When choosing a professional web design company to design your web site, it is important that you ask the following questions:

1. Are they using template designs or custom designs? Not all designers work specifically with web. Many will either download an existing template or then just fill in your information – this makes it difficult for customization or future changing of the layout. Others may custom design but may be graphic designers who will offer their great graphic services, but you need to be cognizant of their skills with respect to designing an optimized site for the Internet and search engines. They should have a good understanding about site architecture, accessibility and usability etc. Make sure to work with or consult with a professional web designer.
2. Does the web design package include search engine optimization and submission? Ask them the process in which they take to submit your website to the search engines. Do they mass submit, or manually? Do they include an XML site map? Is there any follow up in 6 – 12 months to see if you are meeting your objectives?
3. Do they charge extra for setting up your web host server? This is where your site files reside in order for people to see your website online. Do they set this up for you as part of the package, or is this an extra fee? Find out what is involved and their maintenance plan.
4. Do they do the work themselves or do they outsource? This is critical in knowing whether the budget is including an extra fee to cover the “middleman”. Or do they themselves do the work themselves? If they outsource is it local or overseas? If they do it themselves, how many projects can they take on at a given time?
5. Look at their portfolio, do you like what you see? Do they have a variety of industries they work with, or is it all the same?
6. Are they courteous on the phone or email? Do they quickly return your emails or calls? Can you access them easily either by phone or email? Are they local?
7. What kind of business & marketing education do they have? Are they techies or do they have good business acumen and approach your web site design with sound business objectives?
8. Do they have good customer testimonials? What kind of feedback do you see? Case studies?
9. Are their web site and portfolio web sites easy to navigate?
10. Do you like their creative style? Or do their client sites all look alike?
11. Are they familiar with your industry? This isn’t necessarily imperative, but do they have the experience with sites that are either service oriented, consumer oriented, charity or business to business formats.