Choosing the right website designer for your project
Choosing the right company to create your website is an important decision – you may well have your new website for many years to come and it will offer potential customers their first experience of your company. You want a partner who can bring your vision to life and provide you with a stunning, user-friendly online presence that will help you reach your business goals.
But how do you find the perfect fit for your project?
Your final choice will be based not only on the scope of your project and your budget, but also finding the website design company that feels “right” for you.
Budget
It’s helpful to have an idea of your budget and timeline before making contact with potential designers so they can give you accurate information as to what they are able to offer within those budget and timeframe restrictions. Having a detailed plan in place before reaching out to potential partners allows you to communicate more clearly about your expectations and needs up front.
Your budget is one of the most important constraints you have, knowing it up front means that a web company can factor it in when suggesting possible solutions. Websites can cost from a few hundred to many thousands of pounds, if you have an idea of budget then prospective companies will be able to tell you what they are able to provide within those constraints. You can find further information on what you can expect a new website can cost here.
With these things in mind, researching different web design companies may well be key in finding the right fit for your project.
Make a Shortlist
When looking for the right company for you - put some feelers out – chances are that you will know someone who has had a website at some point. There will be friends or acquaintances who had both good and bad experiences. Additionally, have a look on Google or review websites such a Trustpilot for further recommendations.
Have a chat with each of the companies you shortlist – talk to them about your business goals. A good web design company will listen to what you have to say and offer solutions to meet these goals in a way that reflects that they understand your business.
During these initial conversations you should never feel like you are purely being “sold” a product – you should be doing as much of the talking as they are, if not more! The conversation should be about your company and how they can help – look for a company that is genuinely interested in helping you rather than selling themselves.
There should be no pressure to sign a contract immediately and they should never make you feel stupid for not understanding the product they offer or “jargon” used to describe a product.
Do your Due Diligence
Once you find yourself a few web companies you're interested in, have a look at their portfolio of work. Portfolios are useful because you get to see some of their previous work, and who they have already worked with. This should give you an idea of whether they can help bring your website vision to life and create an online presence that will help you reach your business goals.
However, do remember that the design you're looking for is not already going to be in their portfolio, unless they are only tweaking templates in order to create new websites. Instead, their portfolio is evidence of problems they’ve solved for other companies – it is there to give you an idea of the quality of the websites they provide.
View our portfolio
It is also important to read reviews in order to get an idea of service levels from clients they have worked with in the past. It should give you an idea of whether the companies were happy with the design of their website, but also give an idea of other factors you should be taking into consideration such as their responsiveness to queries, how well they handle changes to the website and customer service levels in general.
A good place to start is with both Trustpilot and Google reviews, and these are well-respected independent measures of how a company performs.
The website design process and timeline
When you have found a few websites design companies that you like, make sure to ask them additional questions about their process. For example
How long it will take them to design the website.
Will they handle all parts of the website creation, or will you need other service providers such as content creation?
How much say will you get in the design of the website?
How long will it take to create the website?
Are there any additional fees for changes or alterations?
You should make sure that you have this information in writing before committing to a project with a new website designer.
Additional Services
You will also need to be clear if you require any additional services such as SEO, branding, social media or content creation – find out whether your website design company is able to offer these services for you too.
Most importantly, you will need to be clear how your website will be maintained on ongoing basis. Will you be able to make amends to the website yourself, if not then will your website company be able to do so and how much are these changes likely to cost. Is it your responsibility to arrange for the hosting, renewal of the domain name and the security certificate or are all of these going to be managed for you?
Next Steps
So now it’s time to go and research your options! We hope that once you have compared a number of website companies, including their reviews, portfolio and prices, you will decide that on balance we could well the best option for you. If that is the case then please do contact us by calling us here or emailing here. You can also fill out the form on our contact page.
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