How To Select A Website Design Or Internet Marketing Company For Your Business

Selecting a website design or internet marketing company is a very daunting task, especially when you consider the number of companies out there and the wide variety of services they offer.  Additionally, the price range for website designers and internet marketing companies can vary greatly.  You can easily spend as little as $100 or in excess of $100,000 for a website .  The purpose of this post is to help you know what to look for in a marketing company or website designer.

Consider Your Internet Marketing Goals

What are your goals for your website?  Your goals will be the driving force behind your final decision in selecting a website design company.  Therefore, it is important to have a high degree of clarity for what you want your site to accomplish.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when formulating goals for your website:

• How competitive is your industry?
• What is your competitive presence on the internet compared to that of your competitors?
• Are you just wanting a basic site that people can find if they are looking specifically for you?
• Do you want your site to be a lead generator that will convert into sales for your business?
• Do you want the ability for customers to order your products and services through your website?
• How will you measure success?  Number of visitors?  Number of leads?  Number of phone calls generated? Number of orders?
• How will you promote the site?
• Are there a lot of searches for your business on the search engines?
• How important is it for your site to achieve high rankings on the search engines?
• Do you want your site to be a medium for sharing documents with customers or collaborating with others in your field?
• Do you want your site to position you as a thought leader in your industry?
• How much time do you or your staff have to devote to writing content and developing the website?
• Do you want to integrate a blog on your website?
• Will you be integrating social media such as Facebook and Twitter?

Consider The Internet Marketing Services Offered

Based on your goals, you will need to ask the companies you are evaluating what extent of services they offer in addition to website design.  I have seen some very expensive ad agencies and marketing companies that know a lot about design but very little about optimizing the site to gain high rankings on the search engines.  As a result, you can have a very beautiful site that will never be found on the search engines.  I know of a few law firms that have fallen into this trap.  They spent a lot of money to have such a site designed only to have to spend even more money to have another company take over the site to optimize it appropriately.

Likewise, I have seen some companies that are good at search engine optimization (SEO), but lack in design and branding.  These are the sites that are so text heavy, their visitors will not read the information provided. It overwhelms the visitor sending them to a competitors website.  Ideally, depending on your competition and goals, it is a good idea to hire a company that has a track record of designing great looking websites that provide a professional brand image and are also optimized to achieve competitive rankings on the search engines.

Here are some things to consider when evaluating companies:

• Are their sites designed using Flash or HTML?  Flash sites can offer some freedom for the developer and can be great looking but can also be difficult to optimize for the search engines.
• Are their sites fully customized for your company or are they theme sites?
• Are their sites mobile optimized?
• How much do they know about your industry?
• Do they have any examples of sites they have done for other companies in your industry?
• Do they have any case studies that show what type of website design and content lead to higher client conversions for your industry?
• Do they know enough about your industry to write your content or will you be expected to write the content?
• Will they be optimizing your site?
• If so, how much experience do they have in search engine optimization?
• Are they specific in the SEO techniques they will be using for your site?  For example, do they have a proven strategy for building “on page” content as well as a strategy for building links to your site?
• Do they have a track record of achieving high search engine rankings for their customers?
• Do they offer search engine pay-per-click services?
• Do they offer online video services?
• How knowledgable are they in integrating social media with the sites they build?

Consider Your Internet Marketing Budget

Once you have set your goals and have identified your needs, it’s time to set a budget.  Your budget will be based on what you need your website to accomplish and the breadth of services needed to promote it.  The best advice I can give you is to go with the companies that can provide not only website design, but also search engine marketing and social media services.  This will save you money in the long-run because it will prevent having to start over with another company at some point in the future.  The good thing about internet marketing is that you don’t have to do everything at once.  You can “phase in” additional services based on your marketing strategy and budget.  Finally, evaluate several companies that have a proven track record of success for building sites in your industry.  Companies that are familiar with your industry have the ability to take on the task of writing the content for your site thereby saving you a lot of time.