16 Criteria to Help You Choose a Cool Web Design Company

Do you need a website and want to find the best web design company to create a really cool web site? Read these points and you will know what you need to pay attention to first. There are 16 main points by which you can determine the best web design company.

Web design company services

Probably, this criterion can be used to evaluate almost any company, regardless of its field of activity. Indeed, the longer a company has been on the market. The more experience it has in everything from approaching a client to resolving crisis situations.

No, we do not want to say that the customer at all costs needs to look for those companies that were born at the dawn of the Internet. One year of work can be considered quite a decent period. Usually, during this time, a company working in the field of web design has already managed to implement about 30-40 projects. That allows us to talk about sufficient experience, both directly in creating sites and working with clients.

Number of completed projects

It is very useful to know how many projects the company has completed. Although, this figure is rather arbitrary. In fact, it is not possible to verify these data (in contrast to the time of operation in the market, which starts counting from the date of the company foundation, which can be verified). Therefore, you will probably just have to believe the numbers.

Availability of a portfolio

As a rule, the most successful and well-turned projects are included in the portfolio. Unsuccessful ones, of course, will try to hide from a potential client any company – even top web design agencies.

At the same time, the very fact of successful implementation may already indicate that the company is able to achieve its goals. True, here it is necessary to take into account the fact that some newly created companies may try to cheat and include in their portfolio those projects that have not actually been implemented by them and to which they have nothing to do.

In order not to be deceived, it makes sense to check the information from the portfolio. This can be done very easily: you just need to call the company that is listed as a customer and find out if the information on the website design firm’s website corresponds to reality. If you are planning to order a complex and expensive design for your site, be sure to make sure that the developer does not deceive you already at the stage of acquaintance.

The presence of renowned companies among the customers

Typically, web designing firms, for self-promotion purposes, try to indicate as many eminent companies as possible that have ordered website development from them. If the company had customers that it can boast of, that’s good.

However, this criterion also has a flip side of the coin. If a company has developed a website for, say, Boeing, expect its services to cost several times more than usual. But not because it is a top web design company, but simply because there were celebrities among their customers. When ordering services from such a company, you will overpay simply to be on a par with such a customer as Boeing, but nothing more.

Availability of a rating on specialized exchanges

Often, web designing firms create profiles on exchanges in order to find potential clients and implement their projects. As a rule, the functionality of such exchanges allows the company to leave a review of the work done at the end of the project. By the number and content of such reviews, one can judge the success of the company.

Some exchanges even have something like a rating system. The more orders a website design firm has completed and the better its reviews, the higher it is in such ratings.

Presence in independent ratings

Here it is necessary to make a reservation that it can be very problematic to distinguish an independent rating from a dependent. After all, you, the reader, are also a businessman, and you understand that some ratings can be made to order.

Indeed, this is a widespread practice, when a company pays for the compilation of such a rating, where it appears in the first place, and in all subsequent ones – other randomly taken companies. Of course, such a rating cannot be called independent in any way. And at the same time, the very fact that the company got into the purchased rating already suggests that it turned out to be noticeable enough to be included there, even if it was placed in the last positions.

Today, there are no really authoritative ratings of web designing firms on the Internet that could be unconditionally trusted. Therefore, to believe or not to believe this or that rating is up to you.

Participation in competitions

There are many design contests in which many top web design agencies from all over the world compete for the main prize, as well as individual designers. The most famous and reputable contests are Awards, FWA and CSS. There are many different competitions and regional scale.

Participation in design competitions often lends itself to criticism: the imperfection of the assessment system, the choice of the jury, the assessment criteria, the level of the participants. However, here, rather, something else is important: the company seeks to conquer new heights – this is at least commendable.

Even if the company did not win, the very fact of its participation is already remarkable in itself. And it is really difficult to win there, because there are a lot of participants, and accordingly, the competition is extremely high. And the title of the best of the best is received by a few out of thousands.

At such international competitions, the jury evaluates, first of all, the innovativeness of the project. How complicated it is technically, how new and innovative are the solutions, even those that are not visible to ordinary users. The participants are aware of this approach of the jury, and their readiness for such serious tests speaks of the seriousness of their approach to business.

True, you have to make a reservation that the services of a company that has awards will be higher than that of any others. Simply because it was recognized as the best web design company and now it has an award, while others do not. You should understand that the cost of a service always grows in proportion to the number of achievements.

Availability of an office

In general, this is a rather double criterion. On the one hand, if a company has an office, it speaks of its seriousness. On the other hand, about 70% of companies do not have offices due to the lack of an essential practical need for them.

Indeed, why does the company need an office, because only a resident of the city in which it is located can come to it, while residents of any cities can order the development of the site, and even outside the country. In addition, the designers are not workers who need to stand at the machine in the factory. In fact, a designer can work from anywhere on the planet, having a laptop at hand – for this he does not need to be in the office, especially in the conditions of quarantine caused by COVID-19, when personal meetings are generally undesirable.

It is also worth considering that the maintenance of an office requires expenses, which means that the company’s services will cost more, because it will include these expenses in the cost of its services.

