There are many factors that you should consider when choosing the best web design company for your needs. There are a multitude of companies on the internet that specialize in design services and therefore you need to be careful and choose the company that is going to provide you with the best service for your budget.
The most important factors that you should consider when you hire a design company are listed below, and these points should definitely help you to make the right choice.
- 1. Company Portfolio
Checking the portfolio of the company is one of the best ways to check the credibility of a company and the services that they offer. The portfolio will enable you to see whether you like their style and whether they are capable of designing unique designs or do all of the websites have a similar look etc. Look further than your first impression and aim to decide on a company that shows more than 8 unique websites in their portfolio.
- 2. Check The Cost
It is imperative that you do an in depth search to determine the exact cost of the services that the web design company is offering. There are some companies that will be offering low cost services and others that have overly expensive pricing structures. There are many companies that will pull clients in with their low prices and then charge higher recurring fees. You need to find out their hourly or daily rates as a must.
- 3. Check The Companies Qualifications, Skills And References
Before hiring any web design company you need to check the exact skills that they can offer. List your own criteria and make sure that this can be achieved, for example if you require flash animation then make sure that this is something that the company is capable of providing and so on.
The above points are the basic things to look at when you are choosing a web design company. By searching and doing a little specific research you will be in the position to make the right choice for your specifications, it is also worth asking friends or other business owners for a referral.
There are many websites out there, which are all owned by a variety of businesses. Some may even be used for personal blogs. What this means is the websites that are new and above existing websites will be competing for the attention of users. This means you may be missing some valuable traffic unless your website features the market cornered to one service or product. What you require is a killer website, with the web design that is both designed and programmed in order to maximize the web’s opportunities.
Is It Easy To Find?
It is important that your website not only looks pretty, but also very easy to find. In order to make the website more visible to potential clients, the web design needs to be done correctly.
Take Your Time
First, you need to take your time. If you wish to design a website that is good, you need to give it some careful consideration. Online tools may be able to help speed things up, but nothing quite beats the time and care one puts into the web design. If the time is limited, then you can also try to work with a range of professionals to help get the job done both quicker and within your budget.
Make the Design Simple
The design needs to be both uncluttered and simple. If you wish to attract visitors, it is important that you do not cram every little detail into the website. The more simple it is, the more it will appeal to the user, as too much information is just too much, which may put the user off. You need to ensure you websites design is responsive, as this maximizes its chances of reaching more customers, improving traffic, and increasing conversions and engagement.
Consider a SEO Campaign
Someone who can create a SEO campaign should be considered. SEO marketing is a strong strategy when it comes to improving presence online.
Lastly, you need to be sure to remember that the load time is serious. The amount of time it takes for your page to load is a make or break situation because every second counts.
The need for websites to be functional, attractive and easy to use is not an easy task. When you throw in the need for each site to be different to other sites particularly those of a client’s major competitors then you can begin to understand why the best website design companies are in such high demand.
Graphic Design
The best website design companies employ innovative and experienced to ensure the look of the website, the integration of logos and the production of graphics, icons and buttons become a harmonious and effective whole. This can be more difficult than it seems and when a large multipage site is needed then it can become a juggling act that gets more complicated as each piece is revised.
Functionality
While these design elements are being brought into a cohesive overall picture there are functional elements that also need to be addressed. It is vital to minimize load times so that customers are not waiting for pages to load because this is a guaranteed way to have then click onto another site. This then requires an additional balancing act so that the overall look is not compromised but that all graphics are optimized and load quickly.
Ease of Use
This can always be a contentious area of web design because a beautiful and artistic design that is impressive can sometimes make using the site difficult. Buttons that are difficult to read and functions that are not intuitive are important areas that need to be addressed. Small changes to the design can preserve the look and make your site much easier to use.
In The Loop
One of the major advantages of the modern digital design process is that from concept to approval and then from testing into final production you can be completely in the loop. Changes are quick and relatively easy so that you can always give your input on how you wish your website to look.
When you are able to be in the loop as far as the design process is concerned then you have more ownership of the website that will be the basis of your organizations web presence. This is a very positive thing and a hallmark of how the best website design companies can help you.
There are social networking sites, informative sites, industrial sites, e-commerce sites….so many websites and so many designs. What makes one web design better than another? The success of a website is most often measured by the traffic it generates and how easy it is to use once individual do get to your website. A solid web design can improve your search engine rankings and establish your website among relevant search engine results.
While no one design may be less or more effective than another, there are certain elements that are integral to an efficient website design. Here are some of the most important ones:
- Audience: One of the most important things when you decide on a web design is to know who you are designing for. Know your audience and who you intend to appeal to with your website.
- Media: Most people are visual and images can only contribute positively to your website. Feel free to make the most of images, videos and texts in your website- not only get your message across effectively but also to make your website aesthetically appealing.
- PDF Incorporation: Consider using PDF to help visitors download your brochures and other text that you would like your visitors to have.
- Check Links: Make sure all your webpages are functional before you publish your website. 404 error messages are frustrating and can turn away visitors in an instant.
