Business Learning Center

Selecting the right website design company can be one of the most important decisions your company will ever make.

Your website is much more than just an online billboard. A website…

• Brands you
• Attracts new customers and clients
• Serves current clients
• Can bring significant direct revenues through e-commerce
• Can streamline internal processes and increase company productivity

Of course, that’s what a great website will do for you. A terrible website can damage your company’s reputation, send clients to your competitors and put your business in a hole that it may never be able to dig out from.

So, how do you choose?

Be Prepared:

Before you begin interviewing website design companies, you should have at least a rough sense of what your goals are and what kinds of functionality you are looking for. Ask yourself:

• Am I looking to attract prospects?
• Am I looking to merely generate traffic (advertising-based model)?
• Am I looking to generate direct revenues (e-commerce)?
• Am I only looking to preserve and enhance my brand?

Pricing:

This can be the most confusing part. If you Google ‘website design company’, you will find companies offering $199 websites while others push six- or even seven-figure website solutions.

The price of a website project is the result of many variables; the complexity of the site’s functionality, the number of custom design elements involved; the expertise and experience of the team performing the project and the pricing schedule established by your web development team (i.e. hourly rates).

A simple website for a hobbyist or a “basic personal site” can be created for next to nothing. However, if your website is the face of your business and a place where business is conducted, then the price can be considerably higher.

When you discuss price with a web design firm, make sure they spell out all of the functionality they will be providing and the amount of time and effort that will be required to deliver the project. The hourly rate of the work will be based on the experience and expertise of the team assigned to your project.

Also evaluate the price based on what you will get out of it. A $20,000 project that brings you no revenue is far more expensive for your company than a $100,000 project that brings in a 300% ROI.

Do Your Homework:

Surf the web. Look at as many sites as you can both in and out of your industry. Find the sites you like, the features you like, and the functionality you like. Most websites will link you to the firm that designed the site. Those are the companies to call.

Design Considerations – A beautiful site isn’t necessarily a profitable site:

Don’t be tricked by “bells and whistles.” Sites heavy with video and flash movies may win design awards for the firms that created them, but they rarely win clients and business. Look for a company that focuses on your specific business goals and designs your site with those goals in mind.

Look for a company that offers comprehensive web services:

The best websites are the ones where design, functionality and marketing work as one. A design firm that has expertise in all three areas has the ability to build you a fully integrated site from the ground up.

When one company is responsible for design, another for development and a third for online marketing, you will invariably have issues with communication, integration and implementation.

When interviewing a design firm, try to meet at their offices:

You can learn a great deal about a website design and development company by seeing firsthand how the business operates. Ask to meet the people who will be working on your project. Speak with them. See how they answer your questions. Ask for a tour of the office. You’ll know a great work environment when you see it.

See how much initiative they take. If they don’t challenge at least some of the ideas for your site, it means you are speaking with a bunch of “Yes-Men and Yes-Women.” A team with real expertise will identify what you’re doing wrong, and then come up with a solution to do it better.

Accountability:

Any Web design project demands a great deal of give-and-take between the client and the design firm. Find out who will be the point-person at the firm on your project. Ask how they measure success. This is a long-term relationship and you must be sure that this is the person you want to enter into such a commitment with.

Promises, Promises:

In this economy (or any other), many website design firms will promise you the moon, just to get your business. Those promises tend to be both grand and vague.

The only thing that matters is what is promised in writing. You want to work with a company that not only lists all features and functionality in the agreement, but one willing to back it up with specific results (i.e. increased traffic, leads, conversions, milestones, etc.) in their agreement.

Hosting

Some companies mistakenly believe that their web design company should also be their web hosting company. The truth of the matter is– website hosting has nothing to do with the skills of designing and marketing a website.

A reliable web hosting company has enormous bandwidth (enough servers to handle any spikes in traffic) and 24-hour technical support and customer service. There are a number of reputable web hosting companies that can provide this service far better than any web design firm that also offers web hosting.

Your web design firm should have strong and long-standing relationships with several web hosting companies. That way they can set up your account with the hosting company and make sure you are in the best of hands.

It is also a good idea to use an outside hosting company in the event of a falling out with your web design company. You don’t want to be in a position where your website is held hostage by your design company.

Maintenance Services:

A web project does not end of the day the site launches. Online marketing, including SEO and Web 2.0, is an ongoing process. Marketing strategies can evolve as their level of success fluctuates. Great sites are always adding additional features.

To do this, your website requires a webmaster. That person is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the site, which includes updating content, managing inventory, performing quality control on all pages and monitoring and measuring key metrics (e.g. visitors, bounce rate, etc.).

Your webmaster will need access to a team with expertise in:

• Design
• Development
• Online marketing
• Public Relations
• Copywriting

If you have a webmaster and a team with such expertise, you should be in great shape. If you don’t have such competence in-house, then you will want to use a design firm that can offer you all of those services. Make sure you hire a company you trust to handle your post-launch work as much as your pre-launch work.

In conclusion:

Great websites are created when there is a great partnership between the client and the web design company. The client/design firm relationship is one that should be a long-term partnership. Like any marriage, know what you are getting into before you make the commitment.

If you have specific questions about the process of hiring a web design firm or are interested in seeing if Blue Fountain Media might be the right firm for your company’s project, please call 212.260.1978 and one of our highly qualified professionals will speak with you directly.