Choosing a company to design your website has long-lasting ramifications for your business.
While many people choose a website design company based on word of mouth, location, or simply a nice looking website, there’s much more involved.
Before choosing the person or company to design your website, you want to interview them. Get a sense for the feel of the company and the personality of your design team.
In this article, we look at seven questions you must answer before choosing a website design company.
#1: Do you understand web conversion?
With this question, what you really want to know is if they understand how to convert visitors to customers. You want to know if they are capable of creating lead-generating landing pages.
In other words, what results are they willing to provide? If they’re just promising you a pretty site, they aren’t worth your time.
Your website is pivotal to your brand and your marketing strategy. As such, the development of your website must include a plan for generating leads, increasing brand awareness and converting site visitors.
Listen for the following words as they will tell you whether or not the website design company is concerned with the beauty of your site or the lead-generation capabilities of your website.
- Bounce Rates
- Repeat Traffic
- Conversions
- Lead Generation
- Google Rankings
- Keywords
- Search Engine Optimization
- Calls to Action
- Lead Generating Forms
Your website is your main marketing channel. You are using it to build your business. So, you want to know that your chosen design company has actually increased the market value of previous websites. Ask for this information and review it carefully.
#2: How can you help me with my marketing strategy?
If they tell you that your site has nothing to do with your marketing strategy, run.
Your website should incorporate elements of your entire marketing strategy. It should be the engine that fuels your business growth and that can take it to the next level.
Find out if they’ll treat your pages as landing pages with conversion goals for each. Ask if each page will include a call to action.
Inquire about incorporating your entire digital strategy into your website – Google Ads, social media and email marketing. Will they design your website to work with your overall marketing picture?
#3: Do you understand my business needs?
If the company you choose designs the most beautiful website for you, but they don’t understand your business, you’ve lost a lot of money and launched a useless website.
Function trumps form when it comes to new websites.
Plus, you want your website to reflect your business and your brand. Ask yourself if they are capable of building a site that encompasses your mission and vision.
#4: How will you optimize my site?
Don’t settle for the answer, “Trust us, we’ll optimize it.”
You want to know how.
Search engine optimization (SEO) has evolved over the past few years. It’s about providing content that is focused on your audiences. It’s about fine-tuning landing pages and honing the images and text.
Your organic search needs must be provided for by your website design company. They must tell you how they’ll target your users and provide for an easily searchable website.
Be sure you are well-versed in their approach to SEO.
#5: Do you understand my customers and the sales process?
If your website design company doesn’t understand your target market, your customers and your sales process, they won’t be able to build you a website with a friendly user experience.
When interviewing a company, ask them about their knowledge in these areas. While they may think they know, it could turn out that your business operates differently than others they’ve worked with.
Ask them if they’re capable of using your brand to build the site. Can they incorporate your look, your tone and your voice?
Before signing the contract, be sure the company fully understands and is capable of meeting your marketing goals through your new website.
#6: Will my website be responsive?
Responsive web design should be one of the buzz words you hear mentioned right off the bat. In fact, if any of the designs in their portfolio aren’t mobile-friendly, this isn’t the website design company for you.
Responsive websites are mobile-friendly. They resize easily from phone to tablet to laptop and desktop. In other words, the customer experience isn’t affected by the device’s screen size.
Google nearly insists on mobile-friendly sites in their search ranking algorithms.
If the website design company doesn’t mention responsive web design, ask about it. This is an absolute must and something they should provide.
#7: Who have you worked with?
One of the best ways to gauge your future website results with a new service provider is to take a look at the website design company’s past clients.
Your first look at companies they’ve worked with in the past, and the results they have had with those companies is probably the most critical piece of information you need to make a decision. Often times, you’ll be able to gauge the level of experience by the companies a service provider has worked with in the past.
By looking at their past client list, you’ll be able to better understand how a potential vendor/partner will work for your needs. What types of companies have they worked with? How much volume do those companies produce? What industries are they in? That is the experience you need to have for your company, the more experience your potential vendor has in your market, the better chance you have of racking up big wins. By diving deeper and pushing for more information, you’ll be better able to decide if they can meet your expectations and your business goals.
For example, if you own a company that generates insurance leads, ask them if they’ve ever worked with a company with a similar type of business as yours and similar market. If you own an ecommerce site selling outdoor gear, ask about their experience with similar types of sites that might have a similar brand message as yours and similar customer profiles.
You want to ensure you trust the company, their expertise and their promised results.
Final Thoughts
When you decide to build or redesign a website, choosing a website design company is a critical decision. It’s one you’ll have to live with for many years, especially if you’re putting down a large chunk of money for the build.
Your website is the centerpiece of your marketing strategy.
Whether your marketing involves pay-per-click, email, social media or traditional media such as print and television, you can bet potential customers will make a visit to your website before deciding to do business with you.
Vet your website design company just as your customers are going to vet you. After all, you are entrusting your business and your future success to the website design company.
Are you ready to squeeze more profit out of your website by fine-tuning your landing pages to skyrocket growth among your email subscribers and current customers? That’s terrific! We’re here to help you optimize your website so it works fluidly for your website visitors. In fact, we promise you we’ll do just that.
With our guarantee, you can rest assured we will increase your profits through landing page optimization.
If you’re ready to work with the leader in landing pages and conversion rate optimization, contact us today.We’ll provide you with our FREE site performance analysis so we can work on your landing page conversion rates.
Image: Alejandro Escamilla
