I am going to assume that you are like most people I know in business (and life!) and are therefore faced with the challenge of making the right decisions, relatively quickly, and in an informed manner. When it comes to choosing a web design company to design or re-design your website, you might not have time for lots of meetings, but in an ideal world you should probably try to meet with two or three different web design companies. Use the six steps below to guide you in making an informed decision that is right for your business:
1. Make a shortlist of web design companies with potential
2. Spend some time looking at their portfolios
3. Meet them and see if you like them
4. Make sure they understand business (not just how to build a website)
5. Do they understand how to target customers?
6. Make your final assessment of their proposal and costs
1. Make a shortlist of web design companies with potential.
We suggest you first ask around for recommendations, (fire off a quick email to all your contacts!) and Yell.com for web design companies within your area. Think about how far are you prepared to travel if you want to go to their office for a meeting. (NB. A couple of our clients take a 3 hour round trip – but they say it’s worth it to be working with us!) When searching on Google, you might try searching for “web design company Surrey” or try to narrow your search with adjectives that are important to you, i.e. “beautiful web design Surrey” or “florist web design Guildford”. In any case, you will have many to choose from, so you may have to simply go through the results one-by-one, until you have two or three that look like they could be the right web design company for you. How do you do this?
2. Spend some time looking at their portfolios.
Any web design company worth dealing with should have on their own website, a well-presented portfolio of their clients’ websites. Spend some time browsing through these. Ask yourself if you find those websites appealing, easy to navigate and that they guide you to important information easily. Is there good use of colour, fonts, images etc? Do you think they have done a good job for their previous/existing clients, and have they worked for any clients in a similar market to you?
Once you have a shortlist based on the best portfolios, choosing the right web design company for your business can be approached swiftly and intelligently using these key points to guide you:
3. Meet them and see if you like them!
We have more than one client who came to us after bad experiences with their previous web design company, bringing me swiftly on to a very important point: Don’t work with someone you have never met. Some web designers work by communicating only by email. It just doesn’t work. Establishing a good face-to-face rapport, which can be continued by telephone (and email as well of course!), is essential to building a productive and enjoyable business relationship. You need to have good, open, honest communication with your web design company so that you get exactly what you want, and maybe even have some fun along the way.
4. Make sure they understand business (not just how to build a website)
Modern, successful web design, (be it by one person or a big agency), will encompass the following three disciplines: 1. Business, 2. Creative and 3. Technical expertise. These are the Magic 3 – look out for them! You need to be able to talk business with your web design company, and for them to understand and make suggestions based on their experience. Their graphic design and technical ability should be clearly visible on their portfolio – you need to make sure all three boxes are ticked.
5. Do they understand how to target customers?
Although some web design companies specialise in designing for certain types of business, you will probably benefit from working with a company whose client-base is varied. Their experience working with such differing briefs and target audiences can bring a lot to the table (I’m talking clever ideas here – not a plate of biscuits).
6. Make your final assessment of their proposal and costs
Having met with the web design companies you should already have a good idea who is going to deliver what you need and be good to work with, but there is a last stage in this process. Following your meeting, you will receive the written proposal (a final chance to be sure that this company understands your needs and is able to meet them), along with a quote. The quote should be detailed (for example, so you can clearly see how much time is allocated to the design, and coding the site). How to make the final decision? If you can afford it, simply go with the web design company that best meets your needs (based on all of the suggestions in this blog post).
In these uncertain times, where the internet is becoming more important than ever for purchasing decisions, your business needs to be represented by an attractive, usable, informative website that appeals to your target audience. So why not get started today? Or you could put it off ’til later – you have nothing to lose but customers…!
Vincent Foreman is the creative director at Surrey web design company Redhead Media. Redhead Media specialise in website design and development that help businesses achieve an effective online presence providing user-focused design, Blogs, content management systems and e-commerce websites.
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