• Web Designer
• Social Media Consultant
• Web Host Company (refer to the article on Website Ownership)

Hiring a web designer

Whether you are upgrading your existing website or looking at creating a new website, there are a number of cost and implementation decisions that your organisation needs to make:

• Your site should be built in a Content Management System (CMS) that will allow you to make your own edits and minor updates. Many web designers use custom systems that only result in you the customer not being able to leave your web host company.
• A website should be built in a popular CMS that is widely supported all around the world. These include WordPress, Drupal, OScommerce, Typo 3, Mambo, PostNuke etc. All of these CMS packages are free and open source. They are widely supported by the respectable web host industry and are normally included in hosting packages.
• The latest trend on the internet is social media or web 2.0 services such as Facebook, Twitter and Blogs etc. Whether your organisation uses these at the moment or has no immediate plans to use such services, your site should be compatible and ready to install such services at a click of a few buttons.
• Having an online presence such as a website is only the first stage to having an online presence. Every website that is built needs to be optimised for search engines and marketed to the public. Without this your site may not be found on the Internet or only attract your regular visitors. Your web designer should offer this service as part of their service. If your web designer has no knowledge of search engine optimisation, analytics and marketing then there is a great risk that your website will be flawed in its intent to attract visitors.
• You need to know who is visiting your website and how they are finding you. Without this basic knowledge how do you know if your web site is reliable or even if anyone rather than yourself is visiting it? If your designer gives you statistics make sure they are actual visitors and not hits.

Hits vs. Visits

Hits are a record of search engines and other computer software finding your site and not human beings. Hits are often a much larger number than actual visitors. It would not be uncommon to have 1000 hits and 3 visitors. A Visitor is a real human being that has visited your site. Often a visitor will visit your site a number of times. A visitors first visit is recorded as a “Unique Visitor”.

Your site could have 300 Unique visitors and 500 visits. This equates to your site received 300 different people who viewed your site and some of those visitors returned up to 200 times. Your analytics software will provide a more detailed analysis of your own statistics.

Templates and Content Management Systems

Using a Content Management System and templates will heavily reduce your costs. For example, if you use WordPress.com you can search for a theme that you like then ask a web developer to install it for you and make modifications to suit your organisation. As a result, you could potentially only pay for 2-10 hours work as opposed to contracting a developer to start from scratch and pay for 15-60 hours work.

Talk to a number of designers to find the best person

Competent web designers compete in such an over-populated market that you no longer have to pay hundreds of dollars an hour for a competent designer. There are also a great deal of new web designers who either have little experience or no concept of meeting organisational and business requirements. Hence, your organisation should seek a designer with a portfolio of previous work. Use the contact information on the website in the portfolio or seek permission from the designer to talk to some of the previous clients.

Be aware of any designer that insists upon adding their company name and link to the bottom of your site. This is only free advertising for the designer and has no benefits for your organisation. If the designer wants to charge you more for removing their link then you should consider a new designer.

Once you have a designer in mind, do some online research about the individual or the company. Be sure to use Twitter, Facebook and Google Blog search as well as conventional search engines. You will be surprised at what unedited and uncontrolled comments previous clients make online about their web designers - you may find complaints and be able to speak directly with the complainant or you may find some great testimonials that were never added to the designers web site.

Save money

Plan exactly what you want in your website and have a rough idea of what you want it to look like and how it should function. If your choice of colours will cause any issues, your web designer will point it out to you. Otherwise asking your designer to decide on colours and images etc can be one of the most costly parts of having a website designed. The more information that you want on the site that is electronic, the cheaper it will be for it to be added to the site.

Drawing out a plan on how you envisage your site to look will reduce time and costs but will also give your developer a visual idea of what you want.

Remember:

• Decide on the purpose of your website and what message you want it to portray to your audience.
• Decide in advance if you want to incorporate adverts and other online advertising.
• Ensure there is no software or services used on your site that require a licence to use.
• Search the web for images that you can use free of charge. See licensing guide.
• Ensure the site is built in a common Content Management System
• Agree on small milestones and part payments upon completion of milestones. If your designer proves to be incompetent or takes longer than what they originally quoted, you will have more negotiation options or even the option to seek another designer to complete the remaining tasks.
• Your web designer is not a web hosting expert. They will possibly sub-contract this service to someone else. If your site is built in a popular Content Management System then you will easily be able to backup and transfer your site to another host.

