12 Tips for Hiring a Professional Website Development Agency

Around 20% of transactions are now done online. If you want to reach the broadest number of customers possible, you must have a strong internet presence. Of course, website design is a very complex task, so it makes sense to work with a professional website development agency to get the best website possible.

So how do you find the best agency to suit your organization’s website design needs? This article tells you everything you need to consider in your search.

1. Define Your Goals

Before starting your search for a great web developer, you’ll need to consider what you want to get from your new website. For example, is your website intended to generate new leads, inform potential customers about your product, or serve as an e-commerce platform?

The type of website you want will significantly impact the kind of web development company you should hire. For example, if you’re going to build a large e-commerce platform, hiring a company specializing in social media management doesn’t make sense.

Make sure you define your goals as early as possible. This will help to ensure you get the perfect match for what you want to do with your company.

2. Research the Agencies

When looking for web developers to work with, you should always do your due diligence and the company. Any good web development company will have a portfolio of their work that they can show you. This will give you an idea of the level of quality they can deliver for you.

Of course, you should never just take the company’s word for it. You’ll also need to do your own research and check out their reputation. One way to do this is to check out online reviews of the company.

This will give you a good idea of how other people experienced working with the company. Of course, you shouldn’t be looking for a total lack of negative reviews. You should also investigate how the company makes things right in light of a negative review.

3. Look for a Transparent Company

When you’re building a website, you need to have an accurate measure of the costs, timeline, and functionality of your new site. This means it’s essential that you work with a company that’s transparent about the whole process.

There’s nothing worse than hoping to launch your website on a specific date only to find the design isn’t complete yet. There are a few ways you can make sure the company you work with is trustworthy and transparent. First, you’ll need to make sure you get a contract.

A contract promises that the work will be completed by a specific date. You should also look for a company that has a good system in place for progress tracking. You should be regularly informed of how the website is progressing at all stages.

4. Consider the Team

You’ll also need to consider the team you’ll be working with. It’s important that you only work with a website design team that’s the right fit for your company. For example, you’ll need to make sure that the company you’re hiring has all the necessary skills and experience to create a great website.

One way you can check this is by asking to see web design certifications. You could also ask to see some examples of the work they’ve done in the past for other clients.

Of course, there’s more to hiring a team than just picking the most qualified people. You’ll also need to make sure the team’s availability matches up with your company. If you need your website built in July but they’re all booked up, it’s not a good fit, no matter how good they are at designing.

5. Do They Have SEO Knowledge?

SEO (or search engine optimization) is when you put certain content on your website to make your site more attractive to search engine algorithms. For example, you might use certain keywords that potential customers are likely to search for, such as “HVAC services near me.”

In the modern world, the majority of your customers will find your services by searching on Google, so you’ll need to ensure your site ranks highly on customer searches. This means working with a web development company with an acute understanding of SEO is essential.

If your customers can’t find your site, they won’t be able to buy your products and services. Always make sure you ask a web design company a lot of questions about how your site will be optimized by search engines like Google and Bing.

6. Consider Their Technology

You’ll also need to consider the technology the company will use to build and host the website. This is an important thing to consider, as the technology used can have a significant impact on scalability, performance, and security.

For example, anyone with a website is at risk of experiencing a distributed denial of service attack. This is when cyber attackers flood a website with requests making it slow or unusable. As you can imagine, this can have a devastating impact on your company if you rely on your site to do business.

A good website design company will be able to host your site on a server with protection against this kind of attack. As you can see, technology can have a dramatic impact on the functionality, stability, and usability of your site, so make sure any company you work with has technology that will suit your needs.

7. Do They Demonstrate Project Management Skills?

Creating a website is a huge undertaking, particularly if your website needs to have complex functionality such as e-commerce capability. This means that any web design agency you work with must demonstrate excellent project management skills.

Any web design company that frequently takes on large projects should have a well-designed project management system. They should be able to tell you exactly how this process works.

Many large web design companies will use project management tools such as Trello or Jira to track progress and ensure accountability. They may also be prepared to give you access to these apps. This is a great way for you to track progress on your project.

