Four factors to consider when choosing the right web agency for your small business website design and creation
The digital world has come a long way and having a strong online presence is now an essential marketing tool that can make or break a business.
Without a website, you run the risk of losing potential customers who are searching online for a product or service that you’re offering. This leaves you with the task of having to find the right web agency when making aware your products or services.
Here we present 4 factors to consider when choosing a website agency.
Previous Work
Many website agencies boast about design and innovation in creating a website. But getting your website right isn’t only about making your business look creative and different from the competition. It’s about capturing the interest of potential customers and encouraging them to purchase from you.
Before you commit yourself to an agency, make sure you check their portfolio and case studies to see if you like the look of their work. If you can’t find an example of your sector, ask the agency since it may surprise you how many crossovers there are with previous projects, if not a similar industry. Not every agency out there has an interactive website. When it comes to collaborating with experts to spruce up your web and enhance your customers’ experience, it is better to start with a transparent brand. Some dedicated professionals use to come up with results from previous works to encourage you and decide whether you work with them or not. For instance, Groundwrk – Denver Web Design manages to explain how they do what they’re good at by case studies. Their web has such a user-friendly home page for you to try and decide.
If the agency is fairly new or hasn’t been in business for long, don’t cut them out straight away since a lot of new agencies have creative and new ideas. The crucial point here is how the agency aims to understand your industry, as well as your products and services and how they will effectively deliver the solution to you.
Another important thing to keep an eye out for is testimonials– do they look genuine and from credible clients? This should give you an idea of whether their clients were satisfied with the work they produced.
How They Work
Understanding the process in which an agency works is important since if they are just talking about the design and look of your website, then bells should start ringing. A good agency will talk about the content of your website, your audience, as well as the customer journey in helping to achieve your website objectives.
A creative website is great for standing out, however if this doesn’t meet your ultimate objectives, you are simply wasting your time and money.
Website Change
Depending on your type of business, most websites will face changes to their site over time, this can include content changes such as rewriting a page, or adding a new range of products. Therefore, one key question you should ask the web designer is what platform they are using to build the site and whether they charge an hourly rate for any changes made since certain changes will require their time.
If the changes are small and you want to update content regularly, then ask them if they could set up a login for you on their content management system, which makes this fast and easy to upload or change content as you want.
Since you are a small business, the best option would be if you have control.
Result
Often when a business goes with a website agency, they forget to ask how results are measured. The key thing here is to know what you want to achieve from your website.
These objectives could range from:
- To generate leads
- To increase online sales
- To improve brand awareness of your business
The general answer is always something along the lines of using google analytics or other related tools to measure web traffic, bounce rate or conversions from the website.
Once you’ve gathered enough information from each agency, you should now make an informed decision. Factors to consider include the impressions you got of them, is their standard of work up to your level and most importantly, will they get you the results you want.
There are many factors to consider, but hopefully these will give you enough to build up your base when choosing a web agency to develop your website.
Victoria Ward
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