10 Redesign Questions for Your Web Design Company in Indianapolis
1. Can You Show Samples of Your Work?
The first question you should ask is whether the agency is prepared to show you samples of work they have done for previous clients. Any experienced agency with many satisfied clients won’t hesitate to show you their work.
If an agency doesn’t have samples, that’s a red flag. Either their past work is not that good, or they are new and don’t have any experience delivering quality results to clients.
Even if their website says they have been in business for a while, you can’t always believe that. You can verify a website domain age online, but remember that some agencies buy expiring domains, so it’s not foolproof to determine how long an agency has been operating.
Take a look at the samples and see if you like the results. The samples should be unique; you don’t want an agency that creates similar websites for all of its clients, as you won’t be able to stand out from other local businesses.
2. What Other Website and Marketing Services Do You Offer?
Web design likely isn’t the only service your business requires. Working with multiple agencies can be a hassle. It’s a lot easier if you have one agency that can handle all of your marketing needs and Search Engine Optimization in one place, as long as it has specialized teams that know how to do everything.
What other marketing services might a web design agency offer? Here are some examples:
- Citation building: It’s important to get citations in local directories to get more leads and boost your SEO.
- Local link building: Local link building from third-party blogs and news sites will also help boost your SEO and drive traffic.
- SEO: A good SEO strategy involves keyword research, technical SEO, content optimization, and more.
- Content marketing: It’s important to have an active blog and regularly release new content.
- Social media marketing: Besides having an established website and blog, it’s crucial to have accounts on social media. You can drive a lot of free traffic from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other platforms.
- Email marketing: Email marketing can help you build an email list and increase your long-term conversion rates, as you can convert many people weeks, months, or years later by adding them to your list. It can also help you get repeat sales.
- Design Services: Do you need a new logo or custom images for your website or marketing? Ask to see if they have a graphic designer on staff who could help.
- Social Media Management: Not all design companies also handle social media management, but if they do it can be helpful to have all of your online marketing taken care of by one company.
3. What’s the Plan?
An experienced agency will come up with a unique design process. It’s important to ensure that the agency has a plan and strategy and isn’t just winging it.
When you ask this question, you should get a detailed plan of the steps the agency will take to fix issues with your current design and create a new design that helps you reach your goals.
They should be willing to work with you to adjust and tweak the plan based on your evolving needs. Furthermore, they should keep you in the know throughout the entire process; you should never be in the dark.
4. Can You Give a Timeline?
The agency should also be able to give you an approximate timeline for the project. Expect the timeline to vary slightly depending on the adjustments they need to make, but an experienced agency will have a good idea of how long it should take.
When it comes to other services, though, a timeline might be harder to determine. For example, if the agency offers SEO services, it can be hard to specify when you can expect to reach a certain monthly traffic volume.
5. Will You Assign a Dedicated Project Manager?
It’s best if you work with a dedicated project manager. That way, you will get help as soon as needed, and you’ll have someone to turn to when you have questions. As a potential customer, try to meet your project manager as soon as possible to see if they seem like a good fit for you.
A dedicated project manager can also familiarize themselves with your project and your online presence. That way, they can advise the team working on your website to get the finer details right to be better aligned with your goals. The level of support you will get from a dedicated project manager shouldn’t be underestimated, so make sure the agency can offer you one.
6. Do You Use Customized Designs or Templates?
I touched upon this before. Having a unique website is important. A good agency can create a custom design for your business, which will help you stand out. One reason to stay away from templates is that templates often have built in rules that control its responsive web design. This can create problems for you if you plan on supplying your own images and graphics that may not fit in the premade template.
Some agencies use premade templates, but that won’t get you the best results, even though it might be cheaper. There are two types of predesigned templates – free ones and premium ones.
Premium ones are better, as more websites are using free themes than premium ones. Therefore, they help you be unique. Nevertheless, they are never genuinely unique– unlike a custom theme made just for you.
