The lack of an online presence in the world of business today is rare; quick, easy and accessible proliferation of information on goods and services is vital to any business retaining its consumer base. Consumers are overburdened with choice in many sectors of the economy; what foods they eat, what clothes they wear, what insurance to buy etc. For this reason, fading into the background by not establishing a presence on the most widely used source of information can mean the death of a business. However, simply having a website that provides basic information to consumers is no longer sufficient, one must now provide an appealing and inviting forum that individuals feel comfortable scrolling through and revisiting. An effective website will be memorable; brand recognition is key when any consumer requires use of a service of purchase of a specific good. To achieve this goal, many individuals and businesses opt to hire a website design agency. However, just as any other product or service, not all agencies are built alike, and handing control over such a large advertising forum to an unprofessional or inadequate agency may very well hinder ones business growth rather than help.
When individuals seek out information on a product or service, they generally look to a search engine to come up with a short list of websites to visit; the average individual will click on the first few and stop when they find one that is appealing enough to hold their attention. An effectively designed website will not only show up among the top results according to certain keywords that are commonly searched, but will drive an individual to explore further. An appealing website is well laid out, with large yet visually appealing font, will not accost the visitor’s eyes with too much color or too many videos and sounds, and will contain intriguing and clear content. The content on any given website should be useful and relate directly to the goods and services offered, but should also provide an additional appeal so that readers will spend more time perusing the site; thereby solidifying their positive image of the company or business. To design such a site while maintaining its operational-status requires a keen eye for design as well as technological aptitude. For this, hiring a website design agency is often the best bet.
After deciding to hand over the keys to ones future business success to a website design agency, the next step is sifting through the many options and selecting the agency that will best fulfill one’s website design needs. Since a website designers bread and butter is creating visually appealing and operational sites, it is always a good idea to conduct ones primary search online; keep an eye out for the agency’s site itself to see if it is easy to read and the information is presented in an appealing manner. When exploring the sites of various website designers, business owners would be wise to seek out their design portfolio and establish whether or not the agency has experience creating websites that are of a similar functionality to the one they would be hired to create. If the projects listed on their online portfolio don’t closely match the aims and goals of the website one wishes to create, but the site and agency is appealing enough to warrant further inquiry, don’t hesitate to contact the agency. A quick email or phone call to a design agency could establish whether they have experience in creating the sort of site that is needed.
Once selecting a website design agency that has experience creating websites in the same vein as is needed, it is not overstepping to ask for references or to seek out previous clients and establish how the overall experience working with the agency was. The pricing and the timeline for completing a site are important to the creation of a site; quality is of course of the utmost importance, but an agency that does not stick to a promised timeline could delay business growth substantially. The effectiveness of a website design agency is only as strong as the communication between client and agency; be sure to choose one that excels in both customer service and in quality design.
This article was written by Leonor Wemark, on behalf of DBurnsDesign.com
