Whether you’re a small company of five employees or less, a publicly traded international conglomerate, or an independent contractor, a website is the single most important representation for your business – yet many often overlook it. A website acts as a virtual sales rep of sorts. It’s used to not only attract customers to your business but it aids in turning sales leads into profits and generating incremental business for your company without you having to lift a finger.
A website is no easy thing to put together however and to find a website design agency can be a difficult and daunting task.
Here, we explore how to find the best website design agency for you.
Budget and Portfolio
First off, you want to find a website design agency whose fees are going to correlate to and depend upon their results. An effective website design agency will often merge their flat fees for website creation with hourly billing for software design and installation.
An open-ended billing relationship is not a relationship you ought to engage in, especially in the early stages of planning and implementation.
Only once the maintenance phase is reached, where a site merely requires a bit of a monthly check-up, should an open-ended billing relationship be considered. Otherwise, it’s not particularly wise.
Next, evaluate the website design agency’s own website and put in a request to examine their portfolio. A website design agency’s portfolio will speak for itself. Look at the quality of the visual design with relation to the content it is meant to accentuate.
Note its navigation and ease of use, its initial impression of the business, how the site compares to others in its field, and see if a consistent look is maintained throughout each page. You want to see full capacity work, client information, and testimonials.
A website design agency may permit the client to make minor changes/updates to their own site. Often times, the architecture built will allow for this. This is preferable for a company that is looking to update their page with news or updates on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
This is something to consider if you and your company fall into this category. Unless a major revision is required with considerable editing needed on the design, template, and graphics, an arrangement where the client can make routine content adjustments is preferable.
Accessibility Considerations
Ensure that your website design agency is aware of state and federal guidelines, with regards to providing accessibility for the visually impaired and to those that may be suffering from a medical insufficiency. A website design agency should be able to provide you with an interface that is accessible in its’ standard format as well as one that can be viewed on a mobile device, in different browsers, and on different operating systems such as Windows and Mac, etc.
That is, you want to have as much control as you possibly can over your company’s image and how it’s represented in whichever way a user may choose to interact with your site.
An effective website design agency will be able to provide you with an accurate rate, speed, and turnaround time. It is a challenge to find a website design agency that will be able to combine speed, low cost, and quality but they are out there. The more expensive agencies tend to have a shorter waiting list if speed is what a client requires. If turnaround time is not an issue, then one can likely obtain a website design agency for a fair price that may be willing to complete your site but only when they’re able to fit you into their schedule.
There are many different factors to take into consideration when on the lookout for a website design agency. If this is utterly foreign to you and if this is your first website, don’t hesitate to let the website design agency know. Communicate with them in accordance with whichever method you feel most comfortable. You want an agency that will not just work for you but will work WITH you to achieve a result to satisfy all parties involved.
Invest in your business today, find a website design agency that works for you, and await the results.
This article was written by Marcelo Mcquillan, who knows that the website design agency you choose can either lift up your reputation and sales or bring it down completely.
