Trying to figure out how to choose the right web development agency for your next project?
Here you can find a list of the best small business digital marketing agencies. So amongst all of them, how would you decide which one is best for you?
The tips mentioned in this blog will not only help you select the right website development agency for your business but ideally would help you scale and grow your business over time.
1. Understand Your Business Requirements
Before even looking for a new agency it is important you take the time to make a list of the business objectives you want to achieve through your website. You can gather your requirements by asking questions like:
What do we want to achieve with our new website?
Ask yourself what is the ideal and realistic outcome your want out of your website. It could be to generate more traffic, increase your brand image authority via a nice and effective design, get more sales for certain products, or receive more emails and calls. The list goes on and on!
Whatever it is, your website is not only informational, it needs to be thought strategically with your key objectives in mind to make a return on your investment.
What is the content that I should gather or keep to communicate my business mission more effectively?
You will need to ensure that your content reflects your business’s current mission. The agency you will end up hiring will help you implement the content strategically, or refine the copy of your pages but ultimately, everything that is about your business, only you can know better. If you learned over time who are your ideal clients or what makes your business really special compared to the competition, it is a good opportunity to communicate those elements effectively through your new website.
What kinds of specific actions do I want my user to take on my website?
It could be that you want your users to contact you by phone, or email, or buy more of this product or learn more about an event. No matter the action you want your users to do on your website it will be useful to talk about it with the web development agency so can make the design accordingly.
Tell your requirements upfront and see how the company approaches. If the company is offering solutions that align with your business goals, target audience, and brand image, they are the ones to consider. You have to ensure that the solution they will pitch you makes sense based on all the homework that you have done. Do not forget that your website will be the ambassador of your business. So make sure to look out for a website development company that is equally motivated to serve your purpose.
2. Interview the web development agency like your own employees
You need to assess whether the company you are considering is versed enough or not to get the job done. So to do so, we recommend you to interview them like you did to choose your employees.
You should ask questions like:
What is your best work to date, and why?
Here, ensure to assess their definition of best work.
Which client did you enjoy working with the most, and what is the reason?
From their answer, try to sense their philosophy of a good client relationship.
What makes your website development agency stand out from your competition? Make sure their answer goes well with your requirements.
Have you ever dealt with a difficult client, and how did the project end? Use this to figure out how invested they are in their pursuit.
3. Review Their Portfolio
Ask them to send a couple of websites they have been working on. Do they display fast? Do they look modern and have intuitive navigation? Is the mobile experience good ?
A website can take up to 2 to 4 months to create depending on the type of project so it is important to ensure that their work is aligned with your expectations.
If you are impressed by their work and they do not have prior experience in your industry, ask them how they would get your project done. Remember that experienced companies have well-thought answers for such questions.
4. Find Out if they are a good fit for a long term relationship
You will collaborate on a daily basis with a web development agency for 2 to 3 months just for the creation of your website. It is a good thing to make sure that they could be a good fit for the long term and are able to address your future digital marketing needs as well.
Many companies can develop a website for your business, but ask yourself, is this all you need?
For example, most companies have automated some tasks through their CRM(customer relationship management) software to improve sales and foster a good relationship with customers. You might want also to have your website optimized for search engines to appear in search results. Also, businesses need continuous site maintenance and support too.
All of these elements need to be considered before signing a contract, so make sure to ask the following questions:
Do They Offer On-going Maintenance?
Every business website runs into issues at some point in time. Not to mention that a website also needs maintenance to stay functional.
It is only wishful thinking that you will never face any maintenance or similar issues with your site.
So make sure to ask the website development agency you are planning to hire about their ongoing site maintenance services.
If they do, this will be a cherry on top for you as you will not have to find another company to maintain your website.
Do They Provide SEO Services?
A beautiful website is awesome, but without a gain of traffic from different sources what is the point?
Search engine optimization is something that your website can not survive without. The better the SEO, the higher your site will appear in SERPs(search engine ranking pages).
The best way to get maximum eyeballs and increase your website traffic is by leveraging SEO. And believe it or not, you will need SEO services after establishing a site more than anything.
So save hassle for yourself and ask the agency whether they provide SEO services. The odds are that they might offer optimization services too.
Factor In the Total Cost
The price to hire a website development agency does not only depend upon your requirements. But it also relies on the experience of the agency and what they can bring to your business.
The more and complex the functions you want, the more recognized they are for their design expertise or the better the results they can bring, usually the higher they will charge you. For instance, if you need a custom plugin designed specifically to complement your business processes, you will be charged higher than usual.
Similarly, there are some other side and recurring expenses like hosting and ongoing website support and maintenance, or specific plugins, which you need to pay for apart from designing and development costs which are important to keep in mind.
Hosting
As you want your site up and running all the time, choosing the right hosting provider becomes imperative.
When hiring a web development agency, you need to pay for hosting charges. But these charges vary from company to company.
So make sure that the hosting service your web development agency is providing aligns with your needs.
On-Going Support
A website needs maintenance and changes over time which might require the intervention of a developer in most advanced cases. And there will be a cost for it too.
This is also the area where pricing varies. Some agencies include ongoing support charges within their hosting plans, while others charge separately for this proposing a bank of hours.
So make sure to allocate some budget to this area too.
It is essential to keep all these charges in mind before signing the contract. However, if you are unsure about any extra charges, reach out to your website development agency.
Figure Out Who Will Own the Website After Completion
Above all, it is of great importance to find out who will own the website. It might sound peculiar, but some web development companies out there do not provide you with complete ownership of the website.
Therefore, before hiring the company, do not forget to find this out. Make sure that 100% of the ownership of the site belongs to you.
Also, it will be better if you and your agency sign an NDA before proceeding.
Most of the time, such companies work with multiple businesses in the same industry. So the odds are that they might reuse the code or design they used before to build your site.
Thereby, take only a trusted company on board to avoid such mishaps.
Wrapping Up!
While having a site is crucial for your business success, selecting the right agency to do that job for you is equally vital.
Following these tips to find the website development agency might take a little time and effort. But hiring the right partner can work wonders in making your business grow.
Start with listing down all your requirements, i.e. what you need on your website. Then interview multiple agencies, check their portfolios and find out how tech-savvy they are. Lastly, take a pen and paper and write down all the costs that you will be paying.
If you have some questions about how to get the most optimal website for your business, Contact us now!
