Top 5 things to consider before you contact a web design firm
For many clients starting a web design and development project is often stepping into unknown territory. This article discuss the keys things to consider before contacting a web design firm to not only save time and but to ensure the overall success of the project.
Goals and Objectives
Firstly, define your goals and objectives for your website. Often clients are so focused and excited about the idea of a website that they fail to consider the bigger picture. The overall goals and objectives of a website will help Wiliam understand the purpose of your website and present opportunities for us to provide the additional strategic and web knowledge to the project.
Setting key goals and objectives of a website will also help you make informative decisions during the design and development of your website. When required to make decisions such as “should this feature be included” you would simply think, “does this feature contribute to the goals and objectives of my website?”.
Listed below are common goals and objectives Wiliam has encountered with its clients:
- Utilise the web as a sales lead generation tool
- Generate revenue through online ad or eCommerce
- Increase marketing effectiveness and build brand
- Improve productivity and efficiency within the company
Audience
By understanding the target audience for your website it will allow Wiliam to investigate the appropriate tools and features to implement in the website to engage and encourage return traffic. For example if the website is targeted towards the youth market social networking techniques are highly effective or alternatively a professional audience will be more interested in relevant content.
Content
Content is the soul of a website, it’s the reason why people visit and return to your website. Clients often fail to consider the content of the website till the very last minute, leaving to ad hoc display of text to fill in white space. This not only reduces the chances of a visitor returning to your website, it also reduces the chances of your website ranking highly in search engine results.
Wiliam understands that not all companies have the expertise and resources to provide web content therefore as one of Wiliam’s many added value services we offer our clients professional copy writing to ensure all components of your website is of leading industry standards.
Budget
Setting down an estimated budget for a web design and development project is helpful in defining the core requirements and deliverables of a website.
Clients are often unaware of the how much time and costs are involved in web development this can lead to unrealistic expectations base on available budget.
However at Wiliam we acknowledge the importance of offering our clients value for their money. Therefore we always consider and work towards our clients budget in order to deliver a solution that completely satisfies the core and innovative features of a website.
Functional Specification
A functional specification document is an industry recognized document that details in technical terms the requirements and deliverables of a website. The document itself can be interpreted by any capable design firm in order to implement a web project.
Like plans to a house, it is vital to the overall success of a website project for clients to provide or develop a functional specification with a web design firm before beginning a web project.
One of the key issues our clients experience in requesting quotation for a web project is often the large variances in costs for the overall project from firm to firm. A functional specification will eliminate such vast differences and provide a standard document to allow web design firms to cost accurately.
Try to remember the above points next time you consider a web project, it could potentially save you time and money in the enduring process of finding the right web design firm for your project.
