You have an amazing product or service, but now you have to show it off to the world with a killer website that converts. Whether your existing site needs work, or you’re not sure how to start building one in the first place, you can rest assured you won’t be thrown into the deep end on your own. In addition to teaching you how to start an agency of your own, we’re here at Slam Media Lab to share knowledge and resources so your process of looking for a website designer can take half the time (and perhaps even just one click).
Why do we say it might take you seconds instead of days? Well, we are an award-winning web design agency in San Francisco design agency that grew to become a $2M business in just three years—and during the pandemic no less. With our vast experience of working with 35+ clients, we know the nuances of designing a website that builds brand awareness and converts leads into customers. In fact, we’ve won the Clutch Global and Clutch Champion awards two years in a row for our search, branding, and Webflow design and development work and boast a 5-star rating from our clients, too!
Our team has spent countless hours researching and learning how to start an agency, and now that we’ve done it for ourselves, we help individuals and businesses with their digital marketing and CMS website design needs through our vast library of products and resources. Slam is also proud to be a Hispanic marketing agency that rethinks marketing and provides opportunities to everyone—especially those who have been systematically underrepresented in the past.
At Slam, we want to make running your business as easy as possible. If you’re interested in working with us, you can fill out the form below. In the meantime, see what you need to know before looking for a website designer.
I’m Looking for a Website Designer. Why Choose a Website Design Agency?
There are pros and cons of hiring a professional freelance website designer or a web design agency, so it’s important to take time and evaluate your needs as a business before you move forward with a decision. On the plus side, you won’t have to invest your own time figuring out how to bring your ideas to life, leaving you with more time to focus on other parts of your business. However, it also means giving up some creative control when it comes to building everything out and making your website a reality.
At the end of the day, whether you want to use a web design agency or not depends on your confidence in your ability to build and maintain a website that drives traffic, converts leads, and generates revenue. With a professional website design agency on your side, you get to enjoy:
Enjoy Professional Web Design Experience and Expertise
Working with a professional web designer or web design agency opens the door to site designs that attract users and convert them into customers. Web design agencies also bring SEO expertise to the table and will incorporate search optimization elements to ensure your website ranks well on search engines. With agencies (like Slam!), you’ll be able to work with multiple, specialized team members who can ensure your website will be optimized for visual, UX, SEO, and marketing design.
It’s one thing to make your website look good and rank well, but then you have to be sure it functions once people actually get to it. According to 73.1% of web designers in a Good Firms survey, a non-responsive design is among the top reasons visitors leave a website.
By working with a web design agency, you can ensure your website has:
- A responsive design
- Easy navigation
- Fast load times
- Intuitive content structure
- And more!
Free Up Time to Focus on Other Areas of Your Business
Whether you work in the digital marketing sphere yourself or not, it can be a lot of work to design, create, and maintain a website—and it can take your focus away from other aspects of your business, leaving you feeling even more behind when it comes to executing new marketing strategies.
By delegating this task to a third party, you can free up more time to handle other affairs like how to generate leads for your digital marketing agency, learning small business ideas for TikTok, understanding Instagram for small businesses, or whatever else may come up.
When all is said and done, you can have peace of mind knowing you’re prepared when your website starts bringing in new customers.
8 Helpful Tips for Looking for a Website Designer
Once you’ve decided you want to work with an outside party, it’s time to figure out how to choose the right web design agency for your business. This research process will look different for everyone, depending on the structure of your business, your budget, and your goals among other things.
Regardless of where you stand on all that, our team at Slam has compiled 8 key tips for how to choose a web design agency:
- Establish Your Goals and Needs
- Set Your Timeline and Budget
- Look at Web Design Agencies' Websites
- Verify Web Design Agencies’ Experience
- Look at Online Ratings and Reviews
- Learn More About the Web Design Agency’s Approach
- Contact Web Design Agencies Directly
- Partner with Slam!
Looking for a Website Designer: Establish the Goals and Needs
Your website shouldn’t serve simply as a digital shop window. There are plenty of goals you can accomplish with an optimized website, and a professional web design agency can help you get the most bang for your buck. The first step in ensuring that happens, however, involves you defining your goals at the onset.
You can use tools like our Notion Vision Board template to stay organized, visualize your plan, and overcome creative hurdles, so you know exactly what you want when it comes time to collaborate with your design agency.
Looking for a Website Designer: Set Your Timeline and Budget
Good intentions will only take you so far when it comes to how to choose the right web design agency. One of the first steps you should take when it comes to selecting your web design agency is to set a timeline for what you need done and evaluate your marketing budget. By knowing this information up front, you can narrow your research off the bat and ensure you’re getting top-tier service that you can afford.
