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When you come across a website that catches your fancy and you’d like your own built by a designer, you write to the designer, seeking their services for the same. But most of the time, a blanket email asking for the designer’s prices will evoke a great deal of writing back and forth. What you need to do is write an RFP – a Request for Proposal. In response to the RFP, the designer gives you, the prospective client, a bid with information about the designer, their areas of expertise, site referrals and professional recommendations and other related information that not only answers most of the questions you might have about a possible business collaboration, but also cuts unnecessary communication, and thereby time, by half.

So what do you include in your RFP to the designer? We’ve made it simple for you as below:

Introduction
Introduce yourself, and your business. Mention how you came across the site and what about it appealed to you. Give some background information to your business, what you hope to achieve by launching a website, a brief description of the project for the designer that you have in mind and preferably, budgetary allowances for the project, so needless negotiations and disappointments are avoided.

Objectives
Make sure you include the following information in your RFP

• What do you want your website to accomplish?
• Who is your target audience?
• Is it a stand alone business outfit or is it an extension of your traditional business?
• What are likely to be some regular features on the website, like product launches, a newsletter, a customary loyalty program, etc., that you’d like accommodated into the design?
• Do you foresee a requirement for a community feature like a message board or a related feature to encourage user generated content?
• Do you plan to capture information from your users for profiling purposes/customer service management?
• Will the site require frequent updates? The designer can suggest the best CMS option, to make managing your site easier.

Site Requirements
Do you have a barebones structure of the site ready or even an idea? If not, do a little digging and come up with suitable template suggestions for your website. Give the designer at least 3-4 options, so that just some tweaks might be needed instead of building a website from scratch. Remember always that the three important components of a good website, i.e., content, visual appeal and usability, need to be balanced. Also, the designer would appreciate it if you’d include real content instead of Lorem Ipsum text, but if you’re not really sure, be sure to specifically request for the designer’s help in this area. He or she might have to hire a copywriter for this purpose, so make sure that component is also factored into your project budget.

Conclusion
Summarize all the above points and request for a responsive bid from the designer, along with some referrals that he/she might have for you to develop a better understanding of their previous work.

A well-organized RFP is the first step to getting the website you want for your business. This will make communicating with the designer much easier, as there’s no room for pointless correspondence which might eat into both your and the designer’s time. Armed with this step by step guide, submit an RFP to a designer of your choice and it’ll be just a matter of time before you see your site up and ready to take the online world by storm.