Almost every business owner who wanted to boost sales by building a new website or redesigning an existing one has had to look for the right web agency. Competition in this field grows every year, and so does the risk of ending up with an unreliable contractor. That's why you should know the requirements and criteria for choosing a professional team.
Don't plan superficially!
The first thing to do, even while you're still looking for an agency, is to list the goals you want the website to achieve. They usually include:
1. Growing your customer base and sales through online promotion.
2. Increasing awareness of your product or company, building a personal brand.
3. Connecting with potential customers and improving service quality.
Based on these wishes, you can draw up a list of requirements for the contractor:
— A user-friendly site with intuitive navigation, attractive design and quality content.
— Developing and implementing tools that boost customer engagement (from apps to surveys).
— Many ways to contact the company (contact form, live chat, callback requests).
— A marketing strategy and promotion tools (forums, blogs, etc.).
How to choose a contractor — a website development agency
There are several effective ways to find a web development team. If there's no suitable company in your city, it's better to hire a proven agency elsewhere. Professional web developers can work remotely from anywhere in the world.
Ask friends and acquaintances
If people around you have already used such services or know experienced specialists, ask them for advice. But remember that freelancers almost always deliver a lower standard of work than web agencies.
Use search engines
You can use popular search engines to find a web agency. They'll give you a list of companies matching your query. This is the simplest and most convenient method, but it has drawbacks. For example, the top results may be companies that paid for ads. Or a company's top position may be the result of manipulation and black-hat SEO. So don't assume that first place in search is a natural result of quality work by IT professionals. Always check the information and read client reviews.
Look at your competitors' websites
Studying your closest competitors' websites is another effective way to find developers. Look carefully at their sites and note the pros and cons. At the bottom of a site you like, you'll often find a link to the agency that built it.
Use ratings and directories
What criteria should you use to choose a contractor?
Study the agency's website carefully: look closely at their portfolio, analyse the quality of their content, their search rankings, etc. Evaluate the contractor on the following:
The contractor's profile
A developer's face is their portfolio. Ask for examples, look at sites in similar niches and assess their technical quality and design. Is the catalogue navigation clear? Is the site easy to use? Read the content and articles carefully — they account for 70% of search rankings and traffic from potential customers. Check the site's functionality and how fast it loads; you can use PageSpeed Insights for that. Check for marketing tools and ways to engage the target audience.
The client's responsibilities
It would be a mistake to think only developers have responsibilities. Building a quality website requires the client's direct involvement:
— Analyse your competitors' websites. This will give you a full picture of the end result and its functionality.
— Write a detailed technical specification. Some agencies can prepare it for an extra fee; the client just fills in a brief. Working without a written spec is a sign of an inexperienced, unprofessional contractor, as this kind of negligence is typical of freelancers and fly-by-night firms. The spec details deadlines, scope and cost. The document is an appendix to the service agreement between the client and the contractor.
Hire a freelancer to build a website?
The main advantage of a freelance developer is the affordable price. You can hire one to build a landing page, a business card site, an online store or a corporate website without much risk of getting unfinished work. In other cases, weigh the pros and cons, as they may lack the knowledge to build a complex service. Plus, there may be no one to hold officially accountable.
What determines the price of a website?
The large market of specialists and agencies lets you find a contractor fairly quickly. But not every partnership will save you money. There's a category of contractors with extensive experience and high-quality work who are prestigious to work with — and therefore expensive. The price includes the time spent multiplied by the number of specialists involved. The bigger the company, the more the development will cost. Add the costs of a domain, SEO, hosting, promotion, content support and advertising, and the final price is considerable.
Less prestigious IT companies with around 20 staff will offer much more reasonable quotes. In that case the savings really make sense, because you won't lose anything in quality. The main difference between companies in different price segments is how thoroughly they work on an order. While a large company assigns a team of 15–30 people to one website, a mid-sized agency will assign 5–10. The assumption is that the more people work on an order, the fewer errors will be found in the finished product.
Website development stages: what makes up the price
The complexity of the job determines its cost: for example, a business card site will cost less than an online store with lots of informational and commercial content. The more the client wants and the broader the functionality, the more it will cost. That's why nobody can give you a clear answer to "how much does a website cost?" without agreeing on the spec and clarifying every detail.
The price depends on several factors:
— The time spent by web developers, marketers, copywriters and other specialists involved.
— Quality of execution. The same task can be done at different levels, with more or less attention to detail.
— Guarantees. The more experience and the better the reputation of the contractor, the lower the chance of an unsatisfactory result or an unfinished task.
The advantages of ordering a website from a web agency
Signing a contract with a web agency guarantees that a whole team of professionals will work on your project. The risk of errors is minimised. Prices vary depending on the company's size, market segment, experience and location. For example, services in Kyiv cost 1.5–2 times more than in other regions. On average, a website in Kyiv costs around $1,000. Choosing the wrong contractor can significantly increase that amount, with rework, fixes and adjustments needed. So take great care to find a reliable developer who does quality work on time.
Cyborg Studio offers a range of quality digital services and guarantees to deliver everything on time.