Tools like Slam’s Agency RFP template can help you land the best web design agency!
Looking for a Website Designer: Explore Their Own Website
A good indicator of a web design agency’s style and vibe is its own website. Before you start looking at the work an agency has completed for other clients, look at the work they’ve done for themselves.
As a professional digital marketing agency, Slam has a proven track record of building brands through our comprehensive web design, SEO, content, and brand solutions. We like to let our expertise shine in every piece of content we publish—whether it’s a new article, our latest products and resources, our comprehensive How to Start An Agency course, or anything in between.
We like to make it easy for our potential clients to see what we’re all about from the second they land on our website. When it comes to feeling out different web design agencies, there are a few questions you can ask yourself:
- What are the agency’s brand values?
- Is the website user friendly?
- Do I like the agency’s vibe?
What Are Their Brand Values?
First things first, you should be sure your ideals align with those of your website design agency. Otherwise, you’re setting yourself up with a lot of miscommunication, misunderstandings, and clashing ideas. You should be able to get a feel for an agency from looking through their website, but be sure to check out their brand story, about page, and other specific content related to the business themselves.
Is Their Website User-Friendly?
While you’re exploring, pay attention to your experience moving through the website. On the whole, you should like the way your web designer’s site is structured if you’re choosing them to work on yours. Odds are, you’ll notice similar elements when all is said and done.
When conducting research, get a feel for how easy it is to navigate through the site. You should be sure you like the way the site looks and feels. Take note of specific things you like or don’t like, so you can come to the conversation with questions about elements of their content.
Do I Like Their Vibe?
After you assess the ease of use for a website, dig a little deeper. Beyond structure and functionality, you should find the website aesthetically pleasing. Pay attention to the way they lay out information, the tone they use, the elements they include. All of these things go together to influence the general vibe of a company. You should be sure you like what you see before you invite them to work with your content!
Looking for a Website Designer: Verify Their Experience
Every business is trying to sell themselves, which can make it challenging to know how to choose a web design agency. It’s up to you to dig deeper and verify the claims web design agencies are making about their skills and experience. There are a handful of ways you can get a better idea of what an agency knows what to do, including looking at their:
- Experience with CMS platforms
- Scope of services
- Knowledge on design trends
- Proof of quality of services
Does the Agency Have Experience with CMS Platforms?
The right CMS (content management system) can make or break your website design strategy, so it’s important to have experts on your side that understand CMS website design and can leverage that knowledge for your website.
There are countless CMS options available, and it can be challenging narrowing down your search—especially if you don't have a background in Webflow design and development yourself. A powerful CMS is key to any successful website, so be sure you’re choosing a web design agency that understands the importance of a flexible and optimized content management system.
A reputable agency will understand CMS Webflow for blogging as well as other updates that should be made to your website for good Webflow SEO and overall improvements, so you can refresh your website whenever you need without the headache.
Do They Have a Niche or Broad Design Portfolio?
Depending on the nature of your business, you may want to work with a web design agency that specializes in your industry. For example, if you know you want to work with a company that works specifically with website design for small businesses, you can narrow your search significantly from the start. Similarly, you can look for nonprofit web design agencies, restaurant website design companies, agencies that know how to build an author website, agencies that can handle building a personal website, and more.
On the other hand, working with an agency that hasn’t tailored their services to a specific niche can be beneficial, too. These companies can often bring a fresh perspective to the table because they have experience providing solutions for businesses across different industries, so they can often think outside of the box.
Do they Seem to Keep Up with Design Trends?
In addition to thinking outside the box, it's important that your web design agency is in the know about what’s in the box in the first place! This means that they show a clear understanding of industry trends and incorporate best practices into their process. The digital marketing sphere is constantly shifting with updated Google policies, insights, trends, and more.
Here are some web design trends for 2024 to keep an eye on:
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- AR (Augmented Reality) integrations
- CSS grid layout
- Custom illustrations
- Dark mode abilities
- Fresh color palettes
- Micro-interactions
- Organic shapes
- And more!
Make sure your website is set up for success by working with a marketing agency you can trust!
Does the Agency Have a Portfolio and/or Case Studies?
It’s one thing to look at the services an agency claims to offer, but it's another to see them in action for yourself. The good news is most web design agencies will publish their past work or post case studies to demonstrate how their services yielded positive results for other individuals and businesses.
Looking for a Website Designer: Check Online Ratings and Reviews
Piggybacking onto our last point about verifying an agency’s experience, it’s important to take your research a step beyond what an agency says about themselves and listen to what the clients they’ve served have to say.
Any business can sell themselves, but you should also take time to look at what other people are saying about them if you want to get the big picture. Online ratings and reviews let you take a look at other people’s experiences with the agency and give you a better idea of what it will look like when you work with them.
