How to Choose the Perfect Digital Agency for Your Small Business
It’s 2023, so there’s no need to explain the importance of having a well-designed website for any business, big or small. If you are reading this article, you’re probably thinking about hiring a web design company to build a user-oriented, eye-catching website for your small business.
But with so many options out there, how do you choose a company that matches your goals and expectations?
This is where we come to the rescue. In this article, we will present you with three simple steps you should follow to ensure you hire the right web design partner for your business.
Let’s find you a perfect match!
Know What Makes a Good Business Website
Knowing what makes a good business website will help you set the goals for your own website design. You will also have a better understanding of what to request from a web design company of your choice.
All well-designed business websites have the following five things in common:
A clear purpose: When the visitors first engage with your website, they should know right away what you do and what you expect them to do.
Strong branding: For people to remember your business, everything on your website should represent your brand cohesively—from your logo and colors to fonts and imagery.
Simple navigation: If your visitors have to work too hard to find what they want, they are more likely to bounce off and go directly to your competitors. This is why your website needs simple and intuitive navigation.
Responsive design: You need a website that performs well on all screen sizes and offers a seamless experience to all its users.
Easy-to-find contact information: Your visitors should be able to contact you hassle-free, without having to search endlessly through every page of your website.
Now that you know what your business website needs to have, let’s see how you can find a web design company that matches your requirements.
Conduct a Thorough Research
Find a reputable B2B marketplace that offers a wide selection of verified web design companies, categorized by price, experience, ratings, etc., and start from there.
Once you find a company or companies that you like, your next step will be a thorough examination of their digital footprint.
Here is how to conduct in-depth online research on your potential partner company and ensure “no stone is left unturned”:
**
Start With Their Business Website
**On their business website, you can find a detailed description of their services along with examples of some of their previous work and client testimonies.
Their blog section can also reveal a lot about the company. So, if they cover trending topics on web design, they are likely to be professional, up-to-date organizations.
Check Out Their Social
Media Presence
See what they post on their social media channels and how they interact with their audience. Are they posting relevant content consistently? How good are their visuals?
Social media reputation can tell you a lot about the company and its corporate culture.
Go Through Their Online Ratings and
Reviews
You can find ratings and reviews from real people for almost any renowned web design company on sites like Clutch or UpCity. These types of websites are a gold mine of information, and they should provide you with a clear sense of what a company is all about.
Hopefully, by the end of the research stage, you will have a list of potential web design companies for your small business. And you’ll be able to contact their representatives and ask the right questions.
This brings us to our next section…
Ask the Right Questions
Here is a set of five questions that will help you prepare for an interview with a potential partnering company’s representative:
1. Can you provide a portfolio of your work?
Although you have already done your online research on their previous clients, you can’t trust everything you read on the internet 100%.
After you get your hands on the company’s portfolio, you can directly contact some of its clients and ask them to share their experience working with that specific web design company.
2. Can you share any of your case studies with us?
Case studies will show you their business results and the strategies they used to achieve these results. Moreover, the case studies can give you an insight into how their teamwork and their problem-solving approaches.
3. Do you design industry-specific websites?
Some companies specialize in designing websites for a particular industry. If their work is industry-oriented and your business doesn’t fall into their category, you should opt for a company with a wider specialization.
4. What kind of services do you offer?
Some web design companies offer additional services such as web hosting, SEO management, social media management, website maintenance, etc. It’s a good idea to hire a company that provides other services that you might find useful for developing and growing your small business.
5. Who will be in charge of my project?
See if the company’s willing to put one person in charge of your project and ask follow-up questions about their position in the company and their level of expertise.
You need to ensure you’ll be working with someone who’s willing to update you on the progress of your project and be available for any additional questions you might have.
These five questions are a good starting point. Still, you can ask anything you deem important such as the company’s billing model, preferred content management system (CMS) and development tools, estimated duration of the project, etc.
Conclusion
Finding a digital agency that meets all your requirements is a challenging task. But if you know what to look for in a quality business website, do your research, and prepare a set of the most important questions to ask, you are bound to succeed in completing this task.
We hope our article steered you in the right direction and helped you get one step closer to hiring a web design company that matches your business needs.