Choosing a good design / development company is a bit like finding a good builder. There are plenty out there but how do you find the good ones?
Before contacting a web design and development company, decide on the limits of your budget and have some idea of what you want. Don`t forget your web site is an investment, servers as your introduction, selling tool and image recognition.
Ask yourself:
Do you want a corporate brochure, an information site, a magazine site, or an online store?
Do you want database access, to store product details, which can be searched and displayed online?
Do you want an animated web site with moving graphics and user interaction?
Do you have all the information that a designer would need?
Although your first impact of the company will usually be their own website, make sure you look deeper into their portfolio. Every designer is capable of producing one great website - but can they produce twenty great websites in succession?
Is their portfolio of work sympathetic to my business?
Do I like their style of design?
Do all their websites look the same?
Who Is?
No that`s not an incomplete statement it`s the name of a directory that you should familiarize yourself with. Using the WHOIS database you can search and find out information about an existing domain name such as the owner, how long it`s been registered and other useful information. The WHOIS database will provide you with the contact information of the person or organization that registered the domain name you are inquiring about, you can check here.
If you have any doubts about the size of the company, largely speaking, the size of the company provides you with no indication to the quality or work they can produce; or the services they can provide.
There are a lot of freelance web designers who can produce far superior work to large companies, but there are also freelance web designers who charge much more than large companies. Don’t let your preconceptions about the size of companies get in the way of the facts.
How much will they charge me for website design?
Website design companies can have very different ways of charging. Some may charge high set-up costs and low recurring fees. Some will pull in customers with a low set-up cost and then charge high recurring fees and then it is not easy pull back.
Bear in mind that most professional web design companies work on a bespoke basis - and will therefore not be able to publish specific prices. They will however, be able to provide you with a approximate figure based on a technical and/or design brief. They should also be able to provide you with an indication of what their hourly/daily rate is.
When you contact a designer or web developer the important questions to ask are:
- Is the company a full time design company? Some ‘hobbyist’ designers build webs as a second or weekend job.
- Can you contact them during working hours? Again this will show if the design company is full time or part time.
- Do they have their own web domain? Any self respecting designer will have their own web domain if not you should ask why not.
- Do they charge for an initial consultation? Some companies will try to charge a fee just to discuss your requirements, others will try to do business over the phone, whilst others will offer a free initial consultation and build further consultations into the price of the contract.
- What is the main revenue for the company? Some companies offer web sites in addition to their main business. A number of graphic designers and printers have branched out into the web design business. There is nothing wrong with this but ensure that they understand the technical issues.
- Can they build what you want? Do they have the right resources and technology? Do they offer web hosting and diagnostics for your requirements? How they plan to assist you in promoting your website?
- What kind of support do they offer when things go wrong or need changing? Do they charge for support?
- What are the addresses of their reference sites? You must see some published work. Starting with the design company’s own web site, and some of their clients.
- Do they have clients willing to talk to you? Is their service of a standard that their clients will recommend them? If they are good and competent designers then they should have clients who are prepared to discuss their experiences.
- Can you visit them at their offices? If you are entrusting an important part of your company strategy to a stranger you need to build a relationship. You are more likely to get a good web site if the designer understands your business, products or services. (by GO-Globe - website design from Dubai, Abu Dhabi)This entry was posted on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 at 1:04 pm and is filed under Home, Web application, Web design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
