How to Choose a Credible Web Design Company

Today, a website is an essential attribute of a successful business. But it’s not an easy task to choose a good web design studio or company. Hundreds or even thousands of web studios worldwide offer their services, luring customers with prices and various services framed with beautiful headlines and calls to action. A potential client is forced to spend his time browsing sites, reading reviews, and analyzing pricing policies to choose a company to create a website. But this is not a guarantee that the choice will fall on a professional performer, ordering a website that will satisfy the client. So would you like to know more about how to choose a credible web design agency to create a website and be content with the result? Let’s talk about this in the article.

Choosing a web agency is one of the most important decisions companies have to make these days. According to Google research, a user only needs 50 milliseconds to make a first impression of your site. Therefore, it is essential to create a genuinely high-quality product that will meet the needs or solve the problems of your target audience. Owners who understand the importance of having a well-designed and developed website should know that it is wiser to invest in the company’s long-term success.

In many cases, when a customer visits your site, it is the first time a customer interacts with your brand. And very often, customers draw conclusions about your business based on this interaction. Here are some thoughts on why this interaction is so important.

If visitors come to the site and see a clumsy and sloppy design with an inconvenient interface, most likely, they will simply leave and most likely to your closest competitor. But, on the other hand, if the site’s design is limited, it considers all the points; then it naturally directs your client to all the pages they need, finding what they came for.

Freelance VS web design company

Every time a company wants to create a quality website, it faces a difficult choice. Hire a professional design company or contact freelance designers.

One website designer, i.e., freelancer, is a relatively budget option, and many people choose it only because of the affordable price. A web design company, of course, is more expensive. Still, you must agree: several diverse specialists, including marketers and managers, can achieve better results, so one expert will not have a chance to surpass them.

Both of these options have their pros and cons, which we will discuss in detail below:

Freelancers

They work individually and often do everything at once – they draw logos and corporate identity, make up websites and do not specialize in one thing. Usually, they just follow the customer’s instructions – listen to their wishes, and make the design.

Freelancers often have a cheaper design than studios. But there are exceptions – some professional designers with extensive experience ask about the same amount for order as a studio.

Yes, freelancers are ready for a flexible schedule, but newcomers’ deadlines vary from order to order due to their lack of experience.

Usually, they work without a formal contract, so submitting financial statements when working with a beginner will not work. Also, if a freelancer does not complete the work on time or is not satisfied with the result, you will be unlikely to get a refund.

It is suitable: if you need to do clear and simple design work with a small budget.

Pros:

• Low price
• Flexible schedule

Cons:

• Little experience
• There is no guarantee
• May not be clear terms and prices

Design studios and companies

Full-fledged studios where several professional designers work at once. Their service cost is higher than freelancers.

Depending on the specialization, studios can only deal with design or provide other services, such as developing mobile applications, logos and creating an illustration design.

When is it suitable: if you need to solve several problems at once with an average budget quickly, and there is no time to look for freelancers on your own.

Why choose a web design company?

Pros:

• the ability to perform several tasks at once
• legal guarantees
• communication with managers, not with designers
• in such a studio, there may be an art director who controls the quality

Cons:

• the price is higher in comparison with freelancers

1) Check the ratings of the web design company

When you select a web design studio, to begin with, it would be a good idea to do some research and find companies and their projects that might interest you. There are many resources with the independent expert assessment. You can see reviews of companies that have worked with web design agencies, evaluate examples of their work, and know the rating among their competitors and the rating in general. Here are some resources we can recommend for you:

• Dribbble

It is a self-promotion and social media platform for digital designers and creatives. It serves as a design portfolio platform, a place to work and recruit, and is one of the largest platforms for designers to share their work online. You can find both large projects and small screens (so-called snapshots) on Dribbble. Here you can identify a designer of your choice or place an advertisement for a vacancy that you’d like to fill.

• Behance

Another social network where designers can publish their work. Aspiring designers and art directors of the largest creative agencies post their work on it, which you can also watch.

• Awwwards

This resource is mainly aimed at evaluating and constructive criticism of websites. According to independent experts, they annually present lists of the best websites and design agencies. It also has a catalog of the best designers.

2) Learn the web design company website

The website of a web design company is their face. It should look attractive, provide a good user flow, and inspire trust. The main thing to remember is that everything you see on a web design company’s website can be implemented in your project directly. After all, their site looks and shows the degree of success of the projects they have implemented. In addition, you can familiarize yourself on their website with all the company’s projects in more detail, get to know the people who work there, and find out what web design services they offer.

