In this updated blog post, we will go through the criteria or more like a checklist that needs to be followed while selecting a web design company in the USA.
Know your requirements
Just like how picturing a recipe is important even before it is made, it is also important and necessary to visualize the end design of your future website. In this process, get an understanding of why you need a website and what purpose you intended your website to serve. Also, get an understanding of your audience, business and competitors. Getting to know your audience and competitors would help you in better planning of the website alongside the web design team later.
Plan your budget
It is very important to fix your budget. It is what decides the quality of the work that you can afford. In general the web designers charge a lot for the services they offer. Since it might be your first website, a well structured and well designed website will do wonders for establishing your online presence. It is not feasible for you to spend more money on web design if you are a small startup or small business.
Stay informed about the web design companies
With the availability of huge amounts of information available on the internet about the web design companies in the USA, comes a great responsibility to filter the same to get our desired output. To zero-in on a good web design company, checking with recommendation from your clients would be a great start. Reading reviews about such companies on various platforms, would filter out the options further.
Lastly, checking the portfolio of selected companies would help you discover the success stories generated by the company for their previous clients. It also helps in checking out the level of expertise the company has for designing websites with your kind of requests.
Doing all this is a bit of a stretch but it is worth all the trouble when you get a good web design company at the end.
Specific skills of the company
The world is changing rapidly and so are the technological advancements in all spheres of life, including website development. If your website is not up to date, your competitors might get an edge over you and that would mean a downfall in your business. Here are some of the criteria to call a web company tech-savvy:
● Usage of CMS
CMS stands for content management system used for creating and managing the content on the website with the help of some kind of application but not through direct coding. Eg: Wordpress, joomla, squarespace, wix, ghost, etc
If a company tries to use static HTML then it is safe to move away from them.
● Responsive website
Internet consumption on mobile phones, tabs and other devices has increased tremendously which led to the need for responsive websites, where the websites adjust their content according to the screen size.
● Trends to keep up with
Apart from the responsiveness of the website, a lot of new design styles like scrolling, parallax, flat design, and various other styles and elements are emerging. Check if the company is up-to-date with all these factors which might add a great edge to your website.
● User experience
One of the most important aspects of web design is the experience that a user has with a website. Depending on this, there might be an increase in traffic to your website.
● Importance of conversion of visits to website
Increasing traffic is not the only thing that should be focused on. Converting these visits to prospective customers is everything and an art in itself. Check out the success stories of the company's previous clients for this kind of information.
Ease of communication
Communication irrespective of the field or industry, plays a vital role in exchanging ideas among people. The setting up of a website and maintaining the same requires constant interaction and exchange of views between you and the web designing company. This requires good compatibility to decrease the chance of unpleasant situations. To know the compatibility check these two criteria:
● How they listen to your ideas
Since you are the expert in your field, you know pretty well what works from the business point of view. You might have prepared or might have thought about the outlook of the website. They do need to listen to your views patiently. If they nod for every demand of yours without any opposition, then they are not worth the money.
● How they bring up their ideas
It is true that there is no one other than you who is expert in your business, but when it comes to designing the website you need to trust the team that you have hired and let them do their job. A good designer should be able to point the holes in your plans and come up with solutions to the same. Both you and the team should work hand in hand to get the best out of each other in creating your website.
Local team vs Outsourcing
One upside of hiring a local team is that communication becomes seamless. There are other added advantages like cultural similarities, wherein it becomes easy to communicate easily what the target audience wants. And also if the project goes south, it is easy to solve legal issues because of the same jurisdiction. The main drawback of hiring them is that they are expensive.
When your budget is tight there is always the option of outsourcing your project.This is optimal for small businesses and small startups. Outsourcing is relatively cheaper than hiring a local team. Generally outsourcing is done to East European countries. On this account there will be a lot of cultural dissimilarities and it may become a little hard to communicate the needs of the target audience. In addition, there is a difference in time zones and hence one needs to be ready to schedule meetings at weird times.
