Elucidos

Building a quality, attractive, functional website requires a great deal of experience and skills. Does the site work on all browsers and all types of computer? Is the site adapted to search engines like Google? Can it be updated/adapted easily?

These are all questions which are often overlooked when commissioning a company to build a website.

Choosing a web design company

Choosing a good website design company from the outset has significant ramifications on the future development and running costs of the site. Care taken at this stage will have vital consequences on your business. Many important technical details of a professional site are overlooked by some companies.

•  Elucidos builds truly professional websites, provided with our own quality hosting service, and on-going support
  
•  Our Self-Managed Range of sites empowers the owner to control and modify the content of her own site at no cost. Read more.

We've put together a list of questions to ask any company you approach. Don't hesitate to ask us the same questions!

9 questions you should ask a web design company before signing a contract

1. Will the site adhere to modern Internet standards for accessibility and compatibility (XHTML Strict, CSS2)? Ask them whether their existing sites adhere to these standards and ask for examples. Check their name is present on any example and validate the sites using the WC3 Validation Service.
   
2. Does the design include basic referencing / search engine optimisation and is the site adapted to facilitate good referencing? Will this be automatically updated after changes to the site?
3. How much will it cost to update the contents of the site once it is built?
4. If the site can only be updated by the website design company, how fast can they implement changes once requested? And how quickly do they reply to requests in general?
5. Does the website design company have the skills to implement features that you envisage for the future, or may think of later?
6. Will the site be tested on all modern popular browsers (Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Firefox, Safari) ?
7. Will the hosting of the site provide sufficient speed to visitors of the site?
8. How much will the hosting cost after the first year?
9. What statistical website traffic analysis tools do they provide? Do they integrate the results of publicity campaigns?