The Internet is a powerful tool for business, but it also has the potential to be an incredible waste of time. It’s not just that there are so many sites out there vying for your attention. It’s that the right site might be just one click away from you at any given moment–and you don’t know where it is! That’s why every business needs a professional website design company on their team: they’re experts in making sure your website and all its visitors get what they want and need without wasting valuable clicks or time. Here are five questions to ask when hiring a website design agency.

1. Who Will Be Responsible for My Project?

Make sure your prospective agency has a point person on the project responsible for communication between you and the design company. It’s crucial that you have a single, dedicated contact from the website company throughout the project. Often, a marketing or creative director can help you set your target market and content goals.

2. How Will You Build My Site?

You will be investing a lot of time and energy on your website, so make sure you find out how the agency plans to build it for you. Many agencies will give you options depending on your needs and budget. Some agencies build sites on their own platform, while others use WordPress or Drupal. Ask your agency what CMS (Content Management System) they plan to use and why.

3. How Much Experience Do You Have?

You will want to look for a website design agency that’s been in business for at least five years, needs it to have created a large number of sites in the past, and has several examples for you to look at. You will be investing a lot of money and time, so use your best judgment when deciding who can help you get the most out of your website and brand.

4. Can I See Some Work from Your Clients?

A website design agency may be reluctant to share their clients’ websites because they are still under contract. However, you should expect them to show you at least one website. If the agency is unable or unwilling to share any client work with you, ask yourself what it is they are hiding.

5. What If I Don’t Like the Design?

This is the worst nightmare of every business owner, so make sure to ask this question. The website design agency should be able to work with you to create a design that works for your industry and reflects your company’s goals. If not, you may need to look elsewhere.

It’s been shown that a website’s aesthetic significantly influences user engagement. According to studies, 38% of users will abandon a site if it is aesthetically unpleasant. The agency you work with must create a site that appeals to your target audience and professionally represents your brand.

Some sites look and function great, and some have serious problems that need to be addressed. If you aren’t getting the traffic that you expect for your website, it may be time to redesign the site.

Its Design Is Overly Complicated

The days for overly complicated websites are over now that people prioritize a site that loads quickly and is easy to navigate. Even site menus have become simple, consisting of just a few horizontal lines, also known as the hamburger menu. If your site is overly complicated, you need a website design agency ASAP.

It’s in Flash

If your site was created with Flash, it’s outdated. Flash lags and makes it harder to edit your site. It also makes it hard to optimize your site for search engines. People search with words, and they won’t be searching for pictures of your content. Each day, there are 3.5 billion searches on Google alone. You need to be able to get some of that traffic, and that will happen through text on your site. A website design agency can redesign it to be more practical.

You Aren’t Getting Search Engine Traffic

When you check your analytics, some of your site’s traffic will come through links on other sites, some of it will come from the address typed in directly, and some of it should be coming from search engines. If it isn’t, something is severely wrong with your website. It is likely to be poor content that is not ranking well with search engine crawlers. The pages may be too short or simply not right for the subject matter. Often, the design includes nothing but gray boxes of text without other media being used. You may need to replace the pages on your site with content that uses SEO strategies to drive more traffic to the site as well as features like pictures and video.

It Doesn’t Have Mobile Optimization

These days, a huge percentage of online searches are conducted on mobile devices. If your site isn’t optimized for this traffic, it won’t work well for those on phones and tablets. This is no way to run a modern website. If your site isn’t optimized for this traffic, it needs a redesign right away from a website design agency. Having it poorly optimized is also one of the criteria that search engines use for ranking a site. No optimization means a poorer ranking.

Websites are usually the first thing a potential customer finds about your business. In fact, there are 3.5 billion daily searches on Google alone. If your business doesn’t have a website, then you are not being seen. And if your website is designed poorly, you could end up driving away potential customers There are a number of poor web design pitfalls that could be impacting your business. Here are just a few mistakes you’ll want to avoid.

Your Website Isn’t Mobile-Friendly

Sure, your website looks amazing when on a laptop screen, but does it look as good on a phone or tablet? Since most people actually prefer to use their smartphones when browsing the web, your website needs to wow people when they see it on their phone screen. If navigation buttons are difficult to use or a “sign up” pop-up window immediately comes up that blocks the entire screen, a customer is likely to leave your website and will forget about your business. Your web design needs to be easy to navigate on mobile devices — especially because Google will be more likely to reward mobile-friendly sites in search results!

Your Website is Hard to Navigate

Every extra click to find information on your website will drive a customer away. If your customers are clicking through three different menus in order to find your contact form, they will leave your website. Good web designers will create an intuitive navigation system that makes it easy for your customers to find your mission or about us page, your products or services page, and the contact button. Having simple drop-downs and easy navigation can really help break up content-heavy web design. Prioritizing easy navigation can make customers want to stay on your page and explore your business.

Your Website is Not Welcoming

Your website is your digital reception area, so you want your customers to come in feeling welcomed. We all have been in shops that made us feel like we weren’t wanted; bad web design can do that digitally to your customers. You may really want your main landing page to be an essay on who you are and your mission, but a wall of text is just like that unwelcoming shop. Instead, a short blurb about your company with an “about us” page will make people want to spend time on your site, just like an inviting store makes you want to stay there and browse. Make sure that the aesthetic elements of your website are inviting and true to your brand.

Of course, there are a number of other mistakes you might be making with your web design. In order to avoid all of them, you’ll want to work with a professional web design team. For more information, please get in touch with us today.