Website design is one of the important steps in business development. Your website provides immediate impression to your clients, or even potential shareholders and investors. On top of that, your website represents the brand and defines the weightage of its web presence. An outstanding website may even elevate the brand perception.
We need to select a design agency that focus on reaching out to target audience and ultimately, your business goals. Hence, it is crucial to select the right web design agency to maximize your investment.
We have concluded these twelve criteria to consider when selecting the right website design agency.
1. Your ideas are being listened.
As the business owner, you know best at your company directions and goals. You are also the expert in presenting your products or services to your potential customers. Therefore, the appointed design company must be open to your ideas and concepts, instead of creating a project without your input.
2. They have ideas to propose.
Putting aside your expertise in your business, a design agency should provide and propose their professional ideas based on their expertise and experience, pertaining to your business nature. It is important to have input from both parties to produce an effective and successful website.
3. The agency is equipped with Marketing Department.
We are living in an era where we cannot sell a product merely for its quality. Without marketing, a product or service cannot reach out to crowd which big enough for a company to sustain. A design agency that is operating without marketing department may be an indicator to reconsider your co-operation with them.
4. Website maintenance is emphasized.
Your target audiences need updated news and information about your business. Likewise, you need to maintain your website to attract new visits and encourage revisits. An effective design agency must include website maintenance in the picture and put enough emphasize in incorporating user-friendly method for website maintenance.
5. They use responsive design.
Nowadays, we browse internet through various devices, such as smartphone, tablet and laptop. Responsive design incorporates flexible grids and layouts, images and CSS media queries. With responsive design, the webpage will respond to the users’ output screen size, platform and orientation. Although separate mobile site is an option, responsive design is your best choice to keep up with the current trend of prevalent mobile and tablet use.
6. They have live website portfolio.
If not presented, be sure to ask for website addresses to their completed project. These live websites portfolio will give you a glimpse of the product you will be receiving from this particular design agency.
If the agency makes the effort to present their portfolio, here is a tip, don’t trust screenshots of home pages.
7. They have been around in the market.
People grow through experience, the same is applicable to companies. Design agencies that have been around in the market understand the past and current trend. Furthermore, they are more likely to still be around when it comes to future website maintenance and reinventing.
8. They understand the conversion power of website.
A superior design agency understands the objective of having a business website is ultimately directed to its conversion power. A successful website does more than just giving information and looking pretty. Through the means of proper layout, navigation and calls to action, the designer must use proven methods when creating websites that convert.
9. They have experience in different industries.
Watch out on agencies that work with clients from only one industry. Design agencies like this may not be able to create an outstanding website for you. Instead, go for design agencies that have worked with different industries, they are more likely to cook up something unique and make your website stands above the competition.
10. They work with companies from both local and national levels.
Correspondingly, design agencies that have worked with companies from various levels may be able to offer more. You want a design agency that can deliver big success, at the same time, understanding the need to cater to local needs.
11. They keep up with modern and effective trends.
It makes no sense to use outdated designs and methods on your business websites, when all the updates and modification can be done through fingertips. Design agencies should balance the use of modern trends and proven methods. As a result, to give a fresh look and up-to-date impression to your target audiences.
12. They charge reasonably.
Finally, your business website is a crucial piece of long-term-invested asset. When a website design agency quotes a custom website for RM3000, there’s a big chance that you will be receiving a website with poor delivery, for example, poor system foundation, poor system security and poor backend system for maintenance purposes, which can only be realized upon completion. A successful website takes more than that and is worth the investment in view of its high return and enormous potential.
