Choosing a website design company is a crucial decision that every forward thinking business needs to make at some point. Whether it be a re-design of their existing site, or the creation of a completely new one, the importance of this decision can not be understated. The reason why? Well, put simply, a good website will bring in more business, and a bad one will drive away prospective customers.

So, how can a business be sure that they are making the right decision when choosing a website design company?

Firstly, the business needs to know what exactly it is that they require from their website. Rather than just guessing about this issue, a business should undertake some research about their target audience. This involves contacting existing customers and asking them what information and features they would expect to see on the website. Their ideas and suggestions should then be made into a prioritized list

Once it is known what is required, the next step is to make a shortlist of website design companies. Recommendations should be sought from contacts who have recently had websites built for their businesses, and general searches (i.e. “website design companies” or “website designer”) should be carried out on Google. When using Google to find website companies, skipping straight down to the 3rd or 4th page will be necessary if a tight budget needs to be adhered to, as those companies listed on the first couple of pages charge top end prices (typically $5000+).

A shortlist of around 10 website design companies should be made, and these companies should then be contacted so as to find answers to the following questions…

- Do they have an extensive and impressive portfolio?

- Are they flexible as to the types of websites that they can design?

- Can any of their past clients be contacted so as to obtain references?

- Do they have structured planning and implementation processes?

- How soon can they start work on the project?

- Do they do all of the work themselves or do they outsource parts of it to others?

- Do they offer assistance in getting websites listed in the major search engines?

- Will a blog be included in addition to the main website?

- Who owns the intellectual property rights to the final website and the domain name?

- Will they maintain the website after the initial design?

- Is an hourly rate or fixed fee payment structure in place?

- How much payment needs to be made upfront?

- Will they guarantee and stick to the deadlines in place?

The answers to these questions should be used to narrow down the shortlist to 3 or so companies, who should then be asked to give a final quote. If they are told beforehand that quotes are also been sought from their competitors, then their own quote will normally be more competitive. As for a general ball park figure, a well designed 10 page website, will cost an average of $2000. Businesses should be cautious about proceeding with a company that offers to design a website for much less than that figure because the quality of the final website may be questionable.

For a website to reach its full potential, it not only has to look good, it also has to be able to be easily found by customers. Existing customers will likely know the address of your website, and so it is easy enough for them to find it, but what about prospective customers, those who do not yet know the address of your website, how can they find it? The only way they can do so is through the search engines, and to be ranked highly in those you need the help of a search engine optimization (SEO) company.

An SEO company will ensure that when people enter certain keywords related to your website into a search engine, it is your website that shows up at the top. The benefit of this is that more people will visit your website, and the more people that do so, the more leads and sales you will get.

So, what do SEO companies do in order to get you ranked in the search engines? Well, they will do at least the following…

- Research keywords to find out which ones will be most profitable for you to target.

- Optimize your site and its content towards the keywords being targeted.

- Find ways to get other websites to links to yours, which shows the search engines that your site is popular and that it deserves to be ranked highly in their results pages..

If you feel that hiring an SEO company to help you in your Internet marketing efforts would be beneficial, and for virtually all businesses this is the case, then you need to draw up a shortlist of SEO companies, ask them the following questions, and then evaluate and compare their answers.

- Do you have any experience of promoting websites within my industry?

- What types of SEO techniques will you be using to promote my website?

- Can you show me examples of your previous work / successes?

- What kind of results can I expect to see?

- By what measures do you evaluate success?

- How soon can I expect to see results?

- Will I be updated daily, weekly or monthly?

- Will you be providing me with detailed reports?

A final point to consider, and one which is really the acid test for any SEO company, is how well their own website is ranking in the search engines for the keywords that they are targeting. As an example, if a website design company is based in Stamford, then check how well they are ranking in the search engines for the keyword phrase “website design stamford”. If they are good at what they do then their own website should be ranked on the first page, ideally in the number one position. If they are able to achieve that for their own company, then you can have faith in them that they will be able to help your own website rank well for the keywords that you are targeting.

Regular re-designing of websites is necessary because of the speed at which the Internet evolves. Due to the speed at which the Internet evolves; it is necessary for websites to be regularly re-designed. Bandwidth increases, new technologies emerge, and website users’ expectations change. Technology and website user’s expectations can change monthly, so you can never view your website as being a finished product.

Your website is often your company or organization’s first contact with prospective clients, and it is therefore vitally important that it makes a great first impression – anything less and you will be missing out on custom, leads and sales. So, aim to review your website every 6-12 months to ensure that it is in keeping with the current standards expected of websites. The question is then, how do you know if your website is need of an update, or even an outright re-design? The effects of having a poor or out-dated website cannot be understated. A website is often the first point of contact between yourself and prospective customers and, as such, making the right impression is critical. If you make a bad impression with your website, then you can be sure that their business will not be coming your way. So, how do you know if your website is doing what it is meant to be doing?

It is best to start with a list of what your website does, or what it is supposed to do, and how well it achieves those objectives. It may be difficult for you to be objective, so talk to a few customers who use the website, or friends who are not familiar with your website and who are not afraid to tell you what they think about it. Writing a simple checklist is the best place to start. Write down everything that your current website should be doing. Then, ask some customers or friends to take your list and try out your website. Ask them which of the points on your list your website achieves. Tell them to be frank and honest with you, as you will gain nothing from the exercise is they want to avoid offending you. Tell them that it is not personal, but that you want to make your website and your business as good as you possibly can.

