Would you hire a person to manage your company’s sales, marketing, and public relations based on a few lines from their resume? Probably not, but a lot of business owners and marketing managers do what amounts to the same thing every day by choosing a web design partner based on a few samples and an introductory cup of coffee.
Those are good places to start, of course, but your business website is far, far too important to get the decision wrong… or to just trust any person or company who says they can build you a high-quality website. Since we’ve already discussed the different reasons a successful website is so important to your business, let’s take a look at four important questions you should ask before you hire a web design team:
1. Have you worked with a company like ours before?
This is an important question, but not necessarily in the way you might imagine. You don’t necessarily need a web design company to have experience with your industry, just to be good at solving the kinds of problems you have.
A creative team that can build a good website for a bank can probably also generate great-looking pages for a landscaping company. You want to know they can help you with issues like “low search visibility” or “the need to generate leads online.” That’s not industry knowledge; it’s relevant experience.
2. Can I see some of your success stories?
Samples are great, but they don’t tell you a lot about anything except artistic preferences. You want a web design team with a good creative eye, of course, but you also want to know your company is going to be more profitable after working with them, not just that you’ll have a set of pages that look nice.
Success stories and case studies could be the answer. Ideally, they’ll spell out what situation a client was in when they arrived, what kind of work was performed, and what the end result looks like. That should give you a better sense of what you can expect when the job is done.
3. What makes you different from other web designers?
All web designers work differently, and some have unique specialties. For instance, at eye9 we focus on combining web design with content marketing and inbound lead generation. Other firms specialize in working with certain types of industries or producing websites quickly.
Finding the right fit really depends on what you want. Be sure to ask about unique capabilities or preferences, though, since it can help you make a good match between your needs and the creative team’s focus.
4. What is your approach to SEO and Internet marketing?
What you definitely don’t want is a creative team that’s going to start thinking about things like marketing and search engine optimization after your website is already online. Promoting your site is just as important as building it, and will make a bigger difference in your ROI over the long term.
So make sure the vendor you choose has a very good idea of what needs to happen after your website is launched and can explain how they’re going to help you get in touch with new buyers.
Getting the website you need starts with choosing the right creative team to build it for you. Ask each of these four questions and pay attention to the answers. Finding the right team to help you out can make all the difference in your company’s profitability for years to come.
Want to see how the best do things? Call us today at Eye9 Design and let us show you what kind of difference we’ve been able to make for other companies.
