Selecting A Web Design Company

Selecting a web design company can be difficult unless you have a set of standards. Without a set of standards, especially if you are a very trusting person, can cause you to lose your money or receive grossly inferior work.

When you are first developing a list of potential web designers we recommend using this Phase I Criteria:
1) Does the firm have a website and does it look acceptable? You can't expect your site to look very good if they won't do good work for themselves.
2) Does the firm provide these services full-time? Invariably, freelancers and part-timers make your job a lower priority and probably have a lower skill set.
3) Does the firm have a portfolio of at least 30 sites? Any web design firm that has reasonable experience should have no problem in creating a portfolio of 30+ sites - and how do the sites look?
4) Does the designer use only templates? If all or most of their portfolio sites are templates you can bet that they have very liomited design and coding skills, and probably can't handle requests fro customization or special features.
5) Does the design firm offer "post-launch services" such as SEO, search marketing, etc? You will need ongoing services to maintain and develop your site, optimize your site and assist with site promotion, listings and link building.
6) Does the designer/firm have a business license? If they do not have a business license you should be extremely wary and concerned.

Always verify these things and don't simply assume that the salesperson is telling you the truth. Beyond these Phase I qualifications you can feel confident if the potential designer/firm has Better Business Bureau (BBB) Accredidation and has been a full time business for over 5 years.

For more information on how to assess or qualify the sepcific skills and capabilities of a design firm leave us a comment.