Choosing a Website Design Company

• Know what you want.
  No design firm will be able to read your mind. If you don't know what you want, you can spend too much time going through one iteration after another. Educate yourself and find a variety of websites that you wish to emulate. Choose simple designs (like Google) or more substantial ones. It is always good to have a collection of sites to share as examples of what you want.
• Select a website design company and start communicating.
  Communication does not be face-to-face, but you must make sure you communicate well and get a feel for how easily you can work with them.
• Look at each firm's portfolio.
  Some firms may be stuck in one style. If that style is not what you want they might not be a good fit for you.
• Make sure the web design company can handle more complex websites.
  Websites can be simple, or complex web applications. If you want to collect information, or have a lot of information to present, you will need a database. You will want to discuss whether the company can do this type of work. Also understand that the more complex a website, the more it will cost.
• Your website designer needs to know Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or be willing to find someone to do the work.
  A website that gets only a few visitors a month is not a good investment. SEO work needs to be on-going in order to be successful. NEVER believe that top placement in Google, Bing, etc. is a guarantee, but quality SEO will help generate traffic to your site.
• If you are wanting in a blog, ask if the web designer can put it on your website.
  A blog that is onsite helps with SEO and page rank. It is important to continually add to your blog, providing relevant content and showing that the site is active.
• Always change your mind.
  We just told you not to do this, but this refers to the long term. Discuss with your potential website design firm how often updates should be done. If your site is not going to have a blog, and not likely to change much, you should consider a rewrite of the site every few years. The design company should have experience in re-design and be able to make suggestions. Consider doing this in stages, over time, which will make it more affordable.
• They should be able to write quality website copy.
  Quality content and images are key to getting traffic and enticing people to stay on your site.
• When you are done, you want to walk away with either the rights to everything you paid for, or a working agreement with the company to do updates and support.
  All websites need support in one way or another. A web server may go down or have other issues. Do not expect a website to be up 100% of the time, unless you want to pay a huge price. Websites are often taken down for maintenance during the middle of the night.
• If your website is meant to be global, in that it will have multiple languages, make sure your web designer knows this up-front.
  It is best to do this work as the work progresses than at the end of a project.
• Consider agreeing on a support contract with the web design company.
  The server can crash, run out of memory, have network issues, or any of a large number of unexpected problems. If your website has a problem, you want to be sure they will fix it quickly. A contract that says they will look at it within a short period of time, and/or monitor the site, is the best way to keep your site up and running.
• Discuss email options.
  This can be a make-or-break issue for a website. Do you send mail? Do you want to have email from your website or with the same domain name? A web designer may be able to design a website but not know a thing about email services. Make sure you discuss the number of email boxes to be provided and volume of mail coming in and going out.
• Make sure your website is always known by one name.
  This is not about choosing a website company, but it is still worth mentioning. Your website URL can have a "www" in front ...or not; it can have capital letters..or not, but it should be consistent. This is important as search engines may consider two subtly different web site addresses as being completely different websites, thus resulting in penalties.
• Discuss financial matters.
  Generally a website design firm will need a deposit. One-third the estimate is a good amount.
• Ask if the company will do a trial page or two.
  This will give you a feel for how well you like their work.
• Get a timeline to know when milestones will be met.
  Do not be surprised if the deadlines are not met. Websites are part art, part engineering. Art has never been known to meet deadlines; engineering, especially software, is notorious for going over budget and time. Still, if your website is not complex, you should be able to expect your design company to deliver on-time and at budget. The key here is communication.
• Insist on frequent progress updates.
  This should include screen shots, a URL (web site address) for a test site that you can view, and status updates. Do not expect perfection in the initial stages. Make sure you feel it is going in the right direction -- the earlier you make course changes...the better.
• Commit to one website design company.
  It is not recommended that you have multiple design firms doing multiple pages (unless you absolutely love the result) as this can result in cohesion problems. What do you do when you want to add a feature that is on all pages? The communication issues here could be formidable.