- Browser Compatibility: Once you’ve successfully designed your website, make sure that it is accessible on various popular browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome among others. In addition, so many people are now accessing websites on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets that it is essential to also accommodate those who access websites on the go.
- Search Engine Optimization: Your website plays a very important role in SEO- the content of your website is essential to SEO and very important to ensure that you are ranked higher within search engines.
- Website Footer: this element is so often ignored by website builders. But this is essential to make a sort of last pitch effort to appeal to your customers.
A site’s web design is ultimately what establishes you business’ reputation online. Having a website that is user friendly with constant content updates will go a long way to obtain repeat business, generate new customers and make your business known.
Having a website that looks professional is important. Unless you are experienced at web design, for your first website you should get some help. There are plenty of professionals hat can help you; do your research and find the best website design companies to meet your needs.
Complete web design involves designing the entire website from the inside out. It mustn’t just look good, it must work flawlessly as well. Here are some of the ways a designer will help:
Image Optimization
Images and videos are an integral part of any online business website. It’s not just written content that appears in search results; graphics and media will also feature. These must be optimized in such a way that they count towards your site ranking
PDF Optimization
PDF files are one of the most common ways of supplying catalogues brochures and other information on a website. These must be optimized in the best way so that when they are published they can be found in the search results.
Website Footer
Web design involves making sure the footers are utilized in such a way that they also you’re your site rankings. A good deal of relevant information can be placed in the footer so make sure it is used to good effect.
404 Error Page
This is one of the most common errors, and it means your site page has disappeared. The best website design companies will ensure that this is customized to proper effect.
Browser Compatibility
A website does not look the same on all web browsers as it does on the designers screen. A website has to be designed to ensure compatibility with all the different web browsers.
SEO
The most effective way to get your site noticed. Web design must be done with SEO in mind.
Robots.txt
This is the first place a search engine looks. It’s an essential file to help the engine determine the best way of indexing and ranking our site.
Page Loading
People want fast websites. They don’t want to visit a site that takes ages to open and is slow to navigate. Web design always involves thinking about page optimization.
All of the above should be taken into account in web design in order to get the best results.
I’m going to break all the rules here and talk about myself. I’m a ghostwriter, and I ghostwrite these blog articles for SearchEngineAuthority.com. I ghostwrite for a boatload of other SEO websites and other small business blogs, too. Why am I breaking form? Simple: because I have a testimonial to give.
See, I’ve worked for several web design companies, ranging from the massive to the miniscule, and I can tell you right off the number one first thing that I look for when I pick a web design company for my personal use: I want a web design company that also does SEO. Those are the best website design companies around.
Why? Simple — form follows function. If you have a bunch of people creating the form of your website and they don’t understand one of it’s primary functions (to rank on the SERPs), how are they supposed to know what form to give it? It’s like building an umbrella and having a ‘water repelling expert’ come in and make modifications after the engineers already have a prototype built.
If, on the other hand, you have a web designer who can build for your search engine optimization concerns from the moment he first puts a less-than sign on his .htm document, you end up with a website that will have a much easier time ranking. Why?
- SEO-savvy web designers know better than to put any unimportant text to the left of the important stuff — they know that spiders think the most important stuff comes first, and they read left to right.
- A web designer that knows how to optimize will put the most important outgoing links first, for the same reason — the first outgoing link gets more juice than the next, and so on.
- Without SEO understanding, a web designer might well ignore or misuse the metatags and lose out on a good portion of the SEO value of the ‘pre-text’ of a webpage.
And that’s just the really basic stuff — there are plenty of other ways that a web designer/SEO expert can accelerate your optimization with a few simple changes about the layout and functionality of your website. So while I’m not anything but a ‘lowly’ ghostwriter, I encourage you to take my advice: don’t hire a web designer unless they know their SEO, too.
The best website design companies in the market have mastered the art of speaking two languages at once: the English that most of the internet’s users speak, and the markup language that most if not every website spider uses to teach itself about the contents of a site. It’s a more difficult trick than it seems. No matter how simple your website, optimization for two variables means neither one of those variables will end up as good as it can be.
Here’s an example of what we mean: spiders read text, and nothing else, but human eyes love pictures. Putting up a landing page that consists of little more than a giant Flash banner and a few links to other pages on the site might be awesome from and end-user perspective, but gives Google no idea of what the page might be about, because the Flash banner is just a giant blank spot to a spider.
Similarly, a spider starts in your left-most column and reads down, then moves to the next-leftist column, and reads down, and so forth. Search engines put more emphasis on the text that comes at the beginning of a website — but if you’re designing for a human, you may assume that the ‘beginning’ is the top of the central, ‘main’ column, and you’d be wrong. The most important stuff should be at the top of the left-most column, even if, to human eyes, that looks a little odd. (This is why columns on the right side of blogs are more popular than those on the left side.)
So if you want your content to rank the most easily, you want to write for the spiders, but if you want it to get the most social attention, you want to write for human minds. How do you do both at the same time? Well, first you familiarize yourself with the rules of on-page SEO and the mechanics of how spiders work. Then, you find the most human-friendly content that will fit into that cookie cutter. It’s something that the best website design companies have been doing for years.
Website Design | Kyle Johnson November 27, 2014 | 
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