The Handy guide to choosing your web design agency

Let's say you are on a mission to start a new website for your business, you set the objectives and analysed your audience, but how do you select the right agency to design it? Here are some ideas to consider:

Local Vs Remote agency

The first question you want to ask yourself is: where do you want your agency to be? In most cases it will be close to your office so that you can have face to face meetings reasonably often, save on travel costs and have some kind of flexibility. I used to work with an agency just one block away and it was really handy when we needed to drop some products for a photo shoot or go there to clarify some points on ongoing projects.

A completely different option might be to choose an agency anywhere in the world and work with them virtually on the phone, skype, email, etc.. This is a very realistic approach and is made very easy with today's technologies. You might want to choose this option if you live in a very small town with little resources around, if you're very picky and want to choose the best designers on the planet, or if you want to work on a very low cost budget from an Asian agency. I worked with an agency in China on the development of a new website and we were so happy with the result that we asked them to design our product catalogue. We communicated mainly by email and skype chat with the odd phone call, and with a little bit of organisation it ended up working quite well.

Web design agency Vs Marcomms agency

There are plenty of agencies out there and it might be quite confusing at times to know which do what exactly. Some agencies focus only on website design while others offer a broad range of services by leveraging partners' expertise. Depending on your experience with agencies and the level of existing material you already have for your business, you might have different needs.

For example, if you are starting a new business, it might pay to go to a more general agency that will be able to offer advice on branding, messages and other communications activities to tie with your website. If on the contrary you already have a corporate identity well defined, have a set of brochures, and just need a website with reasonably complex functions, you might prefer working with a specialised web agency. They will have more coders and designers in-house and more relevant experience.

Pricing issues

Pricing definitely plays a large role in your choice so it is important that you talk to two or three agencies and carry competitive bidding. You'll be surprised to see the differences that come out. Don't be scared to share the results with them (maybe not in terms of $ but at least a general impression) and ask why their prices are so different. You will learn a lot through the process and will be able to make a better judgement. A lot of factors can contribute to the price differences, not just quality or time estimated for the project, so make sure you understand how the quotes were prepared.

Full projects Vs Theme only

I won't go into too much detail on this post, but when you create a website you have a few options as to how you build the site. You can choose to rely on your agency to do all the work from design to deployment, or if you are a bit of a DIY marketer chances are that you might be familiar with some Content Management Systems like Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal.

What I want to say here is that you do not have to pay for the whole service if you do not need it. You can always decide to build your own site and just find an agency that would create the design (in this case a template, or theme) to be implemented on your site. For example if I had to build a new website - as long is it would not need complex functions like a shopping cart - I would probably just use Wordpress and pay an agency or a designer to design the theme for me.

Portfolio of work

Reviewing the work portfolio of the agencies you talk to is critical and should not be bypassed. Most agencies will have their portfolio on their website, but if not ask them to send you a presentation or at least links to the live websites they have created. When reviewing the portfolio, consider the following questions:

1. Do the sites look professional and modern?


2. Do I like their styles?


3. Are they varied in their design and structure, or does it look like they're all the same?


4. Do some of the sites offer functions that I am interested in (interactive map, shopping cart, slideshow, etc..)?


5. Does the agency have some experience in my industry?


6. Do they display properly on my browser?

You can continue the list, but basically ask yourself as many questions as possible and review what they mean in terms of experience and capability for each agency.

Get recommendations

And finally, ask the agency if you can talk to some of their clients to get their feedback. You can ask questions and understand more how they work, whether they deliver on time, communicate well, etc..

Did I forget anything important? Let me know how you approach this in the comments below.