4 Important Questions You Should Ask Your Prospective Website Designer

You’ve decided that your company’s website just isn’t cutting it any longer. Maybe it has a Flash intro or maybe it uses an outdated, clunky content management system. Or maybe your company’s brand or strategy has changed recently. Either way, it’s time for an overhaul.

When selecting a design and development team to handle your website redesign, it is important that you properly vet your candidate(s) to ensure they will be a good fit for your organization. Here are 4 key questions that you should ask prospective website designers to ensure that you get an exceptional site:

1. What kind of planning do you do before you begin the design and development process?

If budget and time constraints allow, every website redesign project should begin with a thorough planning phase. During this phase, the design team should gather information about your company, your website needs, and your goals. From there, they should create a comprehensive set of planning documents like a site map and wireframe diagrams. We like to relate this stage of the process to creating a good set of blueprints before a building is constructed. Without good planning, a website redesign project may encounter severe problems.

2. Will you be designing my site around a pre-made theme or template? Or will you design something tailor-made for my business?

This is a great question to ask your website design team as it will reveal a lot about their philosophy about website design. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages, but as we we have mentioned a few times on this blog, we aren’t huge fans of pre-made template websites. While a pre-made template will give you the lowest possible cost, it very likely won’t do the best job at representing the uniqueness of your brand.

3. How will I be able to update the content on my site once the new site is live?

Nearly every website nowadays is built using some kind of content management system (CMS). In fact, it has become almost expected. But don’t assume that your website design team will be using one.

There are many many CMS platforms available today. Here’s a great article outlining some of the most popular content management systems and their respective advantages and disadvantages. At Torx, we’re big fans of WordPress because it is a powerful, flexible platform that makes our development process easier and provides a user-friendly way for our clients to update content on their websites.

4. Will my new website be mobile-friendly?

In 2016, every website should be mobile-friendly. With mobile usage growing by leaps and bounds, there’s really no reason for any website to frustrate visitors on smartphones and tablets. You may also want to inquire whether they will be implementing mobile responsive design techniques or building a separate mobile site. We strongly recommend a mobile responsive design approach as it will provide the best user experience and search engine performance.

If you’re interested in asking us these or any other questions regarding your website redesign needs, contact us and we’ll be happy to set up a free initial consultation.