Good project management also involves a certain degree of risk management. A good project manager appreciates that things can often go wrong, and they’ll have plans in place to mitigate and respond to mishaps and other problems.

Before you commit to working with a company, take the time to have them explain how their project management system works. You should be cautious of any company that doesn’t take this part of website design seriously.

8. Do They Take a Flexible Approach?

When working on a large project like building a website, your scope and objectives can change over time. A good website design company appreciates this and will be receptive to making changes over the course of the project.

For example, maybe halfway through the project, you decide you want to include more social media integration on your site. A good website design company will be receptive to your ideas and will work with you to make these changes fit in with the existing design.

A good website design agency is always open-minded, and customer focus and will do what they can to make the customer’s vision a reality.

9. Do They Offer Good Support?

Building a website is about so much more than just designing the site. A good website design company will also offer you support for your website long after they finished the initial design.

For example, if your website goes down, will the company be committed to getting your site back up and running as soon as possible? You’ll also need to consider the availability of any support you’ll receive. Does the website agency only offer support during business hours, or do they offer support 24 hours a day?

Depending on what kind of website you’re running, you might need a company that offers round-the-clock help. For example, if you have a website with e-commerce capabilities, you won’t be able to sell anything if your website is down. This makes consistently available support vital.

8. How Much Do They Cost?

Another key thing you’ll need to think about is the cost. You might find a company that can create an incredible website with round-the-clock support, but often this level of service is expensive.

You need to be realistic about what your company can afford. When you’re defining your goals at the beginning of your project, you’ll need to think about what your budget is.

When choosing a company to work with, you’ll also need to ensure no “hidden” costs. For example, some companies may charge one fee to create the website and another fee to host the site.

Always make sure you communicate extensively about the costs and get a transparent quote before you commit to working with any company.

9. Do They Have Good Communication Skills?

Working with a website design company involves a lot of back-and-forth communication. This means that good communication skills are essential for any designer. It’s not enough to be able to design good websites. A great website design agency needs to have the necessary communication skills to bring the client’s vision to life.

When shopping around for a website design agency, pay particular attention to how well they communicate with you. A good company should be attentive, prompt, and thorough in answering all your questions.

The style of communication in the early stages of your inquiries is generally quite reflective of how the company will communicate during the project. This means you should be cautious of any company that has communication issues in the early stages.

You should also look for a company that can explain website design in simple, understandable English. Website designers may use a lot of technical language to describe their craft, but they should be able to simplify this for a non-expert.

10. Check Their References

One of the best ways to verify if a website design company is the right fit for your business is to check their references. Any good website design company will have a long list of satisfied customers.

You should check out past customers’ websites and maybe even reach out to them to ask about their experience. If you have any friends or family who are business owners, you might also contact them to see if they can recommend a good website design company.

11. Data Backup

Data backup is an essential part of hosting a website. If your website goes down due to data corruption, the website design company will need to restore your website from a backup. Companies that take their clients seriously will have multiple backup systems in place to ensure they never lose customer data.

Before committing to working with them, you should always inquire about what kind of data backup methods a company uses. Often, people don’t think about data backups until it’s too late, don’t let this happen to you by taking data backups seriously from the start.

12. Website Security

Hackers breaking into your website could have a devastating impact on your company. For example, they could change the content of your site, causing significant reputational damage. They could also access sensitive customer data, which may mean you’ve violated customer confidentiality laws.

A good website design company needs to be serious about security. Before committing to working with a company, make sure you ask about how they’re going to keep your website safe from hackers.

When websites are designed without security in mind, they may have all kinds of security flaws. Don’t let your company become a victim of cybercrime by working with a company with a lax approach to cyber security.

These Tips Will Help You Find a Great Website Development Agency

Finding a suitable website development agency to create your website can be a difficult task, but if you keep these tips in mind, you’re sure to find a great agency to suit your needs.

If you’re interested in working with one of the best design agencies in the business or if you want to know more about website design, don’t hesitate to contact us today.