For many businesses a website is an essential tool. Not just to generate sales but also to ensure that their company is running in the most efficient manner. When it comes to web design Bradford has a number of companies who will be happy to assist in getting you online. This article is aimed at companies who are yet to get their website up and running.

Do you need a professionally designed website or could you do it yourself?

There are a lot of people who ‘know a bit’ when it comes to the internet and designing websites, maybe you are one of those people and fancy having a go at producing your own site, afterall this could save you some money and the site may look fine. When you are browsing the web looking for a particular product or service, you can always tell if a website has been produced by a professional web design company, the site will navigate properly and visually it will look very good. In our opinion, to be taken seriously in business today you have to have a strong online presence and this begins with a great website, the only option to do this properly is to hire a web design company to produce your website for you.

How to find a suitable web design company

There are a number of web designers in Bradford so do ask people for recommendations, use Google or equivalent to search for a company in your area and throughly navigate their site ensuring you read the customer testimonials and look carefully at their portfolio. Contact them to see what experience they have in web design and development. Some companies will have more experience in some areas than others, for example our company Evolve Web Solutions have a lot of experience in technical solutions and development using MySQL databases, PHP, CSS and Java Script. Other companies may specialise in different areas which may be more suitable for your needs but contact two or three and request that they provide samples of previous work along with a written quotation for your project. We at Evolve offer a free consultation where we sit down with our client and talk through ideas. We always try to offer solutions that will benefit their business and look for ways to increase their sales through web based technical features. Make sure your chosen company is proactive in their approach to your site and can bring ideas to the table that everyone is happy with.

How much do you need to spend?

You can spend from a few hundred right up to a few thousand pounds on a site, it all depends on your requirements but a good web design company should be able to work within your budget. In the past we have even added extra features into a build free of charge in order to stick to our clients budget because we have felt that they would benefit from a particular feature, you won’t find many companies thats do this but our opinion is that customer service is optimum. Of course our client was over the moon and in future will return to us should they ever need another website.

What features do you need?

This depends on the nature of your business. Our own website has an extensive back-end that allows us to run our business from our office in Greengates or sat in McDonalds using their wifi connection! We have a quoting system, an invoicing system, customer database, instant mail shot feature, blogging/article publishing and search engine optimisation tools all within our website because without it we literally wouldn’t be able to run our business. We recently have produced a website for a local printing company that featured an online proofing system and customer logins so their clients can reorder stock items and upload new artwork, this has helped them to run more efficiently and ultimately increase their profit margins. If you just need a web presence then there is no point spending money on features you will never use, a simple but good looking and easy to navigate website will do just fine.You will also find that the better your site looks the more a visitor or potential client will trust your company. People who sell products online need an eCommerce website, this is the type of site we produce on a regular basis. Even existing companies who have never traded online are now seeing the benefits of doing so and are approaching us to help them enter the world of eCommerce.

What other costs are involved on top of the development of a site?

Once your website is live and paid for you will need to pay a company to host the site. Your chosen web design company should also offer a hosting package so do enquire beforehand. The cost for this depends on how much space you need but generally it should be between £5 and £15 per month.

The other area that could cost money but is completely optional is search engine optimisation. Basically this is optimising the visibilty of your site based around specific keywords that will allow all the major search engines to find your site more easily. This will increase traffic to your site and hopefully, in turn, sales too. SEO is big business, without it certain companies could not survive but this is not the case for every single website. We at Evolve do some basic SEO optimising free of charge on every site we produce to give our clients the best chance of ranking high in the search engines. However, as SEO is an ongoing process a full project is normally chargable monthly as the site will require updating and optimising on a daily basis in order to climb up the rankings and once there, stay there.

Summary

I hope this article has been useful to you, if we can help with you project then please don’t hesitate to contact us to discuss your requirements.

Here is a quick list of things to check when speaking to a potential web design supplier: * See some samples of previous work

* Get at least one customer testimonial

* Ask what industry experience they have

* Ask if they have any ideas that could be implemented to benefit your business

* Ask if they are competant in SEO

* Get 2 or 3 quotations

* Trust your gut feeling!

Written by Rob Marsden, account manager at Evolve Web Solutions rob@evolveweb.co.uk 07943 701997

Evolve Web Solutions

Albion Mills

Albion Road

Greengates

Bradford

BD10 9TQ

01274 214982

www.evolveweb.co.uk