I'm a busy busines owner and have a great idea for a web site.  It's
been nothing but frustrating to find someone I can hook up to to build
what I'm looking for.  Is there a list of the "top ten or top twenty"
questions or "do's and don'ts" someone needs to know to make sure I'm
working with a company that's competent and can get the job done to my
satisfaction?

I am a web designer,
what I think is important for a customer to know is:
- will the company design the website only or also provide host
solutions, or at least help you setting up your website dependin on
your competency level. If you don;t know anything about website
design/hosting, you don't want the guys to design your website but
have to pay extra to have it actually running on the web
- the most recurrent problem with web design is the update process.
customers don;t want to pay extra for updating, but providers won t
offer the update for free. If you plan on making regular updates, ask
for a portal kind of website that can be updated with only 'office
like' skills. Or at least ask for some training on how to make small
updates
- will the website be completely static (set of x html pages like a
powerpoint presentation) or will you have some kind of login page,
data driven website. In that case you will run a database that will
likely need some maintenance now and then. how much would the
maintenance cost
- for the graphics, pictures... will u have to provide them with your
pictures, will you have to pay extra for each pic they use
(royaltees...)
- how flexible are they. will they talk regularly with you on what you
really want or provide some kind of template
- what other websites have they designed 

...

Thank you 

I'm in the learning curve and I really appreciate you taking time out
of your schdule to give me some pointers.

Another thing you'll want is a company that knows how to optimize your
website to obtain high search engine rankings. (SEO)

You can have the best designed and hosted site on the planet, but you
need lots of qualified traffic in order to make it successful.

I've been a web designer for over 10 years and that is the real secret
to successful websites in my opinion.

Of course, a great site with great content is at the core of the whole web thing.

--Steve

Thank you for your comments Steve

all of these pointers are all helping a whole bunch

bigtw-ga

Hi

You can get pretty good knowledge on this issues from following website links;

1. http://www.grantasticdesigns.com/websitedesignfaqs.html
2. http://www.neubreed.com.au/FAQs/web_design_FAQs.php
3. http://www.brendonmorris.com/packages.html
4. http://www.10e20webdesign.com/website_design_frequently_asked_questions.htm
5. http://www.hooverwebdesign.com/faq.html
6. http://www.1-stop-web.com/faq.shtml

Thanks looking for your response.

--hnr

hnr...

thank you: I'll look at those links and let you know my thoughts

bigtw-ga

Good luck. Don't trust anyone. It takes a lot of manual work that most
seo's won't do, they want to automate everything. It takes me 1 hour
just to wright the meta tags and first text paragraph to 4 url's. This
must be done by hand for each url of your website, not just the
homepage. You must name the url's with important keywords, like
>www.bostonbuick.com/buick-lesabre-boston.htm<.
This is step one. Anyone searching for a buick lesabre in boston will
find you if step 2,3,4 are done right. Look how often I used and
repeated the keywords  for buick lesabre boston in the url. The title
is more important than keywords in meta tags and the content
description is as important as the title. The first paragragh of your
text must use keywords in the url, title and description or forget
high ranking. This is not to mention web design. Most of them know
little of SEO. Suggest you start reading up if it's your business and
you want to make money. Use this info to test the knowledge of anyone
you hire.

beentherebefore-ga, Thank you! for your pointers it will be helpful for sure.

bigtw-ga