If you’re looking to launch a new website or refresh your current one, you’re weighing your options and taking plenty of meetings. But after you’ve met with all these web development companies, how will you know which one is right for you? To help you answer this question, here are the top 5 things to look for in a web development company.
Has an In-House Web Production Team
Building a website takes time, foresight, and a special attention to detail. Working with a company with its own dedicated in-house web production team helps mitigate a lot of the issues that arise during a web development project. The good thing is that this team doesn’t have to be very big. A solid web production team typically only needs a project manager, an information architect, a designer, a developer, and a programmer.
With a fully staffed team, projects move much faster and finish with fewer errors. They can collaborate simultaneously to solve problems, make changes, and produce a more refined product. Because very few web projects finish under their original scope, having a team that can easily adapt to your needs and wishes will save you a lot of headaches and prevent any buyer’s remorse.
Custom Web Design & Development
Hiring a company with an in-house web production team also means having greater flexibility to make your site look and work the way you want. This is because an in-house team can provide custom services. An in-house team can build a totally unique website that fits your needs and the image of your brand.
With custom web design and development, you can make your website an interactive experience and free yourself from the limitations that come with templates. Custom developed websites also have greater security than ones built on templates, making them less prone to hacks, spam, and malware. In truth, any person or company serious about building an online presence should have a custom built website. It is absolutely the best way to achieve congruent branding and a great user experience.
Mobile Responsive Design
Any company offering custom web design and development should also be able to build a website that is mobile responsive. Honestly, you shouldn’t even be thinking about building a website that isn’t designed for both desktop and mobile devices. Doing so would likely ensure that half of your visitors will have a horrible time viewing your website. That’s right, the average website gets at least half of its traffic from users on mobile devices. Unsurprisingly, this is because there are more mobile users than desktop users on the internet today.
Projections show mobile usage to continue upwards, so paying for a website that hasn’t been optimized for phones and tablets just doesn’t make sense. Making sure the company you hire knows how to build and design for mobile will prevent your website from being obsolete the second it’s launched.
Builds Websites on a Content Management System
Along with having a website that looks great, you also want one that easily allows you to add and change content. Content Management Systems like WordPress allow even the most computer illiterate people to have an easy time adding and changing content on their website. Being able to easily manipulate your site’s text, images, and videos gives you greater control and avoids you having to pay someone to do it for you.
But even if you do decide to hire someone to manage your website’s content, you’ll know that they’ll have an easy and quick time with it, removing the need to find someone with advanced coding skills.
Has an In-House Marketing Team
The last thing to make sure the web development company you go with has is an in-house marketing team. A website, no matter how good it looks, doesn’t do a whole lot of good if no one can find it or knows it exists. A web development company that also does marketing will build your website with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind so that search engines can find and index it more easily.
Having an in-house marketing team at your disposal also gives you the opportunity to create new marketing materials to match the look of your new website. While the website is being built, the marketing team can create new flyers, tradeshow banners, or even digital ads to go on social media. It’s rare that a new website is launched without some marketing effort behind it, and hiring a web development company with a dedicated marketing team gets you there faster.
With these 5 things in mind, you can go into your meetings feeling more confident and better prepared. Because no one likes signing a contract and not knowing if they got a good deal.
About Barta Media Group — Barta Media Group is a custom web development and marketing company that can handle digital and offline marketing needs with our in-house team of experts. We offer business visibility solutions that help you stand out from the competition and grow your business.