Websites act as the home base for a company’s entire digital presence, so it may shock you to learn that less than two-thirds of small businesses have a website.
Well, in order to get ahead of the competition, having a proper website is absolutely critical. Luckily, it’s never been easier to find the right website design service for your company. Let’s talk about how to find the right people for your website needs.
What Should I Look For?
When choosing a web design service, it’s important that you know what you’re looking for. If you’re not big on tech, it may sound confusing to you, but don’t worry. We’ll make it easy.
There are certain services that any modern business should be seeking for their websites, as they are critical for keeping up with your competition. Here are a few of the most important ones.
SEO Services
In today’s world, hiring web design services without SEO services is like asking for a pizza with no cheese. SEO is the number one way to build organic traffic to your website, and that’s the best kind of traffic for making conversions and building loyal customers.
Even if you have a solid content marketing strategy, it’s important to remember that your website is the backbone of your SEO value. The best fishing blog ever could never see the first page on a relevant Google search because they didn’t take the time to optimize their site.
Because of this, you need to find a company that takes your SEO strategy as seriously as you do, as the benefits of building a quality SEO site could last you for years to come. Here are a few things to review.
Mobile Design
This is a deal-maker or a deal-breaker. 56% of all traffic comes from mobile devices, making responsive mobile design a top priority for both your business, your users, and Google.
Because the majority of traffic comes from smartphones and similar technology, it’s critical that a website be optimized for both. This will allow for faster loading times, easier navigation tools, and a better fit for mobile screens. This will only help with user experience, user retention, and your site’s overall SEO value.
Audits
If you’re looking for a website redesign, do they offer SEO audits on your existing website? This is a great way to limit the amount of work that needs to be done, save you some money, and get the best results possible.
They may find 404 redirects, a more simplified navigation system to use, and a couple of slow pages, and be able to dramatically improve your website with a few tweaks instead of recreating the entire site.
If you are getting your website designed for the first time, this service will also allow you to go back to your web designer after some time has passed and get a quick fix instead of a redesign.
Location
Location is a critical part of SEO, and depending on the nature of your business, you will need a certain breadth of experience from your web design team.
If they have national, local, and global experience, then you can bet that they offer quality services. If you’re a local business relying entirely on local traffic, it’s very important that they have experience with local SEO. The same applies at the national and global levels.
SEO Tools
Ask them about the SEO tools they use. If they don’t have an answer right away, then this is a red flag. There are plenty of valuable tools out there, and many companies have different preferences. However, if they don’t have a favorite, then their experience is likely outdated.
Responsive Web Design
User experience and SEO go hand-in-hand. Ideally, you want your web design team to focus primarily on user experience, as this will benefit your website’s entire sales prospects.
Having a better user experience will help with ad conversions, SEO prospects, user retention, customer loyalty, and more. This should include using up-to-date web design tools and having a detailed plan to offer fast load times, clean navigation tools, and more.
Brand Services
Your website is one of the best locations to showcase your brand. If your font, color scheme, tone of voice, and overall aesthetic are uniform across your marketing strategy, then this will go a long way toward building brand recognition and brand loyalty.
The right team will be able to work with your brand image and display it properly all throughout your site. If these are services you are seeking, this will typically require some level of graphic design or marketing experience to pull off correctly, so talk to your web designer and see what they can do.
Niche Services
Are there any services that are specific to your industry or business that you need? Well, make sure they offer it.
For example, you may need a web design company that uses WordPress, one that can create gaming widgets, develop an e-commerce store on your site, or anything else. If you have any specific needs outside of traditional web development, but that will go hand in hand with your website, make sure your web designer can help you.
Experience
Now, it’s important to note that years of experience are a great thing, as long as they have been kept up to date. A “good” website from 2005 is very different from a “good” website in 2021. On the other side of the coin, you don’t necessarily want a brand new web designer to handle your entire project.
Ideally, what you want is a team that has several years of experience but who keeps up with all of the latest industry trends. This will give you the best of both worlds, and you can verify their experience by checking some of their more recent examples and references.
Having a proven track record and an established business is the perfect mix to ensure that you’re getting the highest quality.
Also, what kind of experience are they bringing to the table? If you have a team of web developers with little or no marketing experience, this isn’t ideal. Your website should be your top salesperson, and there are plenty of ways to make that a reality, but only if your web designers are viewing your website through a marketing lens.
If they have experience in your industry, great. What’s more important is that they have experience across multiple industries, as this will allow them to combine what they’ve learned from each into one great product.
Price
Lastly, you want to make sure that the cost will fit your web design budget. You can check out their pricing options online or contact the company to ask about their prices. If they review your website or your design ideas, they will be able to give you a better estimate as to what you should expect.
Remember, your website is the center of your entire digital marketing strategy, so the right design is worth the price. It’s recommended that small businesses spend between 7% and 8% of their revenue on marketing, so you shouldn’t neglect the most important part.
How to Find the Right Web Design Services for Your Company
In today’s world, you need to make sure that you’re both avoiding scams and getting the right bang for your buck. There are plenty of “web design companies” out there who will use all the right words to sound legit, but they may not offer all of the services that you need.
Here is how you can verify that the team you are looking at can offer you the services and experience that your company needs.
Check Their Services Page
Before you dive any deeper, look at the company’s website. First, their website should look like a quality web design team created it. Next, you should check out their services page to see if they offer what you are looking for. This is a good place to start before you look into their history.
If you have a checklist in mind of services you require, this is a great way to weed out potential web designers who don’t match your website’s needs.
Check References
Always check references to avoid scams, gauge customer satisfaction, and understand more about the company. Unlike online reviews, you can ask the questions that you want to ask with references.
If you reach out to their references and ask about their communication, timeliness, and overall experience working with the company, this will give you a good idea of what to expect before your website is launched.
You can also ask about how the website has been performing since it received these services. Keep in mind that it usually takes 4 to 12 months for an SEO strategy to start seeing any benefits, but you can still ask. If you ask a recent client along with a client from a few years ago, this will give you the best idea of how the websites perform.
Ask if their conversion rates improved, if they noticed any difference in their SEO ranking and any other questions you may have.
Read Reviews
Reading online reviews is tricky, as you don’t want to stick to their website, and some reviewers are less than fair. If you only read reviews on a company’s website that specializes in web design, you’re guaranteed to only see what they want you to see.
Because of this, check on other online review pages and see what previous clients have to say about their services. Don’t just look at the star ratings, as some people will leave a one-star for something that won’t affect you at all. Take the time to read through each review in order to get the best idea of the services you’re looking into.
If you check Yelp, Better Business Bureau, and Google My Business, you should be able to get a good understanding of customer satisfaction. If there are no reviews on any of these, or if you can’t find the business at all, this may be a red flag, unless you can verify that the company is new.
Review Their Portfolio
Without a doubt, the best way to get an idea of their previous work is to see it for yourself. If there is no portfolio on their website, as for links to some of their previous client sites and look through them thoroughly.
This is also a great way to gauge some of their SEO skills. When you are provided with links to their previous websites, you can look on multiple devices, navigate through these websites, and put yourself in the shoes of an average user.
This is a great way to judge whether or not you’ll be getting the products you were looking for, especially if the web design company has experience working with similar companies to yours.
If they have a “case studies” section on their website, or if they offer one to you upon request, then you will be able to see these websites’ performance over time, as well, which is even better.
Hire Today!
Now that you know how to choose the right website design service for your company, it’s important to remember that the sooner you do so, the sooner you will start seeing the rewards. SEO and web sales are long-term projects that require effort and patience to see success, and they are well worth the wait. Well, you can always book a free consultation and get started today!