Checklist of minimum proven skills of your web designer:

• Web design skills
• Graphic Arts
• Search Engine Optimisation
• Content Management Systems
• Site analytics
• Competent written English language skills (or competent written skills in your site's language)
• Social media design and implementation.

Hiring a social media consultant

Many organisations with an online presence such as a website and email address know that they need to embrace the new services of the web, whether it is now or in the near future. These new services are often called web 2.0 or social media and include services such as Facebook, Blogs, YouTube, Podcasts, Twitter and MySpace.

When the web was first introduced to mainstream New Zealand there were many consultants and start-up businesses who claimed to be experts in the area of the web. This occurred because there was no standardised system of certification and the majority of the population had little knowledge of the web. Basically anyone who possessed a little more knowledge than the average user could claim to be an expert.

Although there are still no direct certifications in today's technological world, there are enough to identify a competent web designer, graphic artist or server technician. For many of the more senior positions, experience and a portfolio are the only certain ways to prove a person's ability. New roles have also emerged as industry standards redefine the different roles.

Still, the web 2.0 has no formal certification for consultants. There are several post-graduate opportunities to study online at various universities but these courses are mainly theory-based and have little to do with specific business cases.

Your organisation may want to look at social media as part of its communication and or marketing plan as an option to reduce costs or gain free publicity for your organisation.

Increasingly, there are a number of self-professed social media experts advertising themselves to the New Zealand community or providing free advice, some of which can be misleading or detrimental to your organisation.

If your organisation is contemplating hiring a social media consultant here are some key considerations:

• It is not uncommon for a consultant or social media organisation to have extensively marketed themselves in social media, giving the impression that they are a successful social media organisation. You should ask to speak to past clients and perhaps look at some of their previous work. It is not uncommon for these organisations to have no clients. If your community group will be their first client, you should try to seek sponsorship in return for a written testimony and to act as a referee. This way you both gain an advantage.
• If your consultant or organisation only has a few clients or more international clients, don’t be alarmed. Social media is such a new phenomenon in New Zealand that many consultants could legitimately have a small client base of New Zealand organisations and a larger international client base, especially of Australia organisations.
• Ask your consultant if he/she will create a social media presence for you or first create a strategy that involves input from your organisation, in alignment with your organisation's direction and strategies. If the consultant only wants to create an online presence for you, then you should experiment with creating an online presence yourself using the information in these How-to Guides as a base.
• If your consultant does not ask who your target audience is and why your organisation wants a social media presence then you should be concerned. The consultant is possibly only able to offer you an online presence with no real value.
• Does your consultant have any marketing, communication or business skill sets to compliment his/her social media services? The ability to create a social media presence is only part of the overall success of social media. Experience in communications, organisational planning and marketing are all required.
• As with the early start-up companies that arose and disappeared with the introduction of the web in New Zealand. Many companies were threatened when their customers became knowledgeable about the web and wanted to know how to perform basic maintenance etc. Your social media consultant should offer training to your organisation as part of the social media package and suggest where and how your organisation can obtain the latest news. Their web site, tweets and Fan Page should be the first option of diagnosed social media news. This will also suggest that your consultant is knowledgeable in his/her area and has the clients' best interests in mind.
• Does your consultant have a background in the web or have they just become a social media consultant when social media became popular? If they have little web experience then you should be cautious. Without extensive web experience and knowledge your consultant is probably unable to best advise you on the many social media issues.
• Does your consultant use all of the social media services that he/she professes to be an expert of? If not, why not?
• Is your web host, web designer, technical person telling you not to use social media? Independently consider why and what advantages they may have if your organisation does not utilise social media. Social media is a direct threat to many web design organisations as social media can have an impact on their revenues. These same organisations also have a lack of understanding of social media therefore may deter you from using social media.

For more basic information on creating a social networking presence see the Social Networking How-to Guide