This is a question every business looking to have a new website or a redesign will be asking themselves. The question is a very valid one and can set you back a lot if you do not choose the best one that suits you.
There are so many options available offered by local web design suppliers and national suppliers. There are many well established web design agencies like ourselves being in business for 20 years. On the end of the scale you will find inexperienced web designers or freelance web designers and even scam companies who promise things but do not deliver.
To add into the mix there are also cheaper alternatives that offer a package where a website is offered in with hosting on a yearly fee. Yell websites are also around now that uses pre made templates and blatantly add on other services to ramp up the cost.
For me getting quoted a low price for a web design is a big red flag that I would query first if it has come from a web design agency. Cheap web design is cheap for a reason and normally is not the best web design from the best web design agency. You do not get anything for nothing so I would make sure the quote is written down and explained what will be done for the price quoted.
If you are being offered a website template and having your content put in then that may explain why it is so cheap. This will cost less than when comparing to a custom web design like we offer where we design the website uniquely for your business.
Make enquiries to a number of companies, maybe phone them and talk to them on the phone first to see if you would feel comfortable with dealing with them. Having a website is a big decision and can take weeks to do so you need to feel confident and happy discussing things with them over these number of weeks.
I would always advise to use a web design agency that also has great experience in graphic design work. I am biased but having a graphic designer to actually design your website will guarantee the consistency of the design throughout the website and is always a quick and cheap way of actually creating a Brand Design for other marketing literature including print design.
I say this because our bespoke websites our so professionally designed that our clients often want to use the design and elements from it to design a Flyer or even a Brochure, that proves you are one of the best design agencies.
Do not be taken in by technical talk
Look to use a web design agency who speaks your language. Do not be taken in by Jargon used, it does not mean that they know what they are talking about. If you have a query about something spoken about then ask them what that means, the best will explain it for you.
If a website design agency says things like it will be an interactive website or will have all the bells and whistles. These do not mean anything and are left to interpretation – definitely not the best web design agency and not what you want.
They may quote computer jargon and say it will do this and that but a bit further down the road there are many companies that fall a long way short of their initial promises. Over the 20 years we have been offering web design we have been told some incredible scam stories.
When it comes to choosing your best web design agency follow these Golden rules :
- Think about what you want from your web design agency, for instance do you want them to have very high technical skills or would you prefer them to be highly creative.
We are for instance a full service digital marketing agency meaning we have a good level of everything like design, web development as well as online digital marketing.
It is also a good idea to ask if everything is done in-house. If not ask who they use for external work.
It always also helps to write a Brief outlining what you are looking for. - Choose a Web Design Agency that can show many years experience of working with similar clients to you. Consider and ask about what long term customers they have.
For instance we still have clients that started with us 20 years ago. So if you are wanting a web agency that will work with you and develop your relationship make sure you choose one that does this.
There are many web design agencies that are happy to take your money at the start and thats where their support starts and finishes. This will be very important for the expansion and growth of your business or not! - Make sure the web design agency you choose understands about your business and what you want to achieve from your website.
If you want to generate enquiries and sales direct from it you need to make sure they are including to optimise the website appropriately.
Making your website search engine optimised can be planned at the outset of the website but make sure the agency has good track record of this. An agency may say they can do many things that they really cannot just to get your business.
We actively advertise that we provide SEO on our website so look out for that. - Digital marketing experts or just technical web developers?
This brings me on to Digital Marketing and the services required to offer this. As described above SEO is part of regular Digital Marketing along with Pay Per Click advertising, Social media and Email marketing.
Many newer web design agencies may say they can offer all these services so ask for case studies of work to prove they can successfully offer this. If they are competent they should have a large list of happy clients. - Check online reviews.
These are generally a good pointer as to whether an agency is liked by clients, however even reviews can be manipulated unfortunately. However you can always look at their work, although it is hard to judge if you are not privy to what the original brief was. However we believe once you have looked at our gallery of website designs you will quickly come to understand why we are known as the best web design agency. - Ask what tools the agency uses to design their website.
This is important because some agencies may create your website in such a way that it can only be amended by themselves. We choose to use the WordPress platform for most of our websites because our clients want a bespoke web design,
it to be affordable, flexible and can have features added on easily in the future.
Also make sure that your website works across a range of browsers and devices including Mobiles.
We were established in 2001 and since then we have become expert custom web design specialists. Backed up by our own in-house graphic designers we are confident we can design your bespoke website to whatever brief is required.
We work for start up’s as well as medium and Blue chip companies, we mainly have clients in the West Midlands area where we are based centrally in Coventry.
