Your website needs to be created or updated, however, you are unsure of what to look for in a web design firm. You begin your search online only to discover that many web design firms provide a variety of services.
It’s not about creating a gorgeous website in today’s competitive market. Your website should cater to your clients’ requirements and challenges. If it only appears good but does nothing for your visitors, they will leave, irritated that you have spent their time. Not only that, but they’ll also remember to avoid your website in the future.
A website that provides no value to visitors will never contribute to your customer acquisition process.
So, what are the things to check out for when hiring a web design company?
10 Basic Services To Be Included In Any Website Design
Generally speaking, the following essential services should always be included by your website design company:
- Creating a specified amount of web pages at a predetermined fee.
- Custom Graphic Design.
- On-page SEO.
- Basic logo optimization.
- Premium royalty-free stock images.
- XML Sitemaps and Robots.txt
- Embedding or linking of videos (If applicable).
- Integrations of contact forms.
- Site verification on Google Search Console and Microsoft Bing Webmaster Tools.
- Professional Email Hosting.
What Additional Services Should You Look For?
Unfortunately, most web design agencies just want to hurriedly deploy your website and move on to the next client.
If done well, the above-listed services should be enough in many cases, but what you want is a website that acts as a sales magnet year-in, year-out, isn’t it? Then you have to go the extra mile!
With the following additional services, your website would certainly become a lead magnet:
1. Email Subscriptions
An email subscription is a feature on a website that allows users to sign up for updates such as newsletters by entering their email addresses in a form. Your email marketing strategy’s basic starting point is the integration of an email subscription form.
2. Content Development
Content Development refers to the process of obtaining, organizing, and editing information for a targeted audience.
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You don’t want to end up with a website designer that launches your website with a bunch of Lorem Ipsum dummy texts because they lack the skill or motivation to develop relevant content for your website.
3. Content Distribution and Promotion
You need to develop a strategy that facilitates the sharing of your website content on various platforms, like adding social media sharing buttons.
4. Live Chat Integration and Call Back Requests
Live chat allows you to provide quicker responses to customer queries, handle problems more quickly, and reassure your customers that you’ll be there for them when they need you. This is a straightforward yet highly effective method of increasing customer service and brand loyalty.
With a live chat integration, your site visitors wouldn’t have to leave your website to contact you. They would also receive your responses in real-time.
Let your Customers request a callback and choose a schedule that is comfortable for them. This is very useful if your company serves aged or busy customers who do not always have the opportunity to call immediately or have the time to chat. Here is an example: https://branditechture.agency/schedule-a-call/
5. Inbound marketing strategy
Inbound marketing focuses on enticing customers by providing relevant and helpful information and offering value at each stage of the buying process. Blogs, search engines, and social media are all channels for potential clients to find you.
6. Analytics & Insights
There is no way to know how well your efforts and strategy are working without tracking and analytics. Therefore integrating a tracking tool like Google Analytics or Microsoft Clarity becomes imperative. With these tools, you can see the following user information:
- Geographic location & Language
- Age, Gender
- Time of visit, pages visited, and time spent on each page of the webpages
- Realtime stats of how many people are currently online on your website and what pages they are viewing
- User journeys on your website from entry to exit
- Search queries
- Referring site details (such as the website a user came through to arrive at yours)
- Type of web browser
- Type of operating system (OS)
- Specs of device used (e.g device type, screen size, resolution, e.t.c)
🎉 BONUS: If you use WordPress, read this guide on our client support website to learn how to integrate Google Analytics into your blog.
Personal Traits to Look Out For In A Web Developer
Whether you work directly with a freelance website developer or a full-service design agency, you’d still need to work with individuals. This is why it’s a great idea to look out for personal characteristics before fully committing yourself to work with such persons. Fundamentally, here are some important personal qualities to check out for in a website developer:
- Takes the time to understand your business and pain points.
- Possesses the ability to examine your business and create messaging that resonates with your ideal customers.
- Having the knowledge and experience to create and implement a marketing strategy that will work for you.
- Caring about your success as much as you do.
Your company deserves a technical partner who will go above and beyond to improve your brand, preserve or enhance your reputation, consider your goal and identity, and be involved in the long-term success of your company.
Best Practices for Web Design Agencies
A decent procedure for web design agencies to follow in order to achieve your expectations is as follows:
- Consultation to learn about your specific requirements, ideas, and mission, as well as your website’s short and long-term goals.
- Using tools like HubSpot and Google Analytics, analyze your website for critical insights from the data, and put together a cohesive lead generation strategy.
- A unique website design with carefully developed messaging and user experience.
- Follow-up and maintenance of the project’s site and assets, with detailed information on storage, privacy, and security provided throughout the process.
Conclusion
Don’t put your faith in a website designer just because they showed you a flashy portfolio. Instead, dig deeper and see what their agency has delivered in terms of results for their past clients.
In a sea of online websites, businesses need to recognize now, more than ever, that success requires a lot more than just establishing a website.
You will boost your business’s chances of success and future growth by partnering with an agency that knows that developing your website is just the beginning, and that what happens afterwards to bring qualified visitors to your website is where the main value lies.
Need a compelling website for your business? Let’s build your website.