A strong web presence is crucial to your ability to grow your business, and your website serves as the hub that anchors all of your digital marketing efforts. Your website gives you an important tool to showcase the services or products you offer and provides customers with a way to learn more about your company. Challenges abound in the website creation process, and those challenges don’t end when you pick a custom web design and development agency to get the project underway.
Even if you have some experience in building a website, your business needs to hire a qualified web designer and developer if you want to leverage the most success for your future. So, how do you pick the right fit for your business? And, how do you know that a web design agency in Abbotsford has the experience needed to bring you the best results?
Before you lose your mind, take a deep breath! We’ve created the ultimate list of 7 tips to help you hire the best web designer that fits your needs and helps your company grow.
1. Establish Your Website Goals
The first step is determining what you need for your businesses’ website. You need to determine what you want from your business, and maybe how you want it done.
For the best results, the web design agency should know your website’s wants and the purpose you want to achieve with it. Your company is unique and your website should be, too, to reinforce a strong, favorable first impression and a quality user experience. Custom solutions provide greater branding, flexibility, and scalability for your website as your company grows.
2. Discuss their experience
Your website is the face of your company and, if designed and developed properly, can become one of your best sales reps as it generates new leads and builds your sales pipeline. Moreover, a website shouldn’t be looked at in a silo. It should be considered within the mix of content marketing, digital marketing, SEO, social media, blogging, lead generation and inbound marketing tactics. You want to partner with a web design company that illustrates this marketing expertise and in-house resources for each skill set. Make sure they can handle the type of project you are looking to do. Find out if they have experience doing similar projects. Be sure they have the technical skills and background needed to bring you the best results. Make sure they have experience in SEO and digital marketing.
3. Check their Portfolio & Ask for References
What better way to learn about a web design company than through its past or present clients? By speaking with a few references, you can gain insights from their experience to better gauge the web design company’s strengths, weaknesses, quality, work ethic, integrity, and dependability. Any good web designer is going to already have a portfolio created that showcases their previous work. Ask for specific examples of projects that match the scope of the work you need to be done.
4. Ask about their web design and development process
It’s important to know how a digital company approaches web design and development because this provides direct insight into its experience and strategy. It also allows you to manage your expectations as it relates to the key milestones, number of revisions allotted to each phase, implications, timelines, etc.
5. Check their digital presence
In your quest to partner with a web design company, it’s important that you scrutinize their website, content, social media profiles, online reviews, and overall digital presence. Is the team following the latest design practices? Is their website fully functional or are there broken links? Are they publishing new and quality content on a consistent basis? Do they have genuine reviews? Do they reply to the reviews left by clients? Are they engaging with their followers and visitors? If they aren’t following best practices as it relates to web design, development, and digital marketing, then how can you be sure that they will for your business?
6. Ask about support post-launch
The nature of the web is ever-evolving, both in terms of advances in technology and the need for a constant flow of new content. It’s rare that once you launch your website, you won’t want to make updates. Maybe your company has added products or services; perhaps a new web technology would enhance your customer’s online experience. Whether you’ve found typos in the content, accidentally deleted a module from the content management system and find yourself in need of backup restoration, or wish to add more functionality to the site, you’ll want a clear plan in place. Some developers offer aftercare options in the form of monthly retainers, others provide a la carte pricing for their existing clients. No matter what the method, it’s important to know your options. Make sure you have a thorough discussion regarding policies and pricing for your post-project needs.
7. Ask about their experience with third-party integrations
Always ask yourself, is your web design company fluent in the use of digital marketing and transforming a website into a powerful sales tool? Good indicators of its level of prowess include the handling of e-newsletter signups and marketing through Constant Contact, MailChimp, or Campaign Monitor. Can they integrate CRMs or sales platforms like HubSpot, PipeDrive, VTigerCRM, or Freshworks? How do they integrate social media like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn?
For Best Results, Hire an Agency You Can Trust
It’s always a risk to trust a company you’ve never worked with before with your business website. While the seven tips above can help you achieve great results no matter what agency you choose, it’s also true that you can alleviate a lot of the inherent stress in site projects by hiring the right agency in the first place.
If you’re ready to get your site project underway, why not reach out to Perfect Web Creations in Abbotsford? We have the skill and experience to help you realize your vision, even if you’re not sure what that vision is just yet.
