When you look at the web development process as a whole most of the time should be spent during the website planning phase. After you have defined your objectives, determined your target market, studied your online competition, and discussed all this information with the stakeholder’s within your organization, you will then want to put together the website architecture document. This document will outline all the web pages within your website and the navigation scheme. Only after all these tasks are completed should you contact a web designer to discuss your project, this will allow the web designer to really understand the best way to approach your project. Preparing this information in advance of contacting a web designer will also allow you to get the most accurate quote, and the quotes will likely be lower because there are less unknowns for the web designer.

Immediately after finalizing your website architecture document you should begin writing the first draft of your website copy. We always recommend that you the business owner write the first draft because you know your industry and target market than any web developer. We still recommend having that copy edited by a professional copywriter who can usually help you effectively communicate your message in as few words as possible. It’s important to keep your website copy brief and to the point because you website visitors don’t want to have to wade through a bunch of words to get the information they need.  Hopefully your copywriter has internet marketing skills as well, but if not you will want to have an internet marketing professional review your website copy to make sure it’s search engine friendly. This individual will ensure that your keywords are used in the appropriate places such as the page title, meta tags, Alt tags, H1 tags, and that you have at least considered utilizing some of the last online marketing techniques such as podcasts, blogs, and social media.

We can’t emphasize enough the importance of planning your website before actually beginning the development. A good plan will almost certainly save you 10-30% on web design and development costs, as well as eliminate many headaches and potentially the launch of your new website.

When choosing a web designer you want to be sure they understand what it takes to create a website that’s search engine friendly. Major search engines like Google and Yahoo are the most common way (84% of all users) for Internet users to find relevant information. By using carefully chosen keywords related to your company’s services and products, you can improve how search engines rank your website. Your web designer should discuss with you all the “on page” optimization options such as page titles, page copy, H1 tags, Alt tags for images, meta-keywords, and meta-description tag. In addition, to “on page” optimization items the major search engines place a lot of emphasis on the number and quality of links that point back to your website. Note that I bolded the word quality. I can’t emphasize this enough that not all links are created equal, and it’s important to have a good link building campaign that’s implemented over time.

A good web designer will have at least a good basic understanding of all the items mentioned above, and if they don’t you need to find another web designer if you want to be found on the major search engines.

Professional Bay Area Web Designer

Not all web design companies are created equal.

If you are in the beginning stages of selecting a San Francisco Bay Area web designer you are going to want to consider the following.

You can choose a freelancer, a two person shop being run out of a basement, a mid size company, or a high end agency. While you may be tempted to hire a freelancer or two person shop because of the extremely low rates, keep in mind that you always get what you pay for and therein lies the problem. More and more I am seeing companies having their websites redesigned within 6-12 months because they were badly designed and are under performing.

So, what can a professional web design company offer you that you won’t get from a one or two person web design shop? The answer is the experience of an entire team. The individuals operating small web design shops have to wear so many different hats they can’t really specialize in the many different aspects of web design (Design, Usability, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Ecommerce, etc.)

The primary point of this article is that a successful website requires the input of many experts in the areas of design, programming, and marketing.

Bay Area Web Design Company