A custom theme can also take your unique business goals into account. While you can tweak a premade theme, it’s best to have an agency create a special design from scratch, optimized to help your business reach its goals.
7. What About Revisions?
No matter how good an agency is, you might not like some things about the end result. That’s why you should choose an agency with a good revision policy. The agency should be willing to make revisions as per your request without charging you extra. The more communication you can receive from your project manager, the more streamlined experience you will have. This should lead to fewer revision cycles.
A company dedicated to delivering quality services will offer revisions for free; ensuring customer satisfaction should be their top priority.
Nevertheless, it’s reasonable to expect a certain limitation on the number of revision requests you can make at no extra charge.
Some clients will make multiple revision requests that are unreasonable, especially when they go contrary to their initial requests at the start of the project. Some agencies might have a limit of three revision requests, for example, to keep things within reason.
8. Will the Redesign Affect Current Search Engine Rankings?
A site design upgrade can affect your search engine optimization positively or negatively. A good site redesign will take SEO into account and improve the user experience. In turn, that will lower bounce rates and increase time spent on page, metrics that can help improve your rankings (in addition to improving your conversion rates).
However, a site redesign that worsens the user experience or includes a poor URL structure can lower rankings. Web design isn’t only about making your site look good. It must consider the user’s needs and make navigation easy and user-friendly.
Note that any redesign could temporarily affect rankings or the user experience as old users get accustomed to the new design. That’s especially true with complete site redesigns that change the way the site looks altogether. However, it should be a temporary drop, nothing more.
9. Are You Going to Outsource Any Aspect of the Project?
It’s best if the agency handles everything in-house. That way, they can ensure quality control over all aspects of the project.
However, if they outsource certain things, such as banner creation, logo design, or anything else, there is a higher chance of things going wrong. It will be harder to ensure consistent quality of various tasks are outsourced.
Furthermore, there is often a lack of transparency when outsourcing web design projects. You won’t always know much about the freelancers they outsource tasks to, their qualifications, and how good they are.
Not only that, but those freelancers won’t be communicating with you one-on-one, so they also won’t have an accurate idea of your desires and how to meet your expectations and goals best.
On the other hand, an agency might have a specific freelancer with which it has a long-established working relationship. Your project manager might trust this freelancer to deliver quality work that will meet your expectations.
As a business owner, however, you can’t know that for sure. Therefore, if an agency is outsourcing any aspect of the project, ask for more transparency about what is being outsourced, why, and how the agency will ensure quality.
10. What About Costs?
Finally, it’s important to clearly understand how much things will cost you. Ask the agency to disclose prices upfront.
There should be no hidden fees or extra charges to the project after you start. Reading reviews of the agency online can help ensure that this won’t happen – make sure none of the reviews complain about hidden fees and charges or required upsells.
How to Choose the Best Agency for Web Design in Indianapolis
Hiring an agency to do your web design instead of hiring an in-house web designer will help you cut costs and enjoy the experience of a large team for a lower price. However, choosing the right agency is critical, and the ten questions above will help ensure that you work with an agency capable of meeting your goals.
If you are ready to start a successful web design project with an experienced team of marketing and design experts, we would love to chat with you. You can schedule an appointment with us by clicking this link. We will answer any and all of the questions you have. No hard sell or pressure to work with us. We simply love creating beautiful designs for our clients that fit into your marketing efforts
David McArdle is the founder of Indy Web Designers and The Virtual Marketing Directors. When he is not helping small business owners create websites that grow their businesses he enjoys running, biking and any excuse to be outdoors. As a StoryBrand Certified Guide, David has found his calling helping small businesses communicate what they do in a way that actually helps businesses grow.
David McArdle is the founder of Indy Web Designers and The Virtual Marketing Directors. When he is not helping small business owners create websites that grow their businesses he enjoys running, biking and any excuse to be outdoors. As a StoryBrand Certified Guide, David has found his calling helping small businesses communicate what they do in a way that actually helps businesses grow.
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