Date: 03/09/2024

Topic: Web Design

Contents:

• Why it’s so essential to hire the right web designer
• How the web design process works
• Suggestions for things to think about when picking a web design agency

Introduction

So, there are many things that businesses do every day that are crucial for the day-to-day running of the business but often are not deemed that important.

Yet, having a website designed or redesigned can be a make-or-break situation for some businesses. That’s because some of the company directors we speak to say that 100% of sales come online. A well-designed website could potentially open up new avenues for your business, reaching more customers and increasing sales.

So, if they hire the wrong web designer and make a mess of it, they could be losing out on business.

So, here is some food for thought: here’s why you need to hire the right web designer

So, web design is not just about web design anymore; that’s because when you talk to the top web designers here in the U.K., well they will tell you web design is now a balance of the following:

– Offering a good U.X
– Keeping the bounce rate as low as possible
– Writing and adding content marketing that is written by Google E-EAT
– Must be fast, so that you will need super fast website hosting
– Must be mobile-friendly
– Must have good local SEO
– If a national business, you will need good quality national SEO

Here’s how our web design process works. The web design process is a crucial aspect of creating a successful website. It involves several stages, from initial planning to final implementation, and ensures that your website is not only visually appealing but also functional and user-friendly.

So, as with most web design agencies, you will be in the initial stages of the design and, throughout, need to work with the company’s web developers and web designers. Now, it might be that as soon as the brand new websites are designed, you might want to start pushing up Google’s ranks so that an SEO consultant might be involved from the outset as well.

Conversations will need to be had about the following:

– The website’s navigation, for example, do you want a burger menu?
– Who’s writing the content marketing?
– Have you got photographs ready to add?
– Which content management system do you want to use?

– How long it will take the web designers to build the website.

Good web designers stop you from getting bogged down in the detail

Running a business, any business, is hard. It doesn’t matter if you’re a retailer of items or you run a gym; price pressures imposed by suppliers, managing staff, and unhappy customers are massively time-consuming.

So, when you’re having a new website designed, you often don’t want to get bogged down in the details. You don’t want a web developer talking at length about JavaScript the next day about a PHP glitch that’s been encountered. You just want a well-designed website that you like and that your customers like.

In our experience, the excellent digital marketing agencies focus on one thing: your customers.

They ask:

– How can we make their lives easier? Could it be a staff member explaining that product on a YouTube video?
– They ask how they can make the main menu simple to use
– Does the website look brilliant on a smartphone

So, a good web designer asks all these questions. They should then start creating a fantastic website for your business without giving you a headache about the technical side of web design, such as why you need an AMP website.

A good web designer can quickly get to grips with the functionality your business needs. They should also keep an eye on the competition; for example, if they have a CTA stating input your mobile number, one of our sales team will call you back the same day; this functionality should be suggested for your business.

So, a good web designer, we believe, has the following charismatics:’

– Good at knowing exactly which functionality/features your business will need
– Suggests functionality you may need based on competitor research
– Choose a CMS that best suits your business needs now and in the foreseeable future
– Can also offer an SEO, that’s search engine optimisation service if later required
– Offers clear pricing
– Offers affordable yet very fast website hosting

Make sure you’re on the same page

So, when you are shopping around for web design quotes from a local web design agency, you might write an e-mail that goes a little bit like this:

“Hi, Bob Jones
We need a new website designed for our dental practice to help improve our rankings on Google. Can you please give us a quote for a brochure website and a monthly quote to improve our organic search engine optimisation as well?
Kind regards
Karen”

So, that sounds fair, right?

Well, yes, but what’s going to happen here is that you’re going to get wildly different prices from each web design agency and perhaps stupidly low prices from businesses trying to grab your business.

So, instead, add the following details:

– How many pages are you going to need if you are unsure have a look at a competitor’s website, to get a rough idea
– Do you need help to improve your SEO?
– Do you need a mobile version designed? Most of the time, the answer is yes. But you guessed it, often web design agencies exclude this cost in the initial quote
– Do you need hosting?
– Do you need the web designers to buy the domain name?
– Have you got photos ready to use?
This will then provide your web design agency with much more information, and they will be able to make a much more accurate quote based on your business needs.

The problem with some web designers

Some web designers offer what seem low prices, yet when you add on the cost to get the web designers to make the website responsive, to get fast website hosting, plus for them to write the content marketing, well, that initial quote of, say £500.00 is likely to turn out closer to £2k very quickly indeed.

Check out the web designer portfolio.

This will give you a good idea of the quality of the web designers’ work. You might also spot that they have worked for similar businesses or even companies you may know in Wales. For example, you might be a groundworker who knows the owner of a plant hire company. Then, it’s just a matter of you asking that company director for their opinion on using that well-known web design company.

The portfolio can give you a sense of the type of websites the web design business is building. Are they modern or look a bit dated? Do they all look unique and built for that business, or do they all look, well, rather much the same, just with a few different photos?

Do the web designers state they want content marketing for the business?

If so, what’s the quality of the content marketing? Is it good? Does it match the business’s style?

Does the text appear professional, informative, and engaging if it’s a serious business, such as an accountancy practice?

Is the tone of voice different if it’s a new business offering clothing?

Read reviews about the business.

Often, web designers have a Trustpilot or Google Business account and are also members of a web design award website. There, you may see feedback that previous customers have made. Of course, you must deliberate whether you want that business to build your new company website.

Look at their website.

So, a web designer’s website is like the outside of a florist’s, your place to show off how good you are, how creative you can be, and how good you are at your craft.

Yet, so many web design companies have dated websites.

So, you might want to skip to a company that uses the latest web design trends and has a well-designed website because then you know that those features can be added to your company website.

Do also ask the following questions:

Do you have SEO experts in house:

So, a website without SEO is a bit like a bacon sandwich without bread. It’s not even a sandwich.
Well, a website is a bit like this because if you don’t invest in quality search engine optimisation, nobody—and we mean no one—will be able to find it online.

That’s unless you’re lucky enough to have a business that’s super non-competitive, so you jump straight onto the first page of Google’s organic results within a month, which, let’s face it, is unlikely.

It’s unlikely because, in a major city, you often face stiff competition. So, this is why you need a web design company that also offers SEO.

Now, you might want the web design agency to refer you to a “trusted partner” company and the designers working with them because, well, they might be making a profit from just referring you.

So often, businesses want a web design company that has SEO experts in-house. That’s precisely what W&P has. We have some excellent web developers and search engine optimisation consultants, so we can offer both services in-house.

Who’s going to be managing the website hosting?

Good website hosting is essential. Without it, the websites will not be live, meaning shoppers will get greeted with a 404 page not found error if the server goes down. So you need good website hosting, and as with everything else in life, you do get what you pay for.

There’s the super cheap, which often means the hosting is slow and annoying. This could potentially result in you losing sales, as your business is offering a poor user experience.

Then there’s the super-fast, more reliable hosting, which is more expensive but a must, in our opinion. It’s just like buying super cheap engine oil for your car—why would you do it?

Your engine is essential, so you will want to buy top-quality engine oil. Well, take this same mindset when purchasing website hosting. You want the hosting to be reliable and quality, so do purchase cheap hosting from a hosting company that has servers based close to your customers.

Make sure the website is responsive.

We have heard of local web developers charging 750 to make a brochure website responsive, yet the customer may have initially thought this

was all included in the initial quote. So, we include this cost, that is, to make a brochure website responsive, in our quote. So our customers get a great deal when they pick W&P to design their website.