3) Check out the company’s social media

Visit the social networks of the company you like. Check out their profiles on Facebook, Linked In, and Instagram. Social media will tell you a lot about the company. Instagram and Facebook are more informal platforms where you can learn more about projects and the team. LinkedIn profile is more formal, serious, and business-oriented. By the way, did you know that more than 50% of the traffic for B2B websites comes from LinkedIn? This is an impressive fact worth considering.

Look at this fact browsing social networks:

• business history
• customer reviews
• number and quality of projects
• contact information, address, location
• completing the page (see how the social media page is configured. If it is complete with the necessary content, this shows the company’s attitude towards their business and work in general, which means they are serious and focused on fruitful work.)

You can find out valuable information that can help you choose a web design agency by analyzing the company’s social networks.

4) Study companies portfolio

The web studio’s portfolio is the primary measure for evaluating their work. In addition, previous projects will demonstrate the professionalism and variety of skills that the design studio possesses.

When you review a portfolio, pay attention to the following aspects:

• UX design

Browse a few websites that your chosen company has created and check the quality of the UX design. Try all the site functions, see how clickable all the icons are, the overall impression of the site, whether the navigation is good, and whether the website’s purpose is clear. You should immediately understand everything intuitively.

Read more about Why UX Design Is Important and How Businesses Can Benefit from It in one of our previous articles.

• Variety of projects

Pay attention to how diverse the projects of your chosen web design studio are. This makes it clearer to understand what methods and how they work with projects. Ideally, find a web design studio that created a project for your work area. This will be a good indicator of how the company will cope with creating UI / UX design for you and the tasks that will be set.

• Reviews

A satisfied client is the best indicator of the quality of the work done, and professionalism. Therefore, always consider the feedback from people who have already worked with this company. The most important thing is to find independent constructive reviews, which will understand the quality of the work done. It can be based on reviews and ratings from third-party platforms such as Clutch and GoodFirms.

You have to pay attention to the projects that the studio has already done. It is difficult for an unknowing person to evaluate their performance, but the appearance, sense of style, and originality of each are efficient for any “person with taste.” Accordingly, a studio that hides its work from visitors cannot inspire any confidence.

Pay attention to the experience of a web studio in the market for web design services. How long has the studio been around? Rate the quantity and quality of the work done by the studio. Simultaneously, do not be lazy to go to a few of the sites you like most from the portfolio and conduct its usability testing for yourself.

5) Get to know the company’s workflow

You must know in what sequence and how all the processes in the team take place. Website design work should be consistent and logical since the work process shows how carefully the company approaches its work performance. Based on the company’s operations, you can understand how your project will be carried out and what to expect from the job.

For example, what processes we adhere to in Gapsy:

• Website design planning
• Website design competitor research
• Web UX design
• Website design content creation
• Website UI design
• Web design prototyping and testing
• Web design launching

The correct process of creating a website UI / UX design is laborious and should consist of many strategies that complement each other and ultimately create a working product.

Would you like to learn a little more about web design? Then we suggest you read our recent article How to Create Web Design and understand what processes accompany the creation of high-quality and functional web design.

6) Consider the price

If you’ve already decided on a website building company, you should discuss budget and pricing. Find out how much the finished website will cost you in advance and if it fits into your account. Remember that more expensive does not mean better, and cheaper does not mean more profitable. An order’s cost is determined by the project’s complexity, scale, and amount of time spent. Large web design studios’ services dealing with large-scale complex projects will cost you more than small web studios’ benefits. The offer on the web development market can dramatically differ from studio to studio for the same work. Consider your site as a long-term investment in your business’s future and proceed from the budgetary possibilities and the future resource’s necessary functionality.

After reviewing the assignment, the professional web studio staff will most likely go straight to discussing work issues, perhaps offering their solutions, arguing for them. If they agree with everything, do not try to find any technical details and are ready to start developing the site immediately. Most likely, you have chosen a web studio of a low professional level.

This article will help you decide what to look for when choosing a web design company. In addition, you may find other criteria for assessing web design studios’ professionalism. These rules only guide you – the final decision is always yours!

Gapsy Studio is one of the companies you can trust whenever you need efficient and reliable website design services. Design Rush, known for its Best Design Awards, has chosen our design to be featured on the best Coffee and Tea Design page. We understand that time is money and will make every effort to ensure that your website is developed in the most optimal time frame, using modern technologies. Besides, we offer reasonable prices for web services so that you spend less money on website development but invest in developing your business on the Internet! To see our expertise, you are welcome to our projects at Dribbble and Behance, as well as you can take a look at our services and what we can provide you in your work.