Unless you are one of the lucky affiliate marketers who have come from a web design background, chances are you’ll have to find someone to build a website for you at one point or another. Hopefully, you know someone who can help you out…or at least know someone who knows someone. But if you don’t have any contacts, you’ll be forced to find a designer on your own…a daunting task.

While the type of design you personally like a matter of taste, there are some signs that the web designer you are considering for your next job is not the right choice. These signs are outlined by David Walsh from DZone’s post, 9 Signs You Shouldn’t Hire THAT Web Guy.

My three favorite things to avoid from the list are:

1. He’s a FrontPage expert
2. He’ll submit your website to [inflated number here] search engines
3. He can make you a great splash page Flash animation

There three points resonated with me since I see many affiliate sites that are built on FrontPage (often looking amateurish and are not SEO friendly), are excited that their site will be submitted to search engines (a service that doesn’t really do anything) and have a killer Flash intro on them (a classic conversion killer).

Personally, if I was hiring a web designer, I would first make sure that they have a strong portfolio of sites they have built that are for a similar purpose as yours (lead generation, ecommerce, etc.). Next, I would compare their designs to the designs of the top companies in your industry…does their work look up to snuff? Finally, I’d ask for referrals, a lot of them. If they are any good, they’ll be able to provide them to you with no problem. If they say they can’t give you any, look elsewhere.

There are a number of talented freelance designers out there, so don’t settle. Your affiliate websites are an investment - they are going to cost you some money to build - so do your homework on the front end and make sure you get what you paid for. A well designed affiliate site can pay for itself with increased conversion alone, and a poorly designed site can be an insurmountable obstacle to your affiliate success.

Make sure you read the other six tips in David’s post. And if you have any designer tips of your own, or want to share good resources for finding freelance designers, leave a comment!

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