How to Choose the Perfect Web Design Firm
Below are some red flags to look for when choosing a web design firm.
Don’t choose a web design company that . . .
Focuses solely on the aesthetics of your website: A firm should focus on both the aesthetics and functionality of your website. But at the end of the day, the functionality is the most important. If your website is difficult to navigate, predominantly flash-based, lacks optimized web copy, or doesn’t match your target audience’s technology knowledge, it’s as good as worthless. Sure, your site may be gorgeous, but if it’s frustrating to navigate or doesn’t have a purpose, you’ve just wasted thousands of dollars revamping your website.
Knows nothing about SEO: A web design company that tells you your website would look amazing built completely with flash is probably right. But, they know nothing about SEO if they’re telling you this. Just an FYI, search engine robots and spiders cannot crawl flash—there must be HTML pages with optimized web copy within your website if you want your site to rank in search engines. Since HTML pages are searched by bots and spiders, your site will rank if these pages are comprised of optimized web copy and images. Great web designers know how to incorporate some elements of flash within various HTML pages of your site to make it look polished and more interactive, without compromising search rankings.
Responds to inquiries and important questions in an untimely manner: If you sent an initial inquiry to a web page design company and heard back from them five days later, consider looking elsewhere for a design firm. This is just a little taste of what you might be able to expect when you have important questions or massive issues that need attention—and you don’t want to have to wait on your web design firm to handle these problems.
Has a poorly designed website: Are you having trouble navigating the design firm’s website? Are you unsure of where their contact information is? Are their broken links, images, or grammatical errors? If so, move on.
Lacks testimonials or provides ambiguous testimonials: All website design companies should have testimonials or a portfolio section on their website. If they don’t, this could be a red flag that they never received testimonials that were good enough to publish! If you don’t immediately find their testimonials or portfolio on their website, ask the firm where you might be able to find information about their past clients. If they say they don’t have any, or provide you with ambiguous testimonials, start searching for a new company to redesign your site.
Gives you a bad feeling: If you have a bad feeling about a particular company, don’t take the chance of hiring them. You have a bad feeling for a reason, and whether you can pinpoint what gives you that feeling or not, you shouldn’t go with a company that gives you anything but warm fuzzies.
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About the Author
Michelle Salater is an award-winning writer and president of Sumèr, LLC, a company which specializes in web copy writing, SEO copywriting, and the promotion and marketing of websites after they launch. As an avid business blogger, Michelle has grown her marketing blog, Copy Doodle, to be a powerful lead generation and client education tool, and frequently guest blogs and lectures on blogging. In 2009, Michelle won the Charleston Business Journal’s Forty under 40 award for her business and community leadership.
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