Points To Consider When Choosing A Web Design Company India

By Lucid Softech IT Solutions | web design,  08 Jul 2015

Websites can be a great tool for businesses. Hiring a web designer is an important decision as your website is nothing but your business’s online representation. Website designers are the ones who are designing and building your virtual brick-and-mortar, choosing the shades to go on the walls, which is going to effect the opinions of your visitors.

I have compiled a checklist for you to help you make the right decision when choosing an agency.

This guide will help you make that decision by showing you how to compare apples to apples.

• Know your own hosting needs

The first step is to have a clear understanding of what type of website you need for your business and what you want your internet marketing to achieve. You need to consider carefully your aim, your goals and how you are going to measure success.

You can never get the right web host without knowing what you need. Developing a website brief will get you thinking about what you want from a new website. You should also make a rough plan for what you want. As this simple plan will get you and a prospective web designer onto the same page.

When you know what you need to accomplish your goals, you will be able to see if an agency fits the bill.

• Know your cost vs. value

Cost is definitely a deal maker or deal breaker when it comes to hiring an agency. This is the aspect most of us will look at first when choosing a hosting provider; however, it shouldn’t be the deciding factor. Like with everything else you purchase, the phrase “you get what you pay for” holds true in the world of web design and development. If you begin to cut costs merely for saving a dollar, you may not get as much value in long-term as you planned in step one. So it is advisable to take a closer look at the features provided by each host, and then compare prices.

• Portfolio of Work: Looking at a web designer’s portfolio of past projects is the quickest and easiest way to decide if they are the right company for your needs. Questions you should be asking yourself include:

1. Is their portfolio of work sympathetic to my business?
2. Do I like their style of design?
3. Do all their websites look the same?

Although your first impact of the company will usually be their own website, make sure you look deeper into their portfolio. Look into a company’s specialty or area of expertise before you buy, and go with one that understands your particular needs as a customer.

• Identify a solid track record

This is not necessarily how long an agency has been in business. In fact, a lot of new agencies have some stellar ideas and new methodologies to consider. The point here is how much the agency understands your industry and have they already delivered a similar solution to their other clients?

A more important question than ‘how much is this going to cost?’ is ‘how reliable is your company?’ You should be confident that you can trust the team in producing the best results for your project and that they are able to show you a return on your investment.

• What are their credentials or qualifications?

You should be sure enough that the company you are entrusting your business to be respected professionals in their industry.It is perfectly acceptable to

Ask for the credentials of the designers or key members within the company.

1. Are their key players recognized as industry leaders, speaking at events, or published in the media?
2. Are they authorized to work for government agencies? Do they have other special credentials showing other expertise?
3. Have they developed any special applications or done groundbreaking projects.

• What does their operation look like?Before getting into a relationship with a company, make sure you go visit their operation and see the people face to face who will be responsible for the success of your project.

1. Are they fully staffed with professionals or do they rely on freelancers or outsourcing for the heavy lifting?
2. Do you get the sense from talking to staff members that they are skilled, passionate and trustworthy? Simply put, do you get a good vibe?

•  Can my web designer communicate properly with me?

Choose a designer you can get along with and communicate well with. This will be crucial for your end success. It is highly important that you understand what your web agency is talking about and doing.

When you enter into a discussion with them, they should be on your side, working hard to explain what they do, how they do it and most importantly why they are doing it.

• How do they price their services?

You’re buying a professional service, where a team of experts should be putting in time to plan, design, develop and manage your project.

1. Which of their team members will be working on your project and what are their qualifications?
2. How much time will they be spending on your project?
3. Do they provide a flat project price that corresponds to a detailed agreement?
4. Does the cost of the project match up with the agreed upon deliverables and hourly rates?
5. Is there a clear procedure for billing for extra features or work outside the project’s initial scope?

• Tech Support :

When your site goes down, for some unknown reason, can you call up and get a real, live person on the phone? And, more than that, can they find out what’s wrong and fix it, or at least tell you what you need to do to get my site back online?

Before going with a host looks into their reputation for customer support. See what kinds of different ways you can contact them when you need support – email, toll-free phone, chat, and so on. Are they staffed 24/7? Do they outsource support?

• Scalability / Room To Grow

Finally, an important thing to consider about your hosting provider is whether or not they fit into your plans for the future. In other words, what you consider adequate hosting now might not meet your needs few years from now.

Any web-based enterprise should have its eye on growth, so if a hosting company might have difficulty accommodating that growth it could pose an issue. Will they be able to easily upgrade your account? Transferring from one host to another takes valuable time and effort which could be avoided if the company can scale their solutions for growth. As with all these factors, does some research, get some opinions, and make an informed decision.

• Site Backup

There are times when a site crashes.

If your web host does site backups regularly then there is nothing to worry about when these incidents happen. Your hosting provider should be able to restore back your full (or at least, a big chunk of) site in no time.

On backups, here are a few key questions to ask your web host:

1. Does your web host provide full backups regularly?
2. Can site backup be done easily via the control panel?
3. Can you create auto backup your site easily?
4. Can you restore your backup files by yourself easily?

• Renewal Prices

Hosting deals, shared hosting especially, are normally selling very cheap on signup prices but charge much higher on renewals. It is an industry norm. Unless you are willing to switch host every two or three years, there is no way to avoid the high renewal prices.

• There should be project time frame

As a web developer, I can tell you that adhering to an agreed time frame is often tricky for both sides. Developers are often left waiting for a client to deliver the words and images which will make up the final content of a site. In order to reach a launch deadline, you’ll need a clear understanding of time frames, with milestones, to ensure that everything is on track.

Make sure that your projected time scale is achievable by that company.

Summary:

The most important thing when choosing a web designer is really making sure you go with someone you like and can get along well with. Someone whom has strong examples of work that are visually appealing, someone who is honest and truthful about what they provide and are clear on their pricing.

When you are choosing a hosting provider, remember that what you want is to pick up the right web host. It’s not about finding the best web host in the world; rather, it’s about finding the hosting service that suits your needs