Ensuring direct contact between the customer and the performers

As a rule, a manager supervises the work on any order, he also controls the progress of its implementation. However, this does not mean at all that the manager is the only person with whom the customer can contact. On the contrary, this state of affairs should arouse caution.

The fact is that not all web designing firms actually provide design services. You may come across an intermediary firm that takes your order, but in fact does not perform any work, but transfers the task to other firms or even to individual freelancers.

Not that it would always be so critically bad in terms of the final result, because the person with whom the contract is signed is still responsible for the final result. However, in this case, the cost of the work will be higher, because such an intermediary firm will make a mark-up in order to get its own percentage of the transaction. And besides it will be much easier for you to explain directly to the designer what you want than to play the “damaged phone”, passing all your wishes through the project manager.

Providing a service of website filling with a content

You should understand that the development of a site and its filling with a content are two completely different services, and that the provision of the first does not mean the automatic provision of the second at all.

Some companies are engaged only in the development of the site itself, but do not provide any services for filling it with content. This can be quite inconvenient, because in this case you will have to look for copywriters on your own who will write texts for the site. And in general, the search for a good copywriter is a very difficult business.

A copywriter is not a writer who just puts words into sentences and can be found anywhere. A copywriter is, first of all, a competent sales manager who knows how to present your products or services on the site with the help of text so that potential buyers want to purchase them.

And besides, in order for a copywriter to write a text, it is initially required to draw up a technical task for it. A technical task is drawn up by an SEO specialist, based on the planned strategy of website promotion. And here we move on to the next “must have” service – SEO optimization.

Provision of SEO optimization services

You need not just a website, but a website that will be visited! It will be too expensive to provide high traffic to the site with one advertising campaign, because advertising requires constant expenses.

In order to minimize the need for advertising, you need to optimize your site so that search engines show it to your potential customers or buyers every time they search for products or services you offer on the Internet.

At the same time, it is critically important that your site is on the top lines, because according to statistics, a potential client or buyer in 95% of cases makes an order or a purchase on a site that is in the top ten results.

It follows from this that it is almost impossible to do without SEO-optimization in most cases. And it will be much better and easier if the same website design firm will carry it out.

Provision of advertising campaign services

Of course, you would like to limit yourself to SEO optimization in order to get leads for free. However, in practice, one way or another, from time to time, you have to feed the traffic of site visitors with advertising – there is no getting away from this if you want the sales of goods and services to be stable.

Basically, Google tools provide detailed guidance on how to start an ad campaign. However, it will take a lot of time to learn how to use them correctly. And if you do not have such extra time, these tasks will have to be entrusted to someone. And it would be nice if the very company that developed your site was engaged in this.

Promptness approach

The seriousness of the company’s attitude to business can be indicated by how it reacts during the first contact: whether they immediately answered the call, how quickly they called back if you left a request on the website.

Self-respecting top web design agencies do not allow themselves to react slowly. If the company responds slowly to the call, it is likely that it will also be slow and slow to implement your project. And time is money. Every day, when your site is not working yet, it is not visited by potential customers. And a potential customer who did not come to your site – will not place an order with you and you will not receive income. That’s why every day is important.

So be sure to pay attention to how agile the employees are.

Openness

Any top web design company is always open to its clients. Of course, everyone can try to hide some unpleasant moments from their history, but in general they are not trying to make a secret out of everything.

For example, a good company does not hesitate to provide a list of completed projects over the past year or name those customers whose work has not been included in the portfolio. The company will not make a secret of which of its employees will work on your project – on the contrary, it will try to introduce you to each of them as soon as possible.

Do not hesitate to ask the manager questions and evaluate how willingly he answers them and how willing he is to inform you. The more open a company is to its customers, the more reliable it is.

Focus on the final result

Remember, a website is NOT something that “just has to be”. A website is NOT a painting that is bought simply to hang on the wall.

The site is a sales tool. And by investing in its development, you should expect that with it you will be able to sell more products or services.

Therefore, the main goal of the best web design company should be the desire to provide you with this very sales growth. Feel free to ask your manager if, in principle, the company understands the essence of this task. Your developer’s understanding of the end goal is critical to you. If this understanding is lacking, you should probably look for another company.

Expertise

This criterion logically follows from the previous one. If the company employs experts, you can expect their results to differ from your expectations – and that’s okay.

Agree, an expert who has been working in the field of website promotion for more than one year knows much better than a customer how to make the site more efficiently attract customers. Let’s give a simple example: a client wants a website in dark colors with light inscriptions. In this case, the designer will almost certainly begin to argue and convince the client that this is not the best choice, to cite research results in support of his words. And this is good.

A top web design company should not blindly follow the wishes of the client, implementing ideas that are harmful to the business. A truly expert company can be called the one that at every step will suggest which of the ideas will work best. Of course, the client is always right and ultimately will be done the way he wants, but the sacred duty of any performer is always to prompt his client the best solutions and explain to the client in an understandable language why some of his ideas may be harmful.

Let’s summarize. We have described 16 criteria by which you can evaluate almost any website design firm. We recommend that you do not limit yourself to one or two criteria, but use their entire complex – then your conclusions will be the most objective, and you will understand exactly which firms can be called top web design agencies, and which cannot. This will help you get a good result and not regret your choice. How to make effctive website read here