8 things you must know before choosing a web design company

Websites can be one of the greatest tools for a business, but if you go down a path that is not a good match for your purpose and budget it can be an expensive and time consuming nightmare. Buying a website can be tricky, simply because sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know and that can make it difficult to ask the right questions. So to help you out and get you oriented we have put together this awesome guide of what you must know before making your choice.

1. Is the web company established and experienced?

It’s important to find a web design company that has experience. You can measure this in years, number of clients and also through the quality their web design portfolio.

Years in business indicate that the web design company is a stable and successful business and that they will be able to competently work with your business for the long term. Number of clients indicates that the company should be very familiar with the full spectrum of website projects and won’t take on a project that they don’t have the experience in completing. It also indicates that they have had the opportunity to iron out their work processes and are familiar with deadlines and timeframes.

Three important questions to ask are:

• How long has the company been designing and developing websites?
• How many clients do they have?
• How many employees do they have?

In order to try and save a little bit of money there is often a temptation to get your website designed and developed by a small company, a freelancer or a friend of a friend’s nephew who’s just graduated from university. Often freelancers and small developers just don’t have the experience they thought they had and what seemed like a money saver can become an expensive repair job as you will often need to start from scratch again. We have heard these unfortunate stories time and time again and we have found that going with smaller companies and freelancers is often a short-term approach for what ultimately is a long-term project. Realistically, a website is an ongoing project and it is important to partner with an experienced and established company that will be there for the long term and has the experience to offer you ongoing support and advice.

2. What should I expect to pay?

A question we often hear is – “how much should I pay for a website?”

Website prices can range a lot, you can get a website for as little as almost nothing and just pay for hosting, or the price can go all the way through to $10,000 and beyond. One of the interesting things about the web design industry is that you can get quoted a considerably different amount for the same job depending on the company that is quoting you.

As is the case when looking to purchase anything there can be a temptation to go with the cheapest option. You can buy websites from between $400-$700, however it is important you understand what you are purchasing as these products always have limitations. Another important thing to consider with these products is that they are often out-of-the-box solutions and you won’t get the consultation and customisation that can be important so that the website is best serving your business interests. These cheap small business websites options can still work for some people, but not for all.

To some degree the saying “you get what you pay for” holds true in the web design industry. However, there is a point where the price just keeps going up and the quality of the work or expertise don’t justify the cost.

Obviously price is highly dependent on the specific functionality that you require, but if you have a budget of between $1500 – $3000, and if you follow the points in this document when selecting the web design company, you should be able to get a professionally designed and developed cheap small business websites for your small business.

The best way to look at a website is that it is a long-term project and an investment in your cheap small business websites. If you are prepared to pay a little extra and choose the right company your website can be an asset and money making tool for years to come.

3. Can you update the website content yourself?

Ensure you will have access to update and edit the content of your website 24/7 on the fly. This is achieved by software which is called a content management system or CMS. Regardless of whether you intend to edit and upload the content of your website yourself or hire someone to do it for you, it’s important that your website is built on a content-management system so that it is easy to make changes.

This is considered as best business practice in website development for small businesses and has become fairly common these days. It is something important to consider because if your website isn’t on a CMS, it can create a lot of expense later on when you’re wanting to change or add content. You will also want to make sure that the CMS is an industry standard platform and that it’s easy to use, and that good training and support materials are available to you.

4. Will you get support when you need it?

Does the company you’re purchasing the website from offer ongoing support? When you purchase a website, it is very important that you choose a web design company that offers reliable, generous and cost-effective support on an ongoing basis. This is incredibly important because a website has a lot of different functions and aspects to it, and it helps to have professional assistance available when you need it.

Things you might need help with:

• your emails
• your domain name
• your hosting
• how to use the content management system of your website
• ecommerce setup

With quality support you avoid the predicament of needing to outsource to an additional developer to fix the problem you have encountered. This can lead to an extraordinary amount of frustration, wasted time and additional expense.

A story we hear often and our clients have experienced repeatedly is with freelance developers or small web design companies who start working on a project and are fantastic in the beginning, but within 6 to 12 months their enthusiasm and commitment wane. Often they’ve started a steady job or taken on new projects and then old projects are not as fun to work on, or they don’t have time to work on them anymore. So make sure that the support is in place with a company that has support as a part of their business practice.