You’re on the hunt for the best website redesign company and you need to get one really fast.
The challenge is also to get the right one to suit your requirements, preferences and budget.
When swift action is the need of the hour, it’s essential that a lot of work gets done behind the scenes so that your final decision is spot on target.
Why Do You Need To Redesign?
This is a big call to take. Unless you take a step back to answer that question correctly, you could end up wasting valuable resources and time. The resultant mess could be frustrating for your entire sales force and it has the potential to do real harm to your image and brand.
A badly redesigned website can drive away loyal customers who would most likely give bad reviews on social media.
As a first step, analyze why you think your existing website needs a makeover.
Ask yourself whether you need a complete overhaul or merely a design refresh. There’s a big difference between the two, and knowing what it is can save you money, time and effort.
It’s worth doing some research before you hire an expert website redesigning company.
Your website needs redesigning if:
- The last redesign/design happened more than three years ago
- There are lots of 404 errors and broken links
- It isn’t user-friendly and looks old-fashioned
- High bounce, poor conversions and heavy exit rates
- It doesn’t reflect your brand correctly if you’ve recently altered
- Your customer can’t find what they want in the first 2 pages
- Competitor websites look more attractive and streamlined
- The web site is not optimized for SEO, schema markup, current metadata, image tags, headers, social media tags
- The code is past its Use-By date
- The site is not getting indexed on Google
- The UX needs improvement
- Security isn’t effective because of outdated plugins and you don’t have an SSL certificate
- Content is feeble, outdated and valueless
- Site structure needs tweaking
- Doesn’t have responsive design features to make it mobile friendly
How To Find The Best Web Redesign Company
1. Ask around: While the design company that created your previous site would be a good first choice, don’t instantly pick them by default. Look at other options, get recommendations from the younger crowd of co-workers and friends. Take a look at websites (even those of the competition) that you admire and find out who created them. Great web design companies are great marketers for themselves too, besides being tech-savvy and design experts.
2. Your preferences: With more than 1,817,308,700 (and still counting) in the world in 2020, your website needs to grab attention fast, from the right people and convert clicks into revenue. Decide whether you’re comfortable working with a just-hatched start-up that’s full of passion and energy, or you’d like to work with a well-established, tried and tested company that can demonstrate solid, genuine results. Check whether the agency outsources work to freelancers, and whether they provide the full suite of services.
3. Analyze your tech needs: This is based on what kind of website you have in mind. If you require just a “brochure site” that offers information, then you can firm up on the kind of functionality you need. You need a pure play designer who focuses on branding, aesthetics, UX, imagery etc. But if you plan to grow and diversify your business, you need to upgrade to a more sophisticated functionality. You need a design company that works with pure play designers, front-end developers and back-end tech experts to get the full range of services for a more tech intensive website.
4. Communicate your business needs: Explain to the design company in detail about the role of your website in your business strategy. The redesign company should look at the existing website and analyze where it falls short of the business’s short, medium and long-term goals.
5. Look at portfolios: While you take a look at the redesign company’s previous projects and portfolio, ensure that you balance aesthetics with functionality. The style is great and so are unique color palettes, fonts, design placements, etc., but ensure that they don’t come in the way of easy navigation, loading speed and useful content. Dive right into their websites instead of relying on screen-shots that they may present. This will help you to get an authentic look and feel of their design capabilities. If you haven’t found your ideas there, don’t despair – they may be capable of coming up with something they haven’t done before!
6. Content is King: And the queen, president, prime minister etc too. If you’re not able to find what you need on a website, such as a clear call to action, menus, the About Us page, etc, that’s a poor design. Check if the company considers content to be important or they’re focused on pure design.
7. Pricing: As a business owner, there’s no one who knows the value of pricing better than you. Most web companies avoid publishing their rates online or giving guesstimates without a few meetings. Some companies may provide a ballpark figure type online price calculator. However, it’s essential that you get a service that fits into your redesign budget. You may have already invested a large amount in the original design and may not have the inclination to fork out more at present.
Here it’s important to analyze what is right about your old website and ensure that you protect these important assets. Once you’ve evaluated what has to be discarded and what has to be kept, it’s easier to talk about rates and pricing to a web redesign company.
8.Add-Ons: Talk to them about what add-ons they’re willing to throw in. Maintenance and support apart, some design companies may provide extras such as graphics design components or SEO, virtual assistant services, etc.
9.Know Where To Find Them: Look at review sites such as Clutch to get information on web redesigners, pricing, customer feedback, reviews, etc. If you’ve had a look at some portfolios, contact clients of the agency and check if they’ve had a good experience or not. Check if the process was smooth, professional and affordable, whether the agency was good with updates, communication and deadlines. Finally, trust your gut instinct and evaluate whether they’re willing to listen to you, respect your time, open to your ideas and understand your concerns.