In the market to get a new website for your business? There are a lot of providers in Houston alone to have your search lasting for months. How can you narrow down the field and find one that is a perfect fit for your needs? At SiteJab we take pride in being the most transparent and honest provider of professional web design Houston has to offer.
That is why we love to educate both our clients and potential clients on how to market their business, how to design their website, and even more important, what to look for in a provider of digital marketing services Houston business owners need.
If you are in need of a website for your business that meets your needs, take a good look at this guide before choosing a provider. Being prepared with the knowledge of what to look for before you begin your search can be the difference between a website you love, and a website you wasted money on.
Four Questions You Should Be Asking Providers of Web Design Houston Before Committing
First things first, do a search for “professional web design Houston,” and then find some providers that catch your attention and make a short list. Then go down the list and call each provider and ask the following questions and make sure to take notes to compare later:
1. Will I Have Complete Ownership Of My Website?
This is a critical question!
This is the first question you should ask as it avoids wasting time with the remaining questions. If the provider gives you a long drawn out answer instead of a clear yes or no; or they say something like, “yes after so many months,” hang up right then and there— and here’s why.
This is a very common situation we deal with when we get new clients coming from other Houston web design providers. The business owner finds a provider that gives an unbelievable deal—a “free” web design package built using an “advanced” proprietary design interface. All the business owner is responsible for is a modest monthly hosting and site maintenance charge.
Sounds too good to be true? That’s because it isn’t—it’s one of the oldest tricks in the book and gives our industry a bad name. The bait in this classic bait and switch sell is the “free” website, the switch comes in the fine print. That fine print essentially tells you that you don’t actually own your website, it becomes the intellectual property of the provider. That “proprietary” platform they tout as some advantage you are getting? It’s nothing more than code language for a lockdown of your entire digital presence on the web.
That’s right— after you’ve had that website built, your customers have become familiar with it and you have banked your marketing on it—if you want to change providers you have to start all over again. Why? Because the files that make up your website reside on the provider’s servers and are kept locked away from your access. If you want those files, you may indeed be able to get them—but only after paying a huge fee, and we mean huge in every sense of the word.
What they are banking on by pulling this scam, is that you and thousands of their other victims will be a constant flow of revenue for them in the form of those hosting fees. They essentially hold your website hostage so you’ll either continue to pay the monthly fee or pay a huge ownership fee.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to professional web design—Houston providers like this aren’t giving you a deal at all.
At SiteJab we offer the best professional web design Houston business owners can actually call their own when all is said and done.
Do we offer free websites? No. We charge a realistic and honest fee for our hard work and diligent design because that is what we rely on to keep you as a client—not tricks and gimmicks. You own your domain, your content, the design assets, and all the files and source code associated with it—it’s in writing in your contract; no fine print whatsoever.
2. Have You Worked With Other Companies In My Industry?
Houston web design providers take on clients in many different industries. Each industry has its own unique nuances, technical terms, and special requirements.
For example, building a website for a restaurant is going to have a very different aesthetic and requirements than building a website for a doctor’s office. A doctor’s office has to follow HIPAA rules which require high-level security due to the confidentiality of patient information transmitted.
The fact is, in this digital age we live in, a majority of people judge the credibility of a business based on their website and content. So, your web design company must be able to cater to the look, feel, jargon and overall parameters of the industry you serve.
If they have never had experience with a client in your industry, you are going to have to guide them throughout the design and give them a crash course on the audience you are trying to reach. This isn’t a bad thing as all web design providers have had a first-time experience with a particular industry sector over the course of their existence. You just need to ask yourself if you are prepared to take the proper amount of time it takes to bring your provider up to speed on your industry, it will be a significant investment of your time but it can also pay off handsomely.
