This article was originally published on 7Design blog
More and more SME’s are realizing the importance of website for their business. A good web presence not only helps business to connect with the customers online but also serves as a gateway to newopportunities and relationships. Without any doubt your website serves as the first impression in online marketing efforts. Not only your website has to be visually appealing, carry all the necessary information for your customers but it should also be strong functionally. A perfect match of all these three components results in a good website.
80% of people will look at your website before deciding to do business with you
In this article we will discuss and unwrap steps to help you choose the right team for your next web project.
Step 1: Define your goals & expectations
Most new businesses looking for website confuses it with a good design, forgetting that the goals that you want to achieve through the website are far more important than how it merely looks. Your customers may not be very concerned about the design if their purpose is not being fulfilled by your website.
So before you jumps into the details of your web project it’s recommended to invest time thinking about how it will bring you close to your customer and discuss it with the web team. Team at 7design can help you define your goals.
Can you name top 3 goals of your website?
Let’s discuss some steps that will help you define your website goals..
- Develop a website based on your customer preferences only
- Work on the layout and design based on what business objective you want to achieve
- Your customers will visit your website for a purpose. Whether you want to collect their email for newsletter subscription or you want them to download your business brochure. Work on details that make your website functionally very strong.
Step 2: Balance a combination of cost vs. ROI
Before initiating talks with agency it’s advisable that you sets your financial limits and iron out your budget. The trick to get most out of your bucks is to seek a perfect balance of cost that you want to spend on the web project and the ROI the web agency promises to deliver you.
The phrase that “you get what you pay for” is true to some extent but finding the perfect web team is a little more than just spending money. You should plan early or seek help with the goals you want to achieve through the web project. If the only thing you want from your website is a static website made with the purpose of giving you online identity than its fair that you don’t spend much on it but if you are looking to attract, convince and convert customer then you better find a web team that dedicate time to understand your marketing goals as well.
Take aways;
- Do your homework and come prepared when meeting to discuss your web project
- Although design is major component of web project but don’t forget to discuss how functionalities and technologies will make a strong website
- Always pay attention to agency terms and condition that entails a website project
Step 3: Identify agency expertise
Always look for a team that understands your business. Probably your requirement will be far more different if you are running a law firm and looking to develop a website than a website for fashion clothing startup. I have personally seen many eCommerce clients losing thousands of dollars and precious time on hit and trails with agencies that fails to capture their needs.
The bottom line here is to find an expert team who has similar experience of delivering functionally rich and aesthetically appealing web designs that helps you connects with your customers.
Take away:
- Ask the agency for their performance based on solid data, testimonials & case studies
- Always question their methodologies, process and clarify why they do it this way. It’s their job to convince you based on solid facts
- Discuss their web development process and how often they will discuss the project details with you
Step 4: Success of web projects are determined by FCX
Your website will probably look good if it developed by a good designer but it will fail to capture your business needs without good content and user experience design. So your web project success is determined by strong functionality, good content and seamlessuser experience.
You need to make sure that the agency distribute equal points to the consideration (33.33%) when committing to your web project.
Some agencies are so focused on design that they completely forgets user’s preferences and the reasons why they might visit business website.
Your website is made with the sole purpose of communicating how your business expertise can be helpful for your clients, this means that the value that you are providing is communicated through content, meanwhile the content could be in the form of a copywriting, product/service demo video, testimonials and contact details.
Your website design is an architecture that houses all the content and considering the sheer importance you should decide who will be responsible for the content development.
Step 5: Be very realistic with your expectations
Being realistic does not mean that you forget the long term goals of your website rather we suggest clients to systematically manage and plan their expectations without jumping to conclusions. 7design always invite our clients to discuss their expectations and we also help them plan the project according their long term goals.
If your goal is to be the number one on Google search results then it might not be the best goal, rather you need to define the thought process that made you think that being number one will help you achieve your business objective and how your website might help you on this. Some possible explanations might be;
- I want to top Google search results for those “a,b,c” keywords because I am expert on these services
- I want to help educate my clients by leading the Google search results
- I have what it takes to produce informational content to be put on my website
Step 6: Who’s going to take care of your website once it is ready?
Your website project is not a one-time investment. Successful businesses continuously invest time and resources on their website and make sure that your website keep maintaining healthy relationship with your target audience. Be sure to ask about maintenance plan that your web agency provides, these plans helps your regularly update content, blog post, pictures and keep you updated with how your content is generating interest through analytics reports.
7design team welcomes you to discuss your next web project with us. Call us today at 0447-759-420 or leave us an email:contact@7design.com.au with your project details and one of our team member will get right back to you.
The post Choosing the Right Web Agency for Your Next Website project: Six Steps to Success appeared first on AdMarkSolutions.