You may have agreed, as the world shifts rapidly online, that now is the right time to redesign and upgrade your website. How do you select the best company to create the online face of your business if you are not already working with a web design agency you are satisfied with?
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| DIGITALAPSS: Best Website Design & Development Company |
Start with some work for reconnaissance. To find web design firms in your field and ask knowledgeable peers for references, perform online searches. Start creating a list of websites that you like, whether or not they are in your industry, and find out who has created each of your favorite websites.
Once you have a shortlist of possible web design agencies, take the following steps for a successful engagement.
Visit the own website for prospective agencies. For its own company, the website a web design agency builds is a clear example of its design style, skills, and technical expertise. Do you like the overall site? Is it responsive to the site? Does it follow your interface aesthetic and ease of use standards? If the design of the website does not necessarily match your own style, it is OK. A good web design company would follow your brand standards and visual style, not their own. The main thing is that the site looks up to date and is fully functional, visually appealing, and provides a good user experience. If you expect new content to be part of the website project, look for professional, engaging writing on the company’s web pages and in the blog
Check out some of the websites designed by them. Many web design companies would have a portfolio section on their website so that some samples of their work can be easily seen. Are the websites they've built easy to use and professional-looking? In terms of scale, do their featured customers seem comparable to you? In scope, do the sites seem similar? Do the sites have the functionality you'll require for your own site?
Call them to talk about your project and set up a meeting. Pay attention to how they handle the call—are they accessible and friendly? Do they ask questions about your company and the details of the project, or do they immediately launch into a hard sell? This is a business you're going to be dealing with for months, so chemistry is important. Although the person who answers the phone may not be the one with whom you end up working most (or at all) once you have signed on as a customer, that person still represents the company's overall personality, so be sure it feels like a good match.
Once you’ve set up a meeting, here are 7 questions to ask a prospective web design partner, and the answers you should be looking for.
Have you built any other websites for companies in my industry?
What their answer will tell you: Working with a web design company that has experience in your field can be a benefit, and seeing other sites they’ve built for others in your industry can give you a good idea of what to expect from your own project, but there’s also something to be said for going with a company that is new to your industry, so all the competitive research they do is fresh, and they won’t be influenced by previous projects.
If the company has no expertise in your business, be confident that it will offer you a wide variety of experience in various other industries. You don't want a company that deals with your profession in a small niche.
How does user experience factor into your web design approach?
A good web design agency will know that user experience is at the heart of any effective website and will assure you that they are firm supporters of user-centered design. What their response will tell you: Ask about their particular strategy, including what strategies or tactics they use to ensure that they place user experience at the core of their design.
What content management system (CMS) do you work in?
What their response would tell you: The majority of web design companies specialize in one or two platforms for CMS. Most websites, such as WordPress, are based on an open-source platform, but some web development companies have their own internal CMS platform. Every CMS has its strengths and disadvantages, and to help you make the best decision for your company, a good web design agency will be able to objectively analyze the pros and cons of each one. See our blog post Choosing a CMS: What Does Open-Source Mean and Why Does it Matter? for more on the CMS is right for your project.
Can I meet your team?
What their response would tell you: many "companies" in web design are simply a single salesperson who outsources different aspects of the project, or even a group of freelancers who bid on parts of the job. In these cases, asking to meet the team altogether (virtually, if necessary) so you can see who you'll be working with and observe how they interact with each other and with you might cause some hemming and hawing about availability and remote locations. Choose an in-house team of professionals who are used to working together, have longevity at the organization, and will be available to you for the duration of your project for the best coordination and consistency.
What steps would the project involve?
What their response will tell you: An experienced web design firm will be able to go through each step of the process easily and comprehensively and explain how things will operate and what you can expect. They will not be able to give you an exact time or cost quote until you have already given them a very firm understanding of what the project would entail, but they may be able to give you a range.
What happens if we want to make changes or updates to the website after the project is complete?
What their response would tell you: A full-service web design firm should provide the team with a basic training session to clarify how things function and illustrate how to make improvements and updates. Have a list of things that you think you're going to need to change very regularly (events, forms, the material on the page, etc.) and ask which of these things in the content management system would be editable. For changes that require programming or design help, the company should provide a quote for the amount of time the change will take, and a rate for the work.
Do you do ongoing digital marketing?
What their answer will tell you: A lot of effort goes into building a website, but just as much effort goes into optimizing it, promoting it, measuring its performance, and making improvements. If you have an in-house digital marketing team ready to take on any aspect of digital marketing once the new website is complete, look for a web design company that specializes in digital marketing as well, so you can be confident that the results you want are produced by the new website. Ideally, if you want to expand your involvement in ongoing digital marketing or occasional changes or refreshments, the chosen agency's team will be open to you.
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