Selecting a professional web design company

Choosing a web design company that is going to perform and deliver results can be a daunting task for many business owners that are not familiar with the IT world. Quite often business owners just don’t know where to begin, and thought of researching literally hundreds of web design service providers on the internet is not a pleasant job. It’s not surprising that most web design company’s get most of their referrals by word of mouth, as it makes more sense to try a web design service provider that someone you know has used and recommended.

From a web design company’s perspective, it can also be difficult extracting enough information from a potential client to provide an accurate cost of the potential website project. It is always a good idea for you to formulate a clear brief of what you are after. Your requirements are not just about how you want your site to look, but you also need to formulate an idea of content structure, functionality, and content management requirements.

When selecting a web designer or developer, you also need to consider providing the following areas of information as a minimum requirement to ensure that you get a more accurate quote:

• What is the main purpose of the website?
• What do you wish to achieve with your website?
• Describe your target audience?
• Provide at least two competitors website addresses:
• Describe the extent of your content management requirements? E.g. how often will you need to update information?
• What kind of additional functionality do you require (e.g. search, e-commerce, application forms, directory listings, blogs, RSS feeds)
• Do you have all your web content prepared?
• Is it in electronic format?
• Do you need a logo designed?
• If not, can you provide a logo in electronic format?
• Do you have a specific deadline for the launch of your site?
• Do you have a budget?
• Do you require hosting?

Web design project costs
Have you determined your budget? If you have a set budget in mind, you can always ask a web developer to provide an itemized list of what you can expect to get for that price.

Web Design Strategy and Planning
An experienced good web developer will always provide you with at the very least, a site map, and a description of all the required pages or templates that will be included in your website. They will also look at online marketing services and help to optimize the website pages.

Support
Does the company provide ongoing support and what kind of support is available? Is it free, or do you pay extra for a support package?

Hosting
Be clear if they provide hosting and how much the costs for this will be. Are they using a third party for their hosting requirements? Ask for some more information on the hosting facilities available.

To summarise, the more information you are able to provide a web developer, the more accurate their pricing will be. If you have a good website project brief to start with, the easier and faster it will be for multiple web service providers to give you estimates.

For more information on professional web design and development services, visit www.webgenesis.com.au