Website designers are a dime-a-dozen, ranging from expensive $150/hour designers to cheap $5/hour designers based out of India.
Virtually anyone can take a class or two and call themselves a designer. There’s no required professional certification. There’s no nationally recognized body that issues an official “seal of approval”. This makes finding and hiring a good designer very difficult.
Worse, once hired website designers can be notoriously arrogant. (One such $150/hour designer I know takes great pride in burning his client’s money while he spends precious time making unnoticeable changes to font alignments all in the name of “good design”…)
Website designers can also be downright rude. (Another designer I know hates to receive client input and refuses to play well with other folks their client has selected for other tasks.)
But the biggest problem we’ve experienced with website designers is nearly all of them focus on the graphic elements that comprise a site without thinking about the compliance needs of their customer.
The prettiest, most dynamic site on the planet can get the website owner into a ton of hot warter if it is not properly secured and doesn’t follow best practices for work-flow.
As states create ever tightening rules on privacy protection, E&O carriers have ratcheted down on elements a website can contain. Have a very basic contact us form? Very soon it will have to be SSL encrypted. (This is already happening!)
But even form security is not enough. If you are collecting any kind of personal, identifiable data about your customers, you need to store that data in a way that protects it from external access, etc. (That’s why liftDEMAND is launching a new secure form infrastructure that encrypts data directly at the database level…)
Oh – and if you are sending form data “in the open” via Email? Huge mistake! Email, by its nature, is not secure. In the past, we’ve not allowed information to be sent via Email for this very reason. However, our new form system is introducing a secure, compliant methodology to transport secure form information without triggering any possible compliance issues.
Do most website designers take any of these things into consideration? Absolutely not!
So the next time you have a designer offer to help you create a better website than you have right now – take a moment to ask the following questions:
[icon icon=”ok-sign” size=”” spin=”” pull=”” border=”” color=”green”] Do they specialize in financial services?
[icon icon=”ok-sign” size=”” spin=”” pull=”” border=”” color=”green”] Do they offer customized secure and compliant solutions?
[icon icon=”ok-sign” size=”” spin=”” pull=”” border=”” color=”green”] Do they utilize best of breed secure and compliant datacenters?
[icon icon=”ok-sign” size=”” spin=”” pull=”” border=”” color=”green”] Are they digital marketing specialists with a deep understanding of brand targeting, Email marketing, telesales, etc?
Chances are the answer will be “no” to one or more of these questions.
Meanwhile, if you are thinking about making some design changes – look no further than liftDEMAND. We have the expertise. We have the technology. We have the partners. And most important – we understand what you face on a day-by-day basis.
Building and maintaining a successful practice is difficult enough. The last thing you need to face is website and digital marketing distractions. That’s why our Full Service and Bespoke programs are so powerful because they free you to focus on building your business while we do the heavy lifting for you.
