When you partner with a web design company, you both have the same goal; to create a compelling and engaging website that will impact your target audience. If you’ve got the right partner, they’re going to do everything they can and use their expertise to create that website for you.
But what is it that you can do to make sure that you are giving them the best experience possible? How can you give them all of the things that they need to do their job effectively? In short, how can you be a fantastic client?
Here are a few important things you can do to support your web design company partner and have the best experience and end product possible.
Have a Concrete Understanding of Your Business
Your web design company is going to rely on you to educate them on how to best showcase your company. This will apply to the design of the website, but perhaps more importantly, the written copy that goes on the website. The more defined your understanding, and your ability to communicate, who your company is and what your company offers, the better off they will be. Some elements to know may include:
- Describe your company in 30 seconds.
- What is your unique selling proposition?
- What differentiates you from your competition?
- What is your ideal client type and what are their characteristics?
Concentrate on the Goals (Not Features) of the Website
It can be exciting to think about all the different features that a website can have (eg. Live Chat, enewsletter integration), but it’s less important than the purpose of the website as a whole. What is it that you want the website to accomplish? Are you looking for lead generation? Are you looking for the website to make you look more credible? The goals are what are important here. The features support the goals.
Everything that exists on a website must serve a purpose. Having a bunch of bells and whistles on a website that don’t help your visitors can actually create a negative user experience. Understand your goals, convey them to your web design partner, and then rely on their expertise as to how to execute them. When it comes to creating the content, it’s best to understand the information that’s most important to your clients, what their frustrations and challenges are, and what questions they may have.
Be Pragmatic
This can be a bit of a tough one. It’s important that you understand that you’re going to receive the quality of website that matches the budget you’ve set. You get what you pay for. If you have a limited budget, don’t have unrealistic expectations of what your website will be.
Websites can vary in price from hudreds of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Your budget will dictate a great deal of the design and features and other elements such as photography, video and copyrighting them may be included. Make sure that you and your web design company are on the same page when it comes to your budget and what you will receive.
Be Decisive
It’s very easy to get caught up in the minutia of a website. Shift this over two millimeters, change this font size one half point, so on and so forth. The goal is to have a high impact, conversion-based website that actually goes live. Don’t hold up a launch because you may be over thinking the small details. They’re not going to have that much of a bearing, if any bearing at all, on the impact that it has on your prospects. This is what we refer to in the digital marketing industry as development hell. Trust your web developer and understand that these projects must come to an end, which is a very good thing, because that means that they can start having an impact on your audience.
Don’t Preview It to the World
Oftentimes, it’s the instinct of a client to show the mock-up or the demo of a website to a lot of people to get feedback. It can be to members of the team, trusted advisors or others in their network. This can actually hurt the process of developing the website as you may receive so much feedback, and sometimes conflicting feedback, that it will make your head spin. Trust your instincts, trust your judgment, and trust the advice of the web developing company that you’ve partnered with. Otherwise, this can spin out of control very quickly.
Make It a Priority
Your web design company is going to work very hard to create a website. A website that’s going to have a significant impact on your company and your target audience. Make sure that you make this initiative a priority. Don’t let lots of time pass before giving feedback. Don’t give casual or lazy feedback. Make sure that you’re heavily engaged in the process. After all, they’re working towards the same goal as you, so why wouldn’t you be invested?
Get Enthusiastic!
This is a very exciting initiative! It has the potential to really showcase your company effectively, to make you shine, make you and your team and your clients all proud of you. And perhaps and most importantly, to generate new business.
Getting enthusiastic about this initiative is going to help you, it’s going to help your team internally, and it’s really going to help support the web design company. This is exciting stuff! Have fun, support them, and they’ll do a much better job.
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