This article will focus on:
- Helping you decide whether you should work with a web design agency
- What to look for when selecting a web design agency
- Quick tips to make the process easier
8 Quick tips for things to consider when choosing a web design agency
Here are the main things to think about when selecting a web design agency:
- Web design process
- Timescale
- Budget
- Case studies
- Reviews and testimonials
- Experience in your field
- Type of web design
- Working style: In person, remote and timezones available
Independent web design vs. Collaborating with an agency
Deciding whether to work with a web design agency or not can be a difficult decision, especially if it represents a significant investment.
Working with a professional web design agency offers several key advantages, including access to expert knowledge, custom web design, advanced functionality, scalability, SEO optimisation, and greater time efficiency. Collaborating with a web design agency can help to future-proof your site, ensuring it’s built to support long-term growth.
How to choose a web design agency: Step-by-step
Define your website’s purpose and goals
The first step in any web design project is to define your website’s purpose and goals. Will the aim of your website be to sell products, inform visitors about services, to educate, entertain or build a community?
Think about the goals of your website using the SMART approach. This means goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timebound.
Getting clear on your website’s purpose and goals will help you in the next stages of the process.
Check out their case studies
Checking out web design agency’s case studies is a crucial step in narrowing down your search for your web design agency partner. After defining your website’s purpose and goals, take a look at the agency’s case studies and see if there are any example websites that are similar to what you’d like to achieve.
Even if the web design agency doesn’t have any examples that are exactly the same as your website, looking at the variety of the case studies can give you an idea of the breadth of the agency’s experience.
Aside from case studies, you can also get an idea of the agency’s experience by talking to the agency team themselves, which may give you a clearer idea of the span of their experience.
Look at the design of the websites they’ve worked on, but also consider the following:
- Is the website intuitive and user-friendly? How does it make me feel as a user?
- Do pages load quickly? How does the website perform?
- Is the website optimised for SEO? You can run a Google Lighthouse report to gain some insights into this.
Check reviews and testimonials
Look at reviews for the web agencies you’re considering. Look at testimonials on their website as well as checking Google Reviews and Trust Pilot to get a balanced view.
Understand their web design process
The next step is to contact the agency to set up an initial consultation call.
Speak to the agency to gain an understanding of their specific web design process and how much or little involvement they will need from you.
A typical web design process usually looks like:
- Kick-off meeting
- Digital strategy and discovery
- User Experience (UX)
- Bespoke Web Design (UI)
- Web Development
- SEO & Analytics
- Final Sign-Off and Go Live
Find out more about the web design process in our dedicated guide.
Think about the web design options they offer
Consider the web design options they offer, whether that’s bespoke or templated, or adaptive or responsive. It’s a good idea to have considered this, however, usually the web design agency will be able to speak you through all the options, and let you know what options will be better for your business depending on your website’s purpose and goals.
Assess their approach to SEO and UX
A good web design agency will involve both SEO and UX in their process.
Your website should be easy to navigate and be user-friendly. The site should also be optimised for search, and allow for SEO optimisations to take place in future. The user journey to conversion should be clear, and the design of the website should be optimised for conversions. To ensure website security your website should use an SSL certificate, operate over HTTPS protocol and implement secure forms for data collection.
Choosing a web design agency with a dedicated SEO and PPC team can be a great advantage to ensure your website is built by a team who understands the importance of web design in supporting all aspects of your business’ marketing strategy. This can serve as a helpful benchmark to narrow down your search.
Ask about their communication
Consider how you prefer working. Do you prefer speaking over emails, calls, video calls, or in person meetings? Would you like to have calls weekly, bi-weekly or minimally?
Assess what your preferred communication style is and a good web design agency will be able to work flexibly with you on this.
Ask about the CMS and hosting they use – consider future access
Consider the CMS and hosting the agency recommends to use, and consider how this will impact your team going forward once the project is complete, when you may need to make ongoing changes to the site. Perhaps you’d like to start a company blog, or would like the ability to add additional pages to the site in future without too much fuss. Consider how easily this can be done with the agency’s proposed solution.
WordPress CMS includes intuitive, easy-to-use tools and plugins that make managing your site long-term simple, even if you don’t have technical knowledge. This can be a great option if you don’t have anyone with coding experience on your team, so it’s something we’d recommend to look for.
Think about their pricing
Budget – of course one of the most important things to consider. A web design project doesn’t need to be prohibitively expensive. However, as is true with most things, with web design you really do get what you pay for.
A templated option can provide you with a beautiful website at the fraction of the cost of a bespoke website. However, a bespoke website offers more longevity with a greater range of customisations and flexibility.
A good web design agency should be able to provide you with a variety of options depending on your website’s goals and requirements. The agency should be able to let you know the breakdown of costs for each stage of the project, as well as any additional extras you may like to consider if the budget allows.
Timescale
Aside from budget, one of the most important things to consider is timescale. Time is money after all!
Sometimes, any potential savings in budget may in fact be overtaken if you pay for a cheap service and your website doesn’t launch when you’d like it to.
The sooner your website launches, the sooner you can start attracting more customers and clients.
Choose a web design agency who can present you with a clear timescale, as well as who lets you know their strategies for ensuring the project stays in line with timescales. Find out about how any unexpected delays are handled, and how this could impact the budget.
Choosing an agency with a dedicated project manager can help you to ensure your web design project stays on track.
Also important to consider here is what involvement will be needed from your team’s side. What input will be needed from your side at different stages in the project, which stakeholders will need to be involved and what does your approvals process look like? Consider if your team is able to work with the agency’s proposed timescales and what adjustments may be needed.
Consider their approach to changing trends
Ask the agencies about their approach to changing trends in design, UX and SEO. Making sure the agency you select keeps up to date with changing trends will help to ensure your website resonates with current user expectations, remains relevant and performs optimally.
Consider warranty
Consider the warranty of your web design project the agency is able to offer. The warranty usually covers your site if there are any problems on your site within a certain time period after the website is delivered.
However, be aware that any changes you make to your site may not be covered by the agency’s warranty; check with the agency what it offers.
Here at Yellowball, we offer a 60 day warranty following delivery of your web design project, so you can be assured that any issues can be dealt with swiftly.
Consider long-term support
Another thing to think about is whether the agency offers long-term support. Any website needs regular maintenance. Smaller websites usually need maintenance every 6 months, whereas larger more complex websites may need maintenance on a monthly ongoing basis, particularly if your site processes many transactions or sells various products.
Delegating support on an ongoing basis to a web design agency can be preferable if you don’t have coding experience, or just don’t have a lot of time to spend on the website side of things, freeing up your time to spend on other areas of your business.
Choosing a web design agency FAQs
What does a web design agency do?
A web design agency’s activities can range from web design, redesign, web development to UX and SEO improvements.
Why should I hire a web design agency?
An experienced web designer can create a website that drives user engagement, helping to attract more website visitors and generate more conversions.
What is the difference between a freelance web designer and an agency?
A freelance web designer is typically more specialised in a specific area of web design, while a web design agency typically has a team of experts with varying specialisms. This allows agencies to offer a broader range of services and often complete projects more quickly.
Selecting the right web design agency is one of the most important factors in the success of your website. We hope this guide will help you when considering working with a web design agency in future!
Yellowball is a multi-award winning web design agency based in London. Contact us to discover more about our services.