SiteJab believes in a well-rounded continuing education regimen for all of our employees. Once a month we sit down and look at a different industry we haven’t worked with and we collectively focus on learning about that sector. Employees study websites within that industry, talk with industry leaders and find out what their digital marketing needs are and what requirements they have and the vocabulary of the industry. By pushing this diversity of industry knowledge, we are able to prepare ourselves for any client that comes our way. We won’t take on a client if we aren’t positive that we can meet and exceed their special needs and expectations—period.
3. Can I Use My Existing Content? Do You Have Experienced Copywriters Based In The U.S.?
Content is KING. Remember This!
Your website is more than just the design, there is also a great need for content, volumes of it—and it must be written well.
Many of those “free” website providers will just find companies like yours, copy and paste their content onto yours and call it a day. It may seem like content is something you can skimp on to save money, but you would be making a monumental mistake.
FACT: Most consumers will not trust a company that has cookie-cutter content, content that is poorly written, or content that is jumbled and obvious filler.
There is a reason content is king, and it’s because what your content says and how it says it is a direct reflection on your capabilities as a company, your reliability, and your trustworthiness. It is absolutely imperative that your content is both informative, authoritative, and has solid readability.
How much of an impact does content quality have on your website’s effectiveness and conversion?
- Content that is engaging and compelling attracts over seven times more site traffic and delivers a much higher brand recall rate. You want your brand to be remembered!
- 60% of consumers stated that websites with poorly written content would turn them off from doing business with that business. Out of that segment, 39 percent stated that not only was it a turn-off, but found it very annoying—that sentiment will be how your brand is remembered— “annoying”.
- Many of the B2B clients we serve and consult with on a daily basis have expressed that they can easily decide whether to purchase from a business based on their website content alone.
The point is unless you have a dedicated copywriting staff in your company, you are likely going to depend on your website provider to create content for you. Therefore, it is extremely important that your chosen provider has well-versed and competent content writers that can provide high-quality content about your company and your industry.
What you also need to know is—your audience aren’t the only ones who know good content when they read it—Google search engines do too, and they reward your quality content with better spots in the search results.
Is it possible to find these qualified content writers with an overseas website provider? Of course, especially if your audience is international, you’ll need native language content for each region you operate in. It is important that the content writers know the culture, the idioms and the technical terms of the regional audience they are writing for.
If your business is based in the U.S. and only the U.S., your best bet for relevant and meaningful content will be a U.S. based provider with U.S. based writers as well.
SiteJab is very selective with who we invite on our vast team of content creators. We are known in the industry for our highly specific content capabilities and our dynamic content production. We maintain a team of seasoned writers and digital content producers that specialize in various industries and regions to give an authentic voice and imaging to your content.
4. Will My Website Be Viewable On Mobile Devices?
In this day and age with mobile phones becoming more like palm-sized computers, it is imperative your website be mobile friendly. Through our constant research of our own industry, we know that slightly over 90% of mobile device owners find access to mobile-friendly websites critical.
It makes sense since now over half of internet traffic in the U.S. alone originates from smartphones and tablets. Most of the consumers we surveyed in a recent study will ignore a company if they don’t have a website they can access from one of their mobile devices.
As if that isn’t reason enough to make sure you have a mobile-friendly site—Google places more emphasis on mobile websites and gives them preferential rankings in the search engine results.
Bottom Line: Go Mobile Or Go Home.
Any website SiteJab builds is automatically configured to adapt seamlessly to mobile devices. In fact, we don’t even offer the option to build a desktop only website. We are highly protective of our reputation and will only deliver the best website experience to our clients because we invest our reputation into the very clients we represent. If you look good, we look good.
Just The Tip Of The Iceberg
Listen, these questions are just some of the basic foundational topics you should cover to narrow down the field of available providers in Houston. If you really want to get more information and more in-depth questions you should be asking—contact us and we’ll be happy to educate you.
Although, we can save you time and money as well and just end your search with what we can do for your company in the digital marketplace. Contact us today and get the web design provider you can trust to take your web presence to the next level.
