A strong online business idea can still perform poorly from poor web design / hosting. When considering which web design firm to choose, why not try ‘website design bingo’ – we propose a ‘full card’ to take place when a web development outfit mentions the following points when discussing your proposed new site:-
- YOUR plan – discussing in detail in terms of what your intentions are – what is the website design company’s opinion on your plan ?
- importance of usability – website visitors can do all tasks without thinking on your website
- accessibility – so your website can be physically accessed by everyone, with the text clearly understood by the market the website is directed at
- SEO (or search engine optimisation) – giving your website respectable search engine rankings
- CMS (content mangement systems) – letting you edit the info on your site by yourself at any given time
- security – safety of private data, and at least daily backups of data.
- site hosting – will the web development firm host your website? How about their servers? Are they using shared servers with potentially 100s of other sites on the very same server, or are they using managed dedicated servers?
- tech support and after-sales – will they support your business once the site is live? If so, how much is technical support? What about website updates?
A decent design company will inform you of the above-mentioned matters, and how they tackle them.
So how to locate such a web development company? It’s wise to find one in your location, permitting you to visit them and be reassured that they are also a bricks and mortar firm with a skilled team behind them. In Google, use a search keyphrase like “web design” and add your area; for instance : web design leicestershire. This will give you a list of website development firms in your location.