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10 mistakes businesses make when hiring a web design agency or developer
Are you thinking of hiring a web developer or design agency to build your new website? If, so make sure you avoid making these common mistakes. If you don’t, you could find yourself having to spend a lot of time and money trying to put things right and be left feeling disappointed with your new website.
1. Paying too little or trying to DIY
Many of us wouldn’t try and fix our own car or design and build our own house – we’d use professionals with experience in these areas. Website development is a specialist skill, just like being a mechanic, builder or architect. Taking shortcuts by searching out the absolute cheapest developer you can find is likely to cost you more in the long run. You may find yourself with a website that doesn’t deliver everything you need and have to spend additional time and money improving or redesigning it.
When it comes to DIY website builders, they may look like a more affordable option. But too often business owners forget to value their own time. Is spending days or weeks trying to design your own website the best use of your time in terms of financial return? Probably not.
You should be realistic about what web development costs and find an experienced developer or agency that aligns with your budget whilst offering good value for money.
2. Paying too much
Given what we’ve just said, you may be surprised to read this. However, it’s important not to over-spec your new website. All web developers work with the same raw materials – code. The difference between a good local web design agency and the premium, high-profile web design agencies of London or New York could be as little as good branding and fancy office premises. You should focus on finding the right fit for your business, as premium prices won’t necessarily get you a better result.
You should also consider cost in terms of specification. A 10-page website with a blog, calendar function, members log-in area, instant chat and exit pop-ups on every page is going to cost more than a 4-page portfolio-style website with none of the add-ons. If you need additional features, then by all means commission them, but don’t pay for things that won’t directly benefit your business. You can always add them later if you need to.
3. Not understanding the difference between design and development
Web design and development are actually rather different. Thinking back to houses, an architect might design the look and feel of your house, however, it’ll probably be a builder or construction company that puts the bricks and mortar together.
Some graphic designers and artists will create beautiful layouts for websites, but they may not necessarily be able to build the website for you or fully implement all necessary website functions. There are also developers who can build websites but they may not have as much flair for design and so will tend to use templates with little tailoring or personalisation.
It’s important to understand what you need and want for your website. Invariably, this is a mix of design and development. Make sure you pick an agency that offers both services. If working with a single individual, check that designers have development skills and developers possess design skills.
4. Not being clear on your vision
Do you know what you want from your website? If not, there is very little chance that you will be able to clearly communicate a vision to your web developer. If they don’t understand what you want, they’re not going to be able to deliver it.
You should very clearly plan your website project before approaching an agency. Check out How to plan a new website and improve its performance in 12 steps for help with this.
5. Not properly reviewing the agency’s portfolio of work
Most developers will adapt their personal style to meet a brief. However, web design and development are still creative areas of work. If you’re looking for a playful, innovative graphic-led website it’s probably not a good fit to work with an agency that specialises in creating very corporate, traditional-looking websites. You should be able to see a synergy between an agency’s past work and what you want to achieve.
As well as viewing their portfolio, you should ask an agency how they would respond to your own business’ creative brief. You need to know what they would do to bring your brand and vision alive.
At QuayClick, we go a step further and offer all customers a free mockup of their homepage. This means that you can see exactly how we work and what we could do for your business, before asking you to sign a contract or spend money. We believe this approach helps our customers to know exactly what they’d get for their money and we’re so confident you’ll love our work that we’re happy to offer this ‘try before you buy’ approach.
6. Not thinking about the long-term
A new website is rarely a task-and-finish scenario. Even after launch, there will still be revisions, tweaks, updates, maintenance and eventually a redesign to work through. Your relationship with your web developer will be a long one, so it’s worth taking the time to get it right and make sure that you have a good working relationship.
7. Not getting a CMS you can work with
A Content Management System (CMS) is a tool to help you edit and update a website’s content. There are hundreds of CMS’ out there, all with different strengths and weaknesses.
With the right CMS, even non-technical staff can make updates to website content. However, there are also CMS’ out there that are far more complex and will require some knowledge of HTML. You should choose a developer or agency that will give you access to a CMS that you and your team can use.
Check out our blog post to discover how a Content Management System could save you time and money.
8. Not thinking about SEO
Both you and your web design agency will need to think about SEO. You should work with a web developer who either has a good understanding of SEO or works alongside those who do. There are technical SEO requirements that need to be considered during a website build, as well as the more well-known text and keyword-based SEO practices.
9. Not providing good content
Content is one of the most important parts of your new website. After all, what’s the point of a great-looking website layout if there is no substance or content for your users? Content is often overlooked or left to the last minute and websites suffer as a result. You should agree with your web developer who will provide content and make the time to create valuable and compelling content for your website.
10. Not agreeing on milestones and deadlines
Finally, one of the most common causes of dissatisfaction businesses have when working with external providers (web designers or otherwise) is timescales for delivery. A website build is rarely a quick job and if you have a set deadline like a product launch or publicity campaign, you should communicate this to ensure the deadline can be met. Agreeing milestones will help to track progress against your end-goal date.
What you can do as a business owner to avoid these mistakes?
One of the most common reasons businesses run into problems when they work with an external web design agency or developer is lack of planning. If you haven’t planned out your new website, you won’t fully understand what you want or need.
A plan will help you to identify what the priorities are for your new website, what content you need, how your website will be structured and what it will look like.
Read How to plan a new website and improve its performance in 12 steps for a complete guide to planning your new website.
A web design brief will help you to communicate to your web design agency or developer all of the information that you identify during the planning process. A brief is effectively a scope of works for your new website project. It sets out what you expect of your web developer and what the website should deliver.
Check out How to create a web design brief for a step-by-step guide to writing a design brief. You’ll also find a free web design brief template you can use.
If you plan your website and communicate your needs through a web design brief the risk of you making any of the mistakes above is significantly reduced.
Work with a different kind of web design agency
At QuayClick, we want all of our customers to love their new website. Web design and development is our passion and we take the time to get to know our customers and their businesses so that the kind of mistakes discussed here don’t happen.
If you’re interested in working with us, you can even try us out with a
100% free, no obligation mockup of your new website homepage - find out more about our
free website mockups.
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We’re a website design and digital marketing agency based in Exeter. We help businesses grow online and have over 20 years of experience in Web Design. We offer several inbound strategies, including paid search and SEO. In addition, our content team can help with copywriting and email campaigns.