Maybe you considered building your website yourself and realized it would take more time than you have available, or maybe you always planned to hire a site design professional. In either case, this article helps you find the best web design companies.

Know What You Want/Need

While it's good to be open to the suggestions of the web professional you hire, you both will have an easier working relationship (and you will save money) if you clarify for yourself some aspects of your needs in advance. This includes information like the following:

• What types of pages does your website require, e.g., a blog, catalog pages, a check out for purchases, an About Us page, a News page, a links page, etc.?

• Do you already have a brand or logo? If you are planning to, this is a good thing to have completed before the website design so it can be incorporated.

• Are you going to sell from the website? If so consider the following:

• How many products are in your catalog? Will this number be increasing over time?
• How many categories of products do you have? Do any overlap? Will this number be increasing over time?
• Are you going to sell products that download?
• Do you need to link to shipping?
• If you have a retail store, what software are you currently using that will need to tie-in with the website?
• How many product pictures do you need for each product?
• How do you want to group products?

• Do you need multimedia on your site? In how many locations? What function will it have? You might have one video showing your flagship product in action or—if you are a videographer or sell music videos, your site might be full of them.

• What's your budget for web design?

Look at Websites

If you can find websites that are arranged in a way or have features that you like or a style or look that you think would be well-suited for your business, this will help your web designer to have a jumping off point. At the bottom of the front page of most websites is a credit to the website designer if there is one. So this can be one starting point for locating a specific web designer. If you find something that's perfect, your search may be over, with the exception of checking the site and reviews for the points mentioned in the final section of this article.

Look at Reviews of Web Design Companies

Now that you've worked out some of the things you're looking for to create your website, you'll bring more to website reviews. Use the review categories and your assessment of your site needs to narrow your search.

Read the Web Pages of Web Design Companies

Whether from web design reviews or the pages of the web design company, you should get an idea of their process.

• What is the pricing scheme? Does it fit your web design budget?
• How many web design reviews do you get before you begin to pay more?
• How interactive is the process?
• Are customers pleased with the web design results, not only immediately, but over time?