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5 Questions To Ask When Hiring A Web Design Company

5 Questions To Ask When Hiring A Web Design Company

Hiring the right web design company for product marketing is an important step that should be carefully considered. Often, bad marketing stems from poorly designed campaign ads and there is no consolation for that mistake. Hiring a design company for your internet needs is an expensive investment that could make or break the deal for your online success, so make sure you know what you are signing up for.

The web design firm is your marketing partner. The boost it will provide to your website shall play an important role in the success of your company. You can achieve the goals your company has for online marketing. Whether it is your first time designing a website for your brand or you are just redesigning it to make it better, the recruitment decision you make will be the driving factor for the success of your website.

With unlimited options to choose from both local and online, it could be overwhelming to determine the perfect fit for your company. The best way to eliminate all doubts is to go through a very thorough selection process. Similar to recruiting new employees, finding a web design company requires you to interview, review performance reports, request the portfolio that showcases their work and cross-check references.

To guide you through your interviewing preparations, here are five of the most important questions you should ask your web design company before making an executive decision.

While you throw questions at them, they can also ask you more about your company. The company might want to know about your target audience, your company’s online objectives for the website so it has the insight to do the job well and develop a fool-proof plan for your online business objectives.

1.  How many people do you have on your team? How long have they been working as a team? Is everything developed in-house or do you outsource?

You need to make sure the firm you are hiring has its own team of talented developers. Besides that, find out how long the developers have been working on the team. It takes a long time for developers to settle with a specific set of technology and become an expert. If your potential design firm has a team that has been together longer than 3 years working on the same technology they are bound to be a reliable web firm.

2.  Ask them: How long have you been using the technology? Do you have any examples of the back-end of sites you have deployed so far?

Back-end refers to the content management system. Knowing how the content management system will look can give you a good idea of how your website will feel when you get it developed. Quick editing accessibility on your website for you to make changes is crucial in the long run.

If your developer is required for every small change you need to make on your website, then you are signing up for a grueling and costly experience.

3.  Can the design firm make interfaces friendly for all gadgets?

“Is the website going to be responsive” should be your next question! Most users view websites on their mobile devices and therefore to have a successful online business, you will need a website that is mobile- friendly or ‘responsive’. It means the site design molds according to the dimensions of the screen it is being viewed on.

4.  Is the content management system open source or proprietary? What would be the licensing fee?

With several CMS options in the market, you need to know what to look for to choose the right one. An open-source system is developed by the developers and is free to use and has many frequent users. However, implementations could cost money. Open sources make developing cheaper.

Proprietary software is owned by a single company. It would be specialized and custom made that only the creators can maintain. It is like buying a car with an engine that only one mechanic in the entire world can fix. It is too costly and not worth the risk.

You should focus on getting the cheapest, easily available technology that provides you with great functionality. For content management systems the best option out there these days is WordPress. It works great for a medium-sized business.

5.  How do you base your pricing? Do you provide a warranty?

When inquiring about the pricing policy you need to ask them specific questions to have everything clear from the get-go. Usually, companies will already have their pricing and payment policy written somewhere and could even be presented in packages. Some things you should keep in mind to find out are:

  • Is it hourly or flat-fee depending on the project?
  • Is it common for their projects to go over the budget?
  • Lay out the payment policy
  • What is the procedure for charging for additional features or add-on improvised after the project has begun?

Don’t be put off by too many questions from the firm’s side. In fact, the more they ask the better! This shows that they want to get a thorough idea of your demands and deadlines to makes sure they deliver the work on time to you without costing extra.

Many companies who do not have long proposals initially and underbid, will jack up the prices once they start working on the website. So as exhausting as up-front discovery may be, it saves you from regrets in the long run.

6.  Bonus:

Ask them to talk you through the design process and the estimated timeline to build the site. The good news is that you can hire talented teams from any part of the world. That’s right. There are reliable tech platforms out there that would connect you with verified design and development teams from across the globe.

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