Next create a list of what your web site does not do, either because of outdated design, or capabilities it does not have. List all of the features or capabilities that you would like the website to have. Then, create one sentence which describes the primary purpose of your website and one secondary purpose. Everything on your list should support your primary and secondary purpose. Once you know what your website can and is doing, the next step is to write a list of extra things that you want it to be able to do. Write such a list, and then write one sentence which states the primary purpose of your website, and one sentence which states the secondary purpose of your website. Ensure that everything on your list of desired features and capabilities supports either the primary or secondary purpose of your website. If they support neither purpose, then leave them out of your re-design, as they will only stand to over complicate your website and confuse visitors to it.

Often making just a few changes or adding one or two capabilities to your website at a time is the best approach to take, rather than spending lots of time and money on a complete overhaul that takes 6 months to implement. The reason being that it is then easier to track the effectiveness of the changes made, and that existing users of your site will not be overwhelmed and confused when they next visit your website. Try not to get caught up in the mindset that it necessary to totally overhaul the design of your website. Often, making just a few changes, or adding one or two extra capabilities is the best approach to take. If you make changes simply for the sake of making changes then you will just be wasting time and resources. You may also alienate existing customers of yours who may feel overwhelmed and confused when they visit your website after the re-design.

It is important to establish an exact budget, or a budget range for your website re-designs. Coming up with a strict budget, and sticking to it, is something else to bear in mind. It is good practice to get several bids or proposals for the project before accepting one. Once you have come up with a figure or a range, then seek bids from various web design companies – do not just contact one and go with their first offer. Let website design companies know up front that you can spend around a certain amount, and the sorts of changes that you are looking to make, and then ask them to give you their best price. You are in a buyer’s market, and when website design companies know that you are also talking with their competitors, you will often find that the prices that they quote suddenly become very competitive.

So why is SEO so important and how do I make my company website achieve those top pages of Google Search. The old theory is still true, time, time, time. If you think your website is going to be on the top within the first month, then think again. This is timely process that takes a minimum of 1-3 months to get you hooked into the search engines of Yahoo, Google and Bing.

Here are some things that can you help your website move in the ranks. First off you have to pick a service you want to hit, ie website design, seo services, etc.

1). Backlinks are the ultimate goal to get you higher on search engines. Backlinks are links that on other people’s website. The more people linking to your website the more Google thinks your website is important in the searches and starts ranking you higher.

2). Article Submissions are another way to boost your ranking on the websites. Article Submissions are articles written by you or a third party in which they took about your website and spin it to all the bloggers in the world looking for content. This helps you with the relevant keywords in your website and it has your anchor link (this is a link with a keyword in it) connecting to your website.

3). Website Directories is way to get your website noticed. They are millions of website directories out there on the web. It takes time to enter your website into only the best directories that people actually search for. Why is this is so important? Well it shows search engines where to list to your website and what field or niche your trying to accomplish.

4). Time is another key ingredient to being on the top of Google Searches. You ever notice that you search for a keyword and you seeing the crappiest websites on the top of page. Then you wonder how did they get there, and why did Google pick them. Well because they been around for such a long time, Google looks at this at being a stable website. Age of a website has a higher authority on the world wide web. No one ever calls the web, the world wide web, but that what it stands for. Remember the web is world wide.

5). Meta Home Keywords is your lifeblood to being online presence. Anything and everything related to your website should be in this box. Meta Home Keywords are in your header of your website, its a list of keywords that are related to your website that search crawlers for Google, Yahoo and Bing, crawl to your website and pick those select keywords and put your website on their searches. If your using Wordpress I would recommend downloading the ‘All in One SEO Pack’. This would help you access that function. Also you can go to the Google AdWords Keyword Tool, for suggestions and keywords ideas. Google it and you will find it.

6). Meta Home Description is the description of what your website is about and this is heavily search by website crawlers also. If you go to my website and right click on the web page and click ‘View Source’ you can see what I put in my Meta Home Description. The important thing about your description is that you don’t make it too long. It needs to be concise and to the point so the web crawlers can find it. Remember quality not quantity.

7). PageRank is really important when your linking your website to other websites. PageRank has to do with how long the website has been up and how ‘important’ Google thinks it is on their search engines. The higher the PageRank the more exposure it receives, the lower the PageRank the less. If you link your website on lower PageRank websites its going to hurt your ranking and it will take you more time to get your website a higher ranking. If you link to higher PageRank websites, that booast your website and adds creditability to your website. If you have a choice who would you want to link your website with Google.com or momandpop.com with no PageRank. Go with Google.com. Before linking with another website make sure their PageRank is a 3 or higher before swapping links.

Let’s take the word ’search engine optimization’ or better known in the geek world as SEO, and explain the definition. According to Wikipedia this is what it states:

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results as opposed to search engine marketing (SEM) which deals with paid inclusion. Typically, the earlier (or higher) a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine.

So in plain English what does that mean. It means that not only is having a website crucial to the success of your business but you need to have back links, relative meta keywords and quality traffic coming to your website to guarantee new clientele. Once this process is done, then you can sit back and let Google, Bing, and Yahoo website crawlers come daily to snatch up your keywords on your website for information.

Everyone wants to be number one on Google for their relative fields or services. To be on the first page or even in the top ten, its going to take sometime, it just doesn’t happen over night. It takes between 2-4 months for your website to receive the traffic it needs to match your services or niche. Quality back links, the correct keywords for your surrounding cities, and unique information are all ways to get ahead of everyone else.

So why is it when you search for lets say ‘website design stamford ct’ in Google Search, you get really crappy websites on the front page, and it doesn’t pertain to the real information your looking for. Well those crappy websites have been online for 2-4 months and Google sees them having the most relevancy, back links, and quality keywords. If you need help maximizing your website for search engine optimization, we offer our SEO services over here.