Start gathering quotes for business web design – or any professional service, I suppose – and you’ll notice right away that there will be a general range for professional work, along with a few that seem to be a little too good to be true. But, in this tough economy, the choice is clear, right? Isn’t it smart to save a little money where you can get a great deal when it’s offered?

Before I answer that question, let me point out two very important things. The first is that, in web design and almost any other business, you are highly likely to get what you pay for. And secondly, especially in business web design, what you pay for your project isn’t nearly as important as what you get out of it. In other words, a site that seems a bit more expensive now is a steal later if it ends up doubling your profits.

With that being said, the one thing to pay close attention to in any suspiciously low business web design quote is what’s not being listed.

In other words, are you really getting a great deal, or is it that they’re just taking away the “extras” that are most important to your site?

Here are at least five things that should definitely be included in any business web design quote:

A search engine optimization and marketing plan. It doesn’t matter what your site looks like, or what it does, if no one can find it. Make sure it will be accessible on Google, Yahoo, and Bing at a minimum.

Ongoing service and minor updates. What happens if you need to change a page, or find that you left a typo on your homepage? It’s important to pick a business web design team that will still be there when you need them.

Web hosting. Hosting might seem like a minor detail, but it affects your site speed, performance, stability, and even search engine positioning. Make sure you’re getting a competitive rate for high-quality hosting.

Social media links and profiles. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are more important than ever, and your company is going to suffer if you don’t have a presence on each of them.

An ongoing plan to grow your company online. Remember, your website shouldn’t just be an online brochure, but an important part of your marketing and promotion plan. What is your new business web design company doing to help you make it more successful?

We all like to save money, and it’s tempting to go with the rock-bottom business web design quote. Before you do, however, make sure that you aren’t spending less at the expense of your company’s future.

If you want some of the best Calgary web design and online marketing, contact eKzact Solutions for a free consultation today!

Psychologists will tell you that there are large groups of people who feel overwhelmed by “information overload,” or the ever-growing and expanding amount of data that’s available on the Internet. We regularly meet with small business owners who seem to be suffering from a similar effect – one we might call feature overload – where they aren’t sure which of the “must-have” tools and technologies need to be integrated into their next web design.

In other words, they often aren’t sure exactly how new a new business web design actually has to be in order to be an effective marketing tool.

Even though it might run contrary to a lot of thinking within the industry, we’re going to go out on a limb and say for the record that having the latest and greatest features on your business site isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be. Don’t get us wrong, there are definitely some fairly-standard features – like a good content management system, social media integration, search engine optimization, etc. – that can make your company more profitable in a hurry. But there are also a lot of things that just add to time and expense of your business site, make it more complicated for people to use, and generally get in the way of good usability.

Good design is classic. The way we code websites might change, but the basic ideas and information that most customers are looking for has remained fairly constant for thousands of years. In other words, you might use an online video to tell a potential buyer what you would have explained in a brochure 10 years ago, but the focus still needs to be on the right message, rather than on any one specific web design tool.

A good, high-quality business web design can easily last 3 to 5 years before it needs any major changes. If you find that you’re needing to redesign your business website a lot more often than not, it could be that you aren’t investing in quality layouts to start with, or are being too distracted by small changes, rather than concentrating on your most important business goals.

Having a new website for your company can be very exciting, but having one that helps you make more money month after month is usually a lot more rewarding.

To listen to most web design firms, the first thing you should do after upgrading or redesigning your small business website is to upgrade or redesign your small business website again. We say that jokingly, of course, but there’s an element of truth to it – it can easily feel like your site starts to get out dated the second it goes live, and web design companies are certainly happy to take your money when you decide it’s time for a change.

So when should you not decide to get a new small business website? Believe it or not, we can think of a few situations where it’s better to sit tight:

When you can’t afford quality web design work. Take it from a team of experienced professionals: trying to save a bunch of money by working with a bargain-basement web design company is almost always a bad idea. It’s not just that they’ll go through missed deadlines and ignored requirements; the end result will usually leave you wishing you just saved the little bit of money spent.

You can pay for a good site, but not enough of the features you really want. In the same way, the high-quality small business website is almost always an improvement if you have a design that isn’t working for you now. If you could wait just a little longer and get what you really need, though, that might be a better option. The last thing you want to do is spend a bunch of money to get a business site that you’ll want to replace three or six months down the road.

You’re already seeing record profits and sales online, and at a time when other businesses in your industry are struggling. There’s an old adage that you shouldn’t try to fix something that isn’t really broken, and that occasionally applies to small business web design. It’s okay to want to try some new features and keep up with the competition, but if you’re already blowing them out of the water, then be careful about making changes just for the sake of making changes.

More often than not, we meet business owners and marketing managers who are reluctant to make the changes and investments their businesses really need to go to the next level. If you don’t have the budget to do it right, however, or you’re already flying high above the pack, then don’t let anyone rush you into making the wrong decision.

Need one of Calgary’s best web design and online marketing teams working for you? Contact us at eKzact for a free consultation today!

