If your a freelancer designer, working on your own, you probably find you have little ‘surplus’ time. As a freelancer myself, I ran into this problem a lot. I didn’t earn enough to hire a skilled employee, but I knew that something had to change. I sat down and worked out that the longest part of the design process for me was coding up my designs in css. It was also something that I enjoyed the least. So it was a no brainer – cut out the coding and get more design work done. That was a year or two ago now and I’ve learned a lot about coding companies – so I’m going to drop the low down on XHTML to CSS coders.

Find a good one and keep them

Prices range depending on the company, complexity of design and number of pages. A lot of the companies also offer additional extras, like WordPress theme development or you can pay to have your footer ‘stick’ to the bottom of the screen regardless of content length. You really need to shop around when looking for a team to work with, so spend a little time sourcing one. You should be looking for the following:

• Good XHTML and CSS skills.
• Quality, formatted code for easy working.
• A reasonably large portfolio of good work.
• Evidence that the company in question doesn’t just ‘interpret’ your design, but codes it like-for-like.
• Check our customer testimonials and twitter e.t.c for feedback.
• Make sure your going to get good after sales support.
• Finally, that’s when you should consider price.

Price wise, you can spend as little as $45 for a 2 day turn-around, or be looking at $400+ upwards for WordPress Themes.

What to expect

Again, that depends entirely on the company your using. With my supplier, I know they’ll take 24 hours to shoot me a pixel perfect design over in XHTML. This works fine for me, because these templates can be quickly integrated into WordPress or edited straight away to include the site copy. Have a look and see what assets you’ll be handed. A fully functioning WordPress theme? Instructions for installing? Will it be installed by the company? It makes sense to check reviews for coding companies as most will outsource the coding to a pool of freelancers – each with potentially varying abilities. The best companies will be sure to only work with experienced and reliable coders, so you can reasonably expect a larger company to offer a pretty smooth service. You pay, you upload the design, you get it back. Job done.

Be clear and concise

You may find yourself quite often to be working alongside someone who’s first language is not English. So make sure you factor that in with any instructions you leave for them. Be super, super explicit. If you have any doubt, offer a quick demonstration of what you mean (i.e. can you place this box here, and offer up an example). If the coder has to stop to clarify something with you and their working in another time zones things can get delayed, so having a set of good, solid and understandable instructions pays. Plus, it may help in the event of a dispute.

Keep all communication logged

As with any project between 2 or more parties, there is always the chance something could arise that might delay the work – or worse, there could be a monumental mess-up and your left with a problem to sort. So keep all communication logged, whether it be via Skype, Email or Phone. That way, there can be no misunderstandings and the company can have no “get-out-jail-free-card”. If the coder says it’ll be done by Tuesday, it should be done by Tuesday and you’ll have proof to back your point up. Some companies may offer discount on a future project to compensate for any issues, you might be able to secure something similar by contacting their support.

Test Project

Don’t ever consider using a mission-critical project to sample a company. What if they turn out to be internet pirates, take your money and leave you on the proverbial high-seas sans boat? It makes a lot more sense to try on a company with a personal project. That could be a website for your cat, that new blog you’ve been meaning to set-up or an online store for your cousins cake baking business. That way, if things go horribly wrong, you have no comebacks as it were – i.e. no client biting down on you and threatening county court action. Plus, you get that “website to set-up one day” task off your Things app. In some countries, these expenses related to your business may even be tax-deductible (you can take it off your tax bill), so it’s a win, win situation.

Save Money

My dad has always told me “you get what you pay for”. And he’s right. Whether your buying a new computer or a car, in general, spending more money would mean a higher quality product. That said, who has tonnes of money to throw around? I much prefer “always by the best you can afford at the time”. So spend wisely. You can save money when using these companies though. Firstly, your increasing your profits because likely you’re saving time that you would have worked on the CSS development.

When working with the company, always try to work ahead of time. That means you can select the longest turn-around possible, as many will charge extra for a 1 or 2 day delivery. The longest I’ve seen personally is 2 weeks, which if you can wait for might just save you a small handful of cash.

Consider doing your own conversions to WordPress, as the difference between coding of XHTML pages and a WordPress theme runs into the hundreds of dollars. As long as you’ve designed the pages your implementing, you can quite often just drag and drop your WordPress code in there. It might take a little bit of effort to think ahead of time in this regard but it’s worth it.

Speaking of pages, every company I’ve looked into will charge extra for coding a ‘sub-page’. If your site has several sub-pages, your running up a pretty big bill before you even get going. I mostly limit my designs to a home page and a sub-page, which I can then re-use for each additional page. It may take a little extra time to tweak the sub-page to suit your content, but with a cost of $10 to $60 for each sub page, you can cut your bill greatly.

Bad Experience

I learned a lot from a bad experience I had with one company. I’d sent a re-design of my own portfolio off for some coding wizardry. When I got it back, things didn’t line-up, line-heights we’re off, my font choice had been changed and it just looked all together rubbish. Needless to say I wasn’t happy, but I couldn’t get a refund thanks to the next small technicality.

Don’t take delivery until your happy

In my above mentioned experience, I was shown a working sample of my design, which was configured on the companies server. It looked ok, but I figured I could tweak a few stuff. When I accepted it and started installing the design on my own WordPress install, things went horribly wrong. I don’t know what, who or where, but the design I got was trash. Just a complete waste. So I complained to the company, who, in hindsight, quite rightly said I’d seen the demo and taken delivery of the design. They would not be processing my refund request. So, if your not happy with the way the coding turned out, tell the company. Most supply a demo page right before delivery of the assets and that’s the time to jump in with any changes or queries you have.

Do you have any comments about working with xhtml coders? Doe’s it fit into your work flow? Which company do you use?