What do web design services include?

We always sympathise with clients because websites are technical, complex things that are not easy to understand unless you deal with them every day.

To make matters worse, if a client goes to three Web Design Agencies, ask about their services, they will then receive three quotes which are totally different, only making the whole thing more confusing!

How do you choose the right agency and what exactly are you getting for your money?  This article attempts to help with those questions and throw light on the scope of web design services and what they include.

A website, completely done for you

We business owners are extremely busy people and our time is best spent doing what we do best, running our businesses.  One of the big advantages of hiring an agency for their web design services is that you just need to approve what they do, it takes very little time and you don't need to learn how to do it yourself.

You don't need to spend lots of time thinking about your website, how it should look and function, with the right web design company they will handle that, presenting ideas and driving the project forward.

Discovery call

A web design company should start the process with a discovery call, that gives them the opportunity to learn about you and your business.  It's a great ice-breaker, and gives you the chance to get to know eachother a bit better.

The web designer will want to know what you want to achieve with the new website, any pain points you have with your current site, e.g difficult to edit or not enough enquiries or sales.

You may have seen some nice websites that you want your new website to be influenced by or your competitors may be doing something that you should do as well.

Before the discovery call it's a great opportunity to get some ideas together and make sure you have control of your domain name.

The discovery call is a great opportunity to ask questions and learn more about how the web design service and process will work.  In turn, the web designer will ask you questions to understand the scope of the project and get more technical details nailed-down so they can work out the estimate or quote for the project.

Hosting set up

Web and email hosting is a complex minefield, with many technical considerations and different price points, from a few pounds per month to thousands of pounds per year.  To the novice it is virtually impossible to work out what you need.  An established web design and hosting company can take away that pain, offering the right hosting for your website and email, that is already tried and tested, which will avoid technical problems.

A comprehensive web design service will include setting up your hosting and email (if you need it), configuring the server so it is ready for the website files and database and liaising with the hosting company to make sure everything runs smoothly when switching on your new website and "going live".

When your new website is ready, we copy it to the live space and make sure it is secure and has backups running to protect the site from data loss if anything goes wrong.  We also configure any CRON jobs needed for indexing site search, XML sitemap etc - there is a lot covered as part of a new website design and build, many things that our clients don't realise we do.  It is all part of the service.

A beautiful, professional website design

We create bespoke sites, not based on templates, because we then tailor them to our clients requirements.  Websites are designed for you.  We plan them to work for your clients, guiding them to your services and the desired outcome (conversion).  For example, if you visit customers in their home, we will guide them to make an appointment.  But if you sell products, we'll focus your sites user experience on ecommerce, product reviews and a smooth checkout process.

By hiring a company like us to undertake a full web design and development service for your business, you benefit from years of design experience, avoiding silly mistakes, creating a website that works nicely on all devices.

We use professional software and ensure all elements on your new website are sharp and work well.  It's obvious to your website users when a site has been designed and built by a professional and your partners and suppliers will also notice  Business deals can be made or broken by your website!  We've seen it happen!

A modern website, aligned with your brand

Businesses recognise the value of building their brand and the website is a large element of that.  Your social media, guest articles and other assets will link back to your website, so it needs to align well with your brand guidelines, using your logo and colourscheme.

This is a key part of the design phase in the website design process.  We take things beyond the brand guildlines, developing a "design system" for digital, by styling other elements to match the branding like forms, alerts, cards, carousels etc.

What matters is that the web designer portrays your brands quality, enhancing what you have and taking it even further, through the website.

The result is the perfect "shop front" for your business.

Use of Images and video

As part of the website design and build, you get a chance to supply any images that you want to use.  If you don't have any then we can normally recommend some quality stock images from our library.

Hiring a professional photographer to get some unique, personal images will give the best impression and make your website more personable, but that is not always possible, so we can help advise the best course of action.

Video is even better if you have it, it's easier to rank higher in Google by using video and if a picture tells a thousand words then a video can tell ten-thousand!  We also have stock video in our library that can help make a website look more dynamic.

Built for you, all the code and CMS work

As the client, with an agency undertaking the website design and build for you, you won't need to do any coding!  Websites are built using different languages and frameworks such as PHP, HTML, CSS and JavaScript which take years of experience and practice to learn.

For example, CSS is quite easy to learn, but takes years to master!  Some website platforms are "no code", meaning you can create a site from scratch, but they also have their limitations and clients tend to use those only in the infancy of their business.  After that, they want to take the site to the next level and employ an agency to undertake the full web design service from start to finish.

Although we write a lot of code for a new website, we build the site using a Content Management System (CMS) so you can make changes, point and click, with no coding skills required after the site goes live.  And if new functionality is required in the future, we have the foundation to build upon, without having to start again.

A foundation for growth

As mentioned above, a website that we create is a great foundation for future work.  You new site will be optimised for search engines and users, offering a good starting point for you to continue to grow the site with future marketing and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

The website will be set up with different page types you can use to add more pages in the future.  For example, there will be a page type for Blog pages, another for Services etc, all set up to make it as easy as possible for you to add those particular pages.

Client websites are based on an up to date platform, that only require minimal maintenance and are based on the latest technology, meaning they will last you for many years to come.

We have clients with websites that are 10 years old, which have had just occasional updates over the years.

As part of the web design service we will recommend tracking visitors and what they do on the site.  This can help to plan improvements and optimisation of your marketing strategy, which brings us nicely to...

GA and Search Console set up

It's important to keep track of what's going on with your new website.  We'll install Google Analytics which measures how many visitors you get each day, what pages they view and how long they stay on the site.  We will also add our own Traffic and Statistics addon to give an additional means of tracking your visitors.

We also add Search Console as part of the new website service.  Search Console keeps track of website health and allows us to tell Google about new pages etc.  It's a great tool and we will submit your XML sitemap to Search Console to help Google index the new site and its content as quickly as possible.

Going live: Changing DNS, ensuring web forms work

If you have an old website, it is important to add 301 redirects from old URLs to new ones.  This tells Google that a page has permanently moved to the new location, so carry on ranking it on that new URL.  This is an essential part of getting a new website and will help maintain your Google presence.

Our web design service also includes providing DNS settings or amending them to make the switch, liaising with your other IT provides as required and monitoring the live site to make sure it works well once it has been launched.

Going live also includes testing web forms and issuing the SSL certificate on the live web server to make sure all web pages are running on https, so it is secure.

In Summary

As you can tell, a full web design service involves many different tasks that require great communication, technical ability and dedication to getting the desired result.  It's worth going with a web design agency who can prove their skills and experience and who show enthusiasm for your project.

If you have any questions about any stage of the web design service that we've outlined on this page, please don't hesitate to get in touch and we'll be happy to guide you.