It makes a lot of sense that when clients are looking for the very best in Calgary’s Web design, they tend to focus on the actual designs they see. But while looking through samples might be a good way to pick up on someone’s artistic flair, know that great web design doesn’t end once your site goes live… in fact, that’s really only the beginning.

Granted, the process of going from concepts to code, ideas to an actual, fully-functional website can be intense. But what happens once you’re online? A lot of business owners and marketing managers don’t think past that moment, even though it’s a virtual certainty that more help will be needed.

That’s because there are always going to be issues with the coding or design, updates to your company’s products or features, new security patches for your hosting software, e-mail and server issues, or any one of a thousand other things that will eventually lead you to pick up the phone. And that, as they say, is where your web design team is really going to earn its money.

What’s more, there could be challenges with your company’s website that don’t even have anything to do with “problems.” It could just be that your site becomes more popular and you need to find ways to promote it through social media, or that you are performing well in certain search engine terms but not others. Again, this is the place where the list could be endless; the only thing you can be sure of is that you’re going to eventually want some assistance.

There’s nothing wrong with evaluating designers and other creative teams first and foremost by the creative work they do. If you really want the best for your business, however, be sure to look beyond the design — because that’s where your web design project begins, but not where it ends.

If you’re looking for a team to design your company’s next website, make sure it gets found by potential customers, or simply get your business moving in the right direction online, contact eKzact — Calgary’s premier web design and online marketing partner.

Here are 15 questions that a prospective website client should consider when shopping for a website developer.

1. Do you have a service guarantee? What can I expect from you with regard to service levels?

A quick search on Google for the keywords “Calgary website designers” returns a result.

A quick search for the term quarantee, or service guarantee on the home pages of the top natural search results shows that no-one talks about guaranteed service levels.

2. Will I have access to my website statistics, and can you help me to understand them?

So many of our new clients don’t even know about website statistics. Evey web server tracks visitors to a website. Most website hosting companys provide statistical reports through an online link. You need to review your logs and make you online marketing “measureable”.

3. What process do you use to guarantee me that I will not receive an invoice that I am not expecting?

Several times over the past years, prospective clients have commented to me that their previous web designer “nickle & dimes” me to death with little bills. We made an effort to ensure that this doesn’t happen, by implimenting a process. It is important, as a client, that you understand that you have to pay for services from you website designer. The onus is on your web developer to ensure you know how much your request will cost.

4. Do you answer your phones or do you use a conveluted interactive voice system that will cause my heart to pound?

If I have to call Rogers Cellular service (my soon to be previous cell phone provider) one more time, I am going to spit nails. 50% of the time, that I phone them, my call is dropped. Some of the time I get through to a person, and some of the time, the department that I need is closed.

Trying to get ahold of one of our clients recently – they had an IVR, dial 1 for this, dial 2 for that… I tried 5 different phones and evey one of them was unrecognized (the tone) for this system. I could simply not get through to the person. I finally email him and asked him to call me.

I will never use an IVR for our customer support lines.

5. How many designers do you employ? Will my project include the creative talents of more than one person?

The depth of your web designers resources can impact the quality of the results.

6. What is your refund policy? Do you have policies?

A good question. Find out what will happen if you decide to end your project. A number of website projects fail to get completed for any number of reasons, including business closures, inability to produce content, or a change in business plans.

7. Do you ask clients to sign a contract, before begining a project?

I believe that the more clearly documented a project and service level expectations are, the better the project will proceed. All website development projects should be documented in an agreement.

8. How will you bill us for our new website project?

ie: deposit, any progress billings, when is final due?

9. Will I own my website when it is complete?

Here is an article that I wrote, some time ago, called “Do you really own your website? Maybe not.”

10. Can I have a CD with a backup of my website when it is completed.

11. Will my website be developed using industry standard codes and databases, so that in the future, should I choose to change service providers, there won’t be any issues?

As a prospective client you don’t have to be technical. No acronyms here please… just make sure that the code-base your site is developed with. is widely used and that the code is not encrypted. You need to be able to move-forward if you web devleoper does not.

12. When you lose a client, are you graceful, or do you hinder their ability to move forward? Tell me about the last client you lost.

Hmm. Wonder what kind of response this question will drive. We have transitioned several website owners from their previous website developers to our company. It is not always graceful and professional. Some developers make it very difficult. On the same note, not all clients who leave their website developer have left on good terms. In some cases they have treated the developer poorly, been rude or in the worse case – not paid their outstanding debt. Graceful works only when both parties are capable of being professional.

13. Does your business have a continuity plan, so that if “you” get hit by a bus…

14. Do you have designers, programmers and marketers on staff?

Designers are designers, programmers are programmers and online marketing is online marketing. Very few designer are programmers… very few programmers are designers and so on. The depth of talent that your website company can provide is important to acheiving goals for your online business.

15. Will my website be search engine friendly if I allow your team to design for me?

I still see a lot of websites that are being deployed that are over designed, under developed and using techniques that are not condusive to easy indexing by search engines. While the importance of search engines may not be apparent to you as you start your first website project – trust me, when you website starts to generate new business leads… you will thank your website developer for making your site work for the search engines.