Looking for a Website Designer: Understand Their Approach
There are many different approaches agencies follow when it comes to designing websites, and you should be sure the company you work with uses one that fits with your workflow when it comes to strategy and Webflow design. There are typically three funnels that web design approaches fall under:
- Templated design strategy: A templated approach leverages existing website designs. Essentially, you select themes, layouts, color schemes, and more, and plug in the information about your business into pre-designed sections.
- Custom design strategy: A custom approach allows an agency to build your website from the ground up without the constraints of a template.
- Hybrid design strategy: A hybrid approach involves utilizing both the above strategies by starting with a template and then taking it off the rails by adding custom elements along the way.
Looking for a Website Designer: Contact Them!
The journey of looking for a website designer starts with being willing to do the research and put the work in yourself. This starts with contacting potential web designers and agencies directly.
Working with a web design agency or freelance website designer requires building and maintaining a relationship with them that fosters trust and understanding. You are trusting someone with your goals and will be working together to achieve them, so you should feel comfortable communicating with the team.
The best way to find out if you like an agency is to talk to them yourself from the start. Only you know your true vision for your business, so you should be the one to share it with your web designer. This will get you comfortable with each other off the bat and lead to a seamless business relationship.
Make Sure they Listen to Your Ideas While Presenting Their Own
At the end of the day, it’s your vision. While a web designer or web design agency should have a comprehensive plan to build your website and enhance your online presence with solid SEO, it should be a collaborative process when it comes to incorporating your ideas and creating something that is in line with your vision.
Not sure where to start but want to be involved in the process? Make a website launch checklist, so you know where you stand. You can also create a blueprint for your website with our Notion Website Template, so you have ideas to present when it comes to building everything out with your website designer!
Do They Have Standard Processes and Ways to Measure Progress?
Designing a stellar website is one thing, but how can you be sure people are seeing it? Even if you don’t know much about how to measure SEO, it’s prudent to have a general idea of how you want your website to perform over time, so you can set actionable milestones.
According to a HubSpot study, the most important metrics to track to measure website performance are sales, leads, total monthly visitors, click-through rates, and conversion rates. By taking a closer look at website traffic and website conversions specifically, you can glean a lot of information about potential weak spots in your sales funnel and where you can improve your website to smooth things out.
There are countless tools you can use to ensure your website is performing well, including Slam’s SEO ROI calculator.
That said, it’s important that you know that the designer or web design agency you’re trusting also has tools in place to evaluate their design and strategy. That way, you know you’re getting the most out of your investment. Common metrics to measure for web design include:
- Accessibility
- Bounce rate
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- Conversion rates
- Page load speed
- User experience/satisfaction
There are many technical SEO tools you can leverage, including:
You can also use Jetboost for no-code Webflow services and Nocodelytics for Webflow analytics, making it easy to set up, optimize, and track key metrics for your website.
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Do They Offer Additional Marketing Services?
If your current task is searching for a web design agency, but you still need more help with marketing your business, why not land on an all-in-one solution instead? Slam is a full-service digital marketing agency that offers comprehensive services to build a brand from every angle. This includes:
- Brand Strategy & Identity
- Content Writing & Strategy
- Search Engine Optimization
- Webflow Design and Development
By offering comprehensive marketing services, we’re able to offer cohesive strategies for projects of all scopes. For example, since we’re experts in search and in no-code website development, we can offer top-tier Webflow SEO services to build a website that converts.
Stay in the know about SEO, Webflow, and more with Slam’s newsletter!
Get a Killer Website when Your Partner with Slam
Whether you are in the beginning stages of starting your business, or you’re creating a website for an established company, you can take your content to the next level by working with a web design agency you can trust. Having web design specialists on your side can be highly beneficial to building and growing a website that converts—so long as you’re working with Webflow experts with a strong background in SEO.
Slam Media Lab understands the ins and outs of how to start an agency as well as how to grow businesses with our web design and development services. That’s why we’ve been recognized as a leading Webflow developer for diverse businesses—from startups to Fortune 500 companies. Our goal is to improve your Webflow integrations and teach you how to drive your strategy forward by helping you with decisions like choosing between Editor X or Webflow to build your website, migrating content from WordPress to Webflow, and more.
Learn more about related topics in website design from Slam:
- How to Build an Author Website to Gain Readers, Maximize Online Presence
- Finding the Best Nonprofit Web Design Agency to Maximize Your Impact [Templates + Resources]
- The Art of Designing a Restaurant Website [Tips, Examples, Templates]
- The Perfect Pairing: Restaurant Website Design and SEO [Example, Template, Tips]
- How to Start a Web Design Agency [Legal, Ops, Getting Clients]
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