“After sending two invoices for payment, I sent another and called the client when the receipt that they had received it came back,” starts one individual’s story on the popular website, Clients From Hell. The client asks why they’re calling, and the website developer explains that they owe money, as per a signed contract. The client then exclaims, “I thought you were joking!” “Why?” The developer asks. “You’re a free lancer,” the client replied.
While stories like this might seem too funny to be real, they’re often the type of struggle website design agencies encounter all the time. The truth is, many people asking for web services don’t actually know what they should be asking for — and what to expect from professional website designer companies. Consequently, companies end up wasting their web development and hosting budgets, and don’t end up with much to show for it.
Are you interested in hiring website design agencies, but not sure what to expect? Here are three things many people not involved with the industry might not be aware of.
1. Nothing Comes for Free in This World
As evidenced by the above anecdote, great website design isn’t free. In fact, it isn’t even cheap much of the time. The mistake many companies make is paying for someone with little experience to create their site, because it’s half the cost of typical web design pricing. The truth is, though, that with every mistake in design an inexperienced designer makes, more of your money goes out the window. Google takes website design quality into consideration for web rankings, for example. And slow sites lose 40% of their viewers after loading for just four seconds too long. For this reason, it makes sense to hire experienced website design agencies.
2. It’s Not Just About Having Your Info Up
Anyone who’s savvy in the tech world can probably tell you: mobile is the future of the online experience. If you hire a great custom website design company, they can make sure your website appears correctly, quickly, and easily on any device. A recent survey by Google discovered that almost 50% of mobile users agreed that if a company’s mobile site wasn’t easy to use, the company didn’t care about them — and they cared less about the company, correspondingly.
3. Everything You Thought You Knew About Websites is Probably Wrong
Many companies approach their website with the idea that everything should be on the front page where people can see it. Contact info, blogs, customer reviews, images and more. In reality, though, it’s worth noting that 76% of consumers say that the most important factor in website design is “it makes it easy for me to find what I want.” A busy page makes this hard to do — not easy. Having a well organized website means using multiple tabs and an easy-to-understand layout for users.
What do you look for in website design and development companies? Let us know in the comments.
