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Learn About Mortgage Web Sites
How To Find a Mortgage Web Site Design Company
1. Self Analysis
Good Web designers work with you in defining your requirements, but you must have a basic idea of what role the Web site will fill for you. Will it provide information on your company, like a brochure? Will it speak primarily to new accounts? Will it promote a closer relationship with your existing clients? Will it serve the needs of your employees? All or some of the above?
In order to find a Web design firm best suited for you, be aware of the following:
o The intended audience for the Web site
o The intended goal of the project
o Anticipated budget for the Web site
o How the project will fit into a larger marketing/corporate scheme
o The individuals/departments within your organization responsible for the project
Once you have determined these initial requirements, document them and use them as a basis for evaluating each Web design firm. This document gives you a common yardstick to measure each Web design firm you will be contacting. Similarly, a professional Web design firm will respect the fact that you are taking your project seriously.
2. Generate a list
There are a number of ways to search for a Web design firm. Each method has its own strengths and weaknesses, so a combination of the different approaches will be your best bet for finding a Web design firm to match your needs.
Other Web sites
Determine the Web design firm that is responsible for the Web sites that you admire. They may be your competitors in related or unrelated industries. Sometimes the Web design firm is included in the site credits, or is listed elsewhere on the Web site.
Referrals
Ask business acquaintances, friends, and family which Web design firm designed the Web site for their respective organizations, or if they can otherwise recommend a Web design firm. Be inquisitive. Find out what the individuals responsible liked or disliked about working with the various Web design firms. Some firms are better suited for taking a project from start to finish. Other Web design firms are more inclined to work from an existing concept.
3. Create a shortlist
Narrow your list down to 3-5 that are best suited for your project. In order to determine which Web design firms are most appropriate for your project, do the following:
Examine the portfolio
Do the projects in the portfolio have a consistent quality? If not, it’s possible that they staff turnover. You may wish to enquire which designers are responsible for the portfolio pieces you admire most, and confirm that these individuals are still with the company.
Has the Web design firm provided solutions to other companies in your industry? Have they dealt with similar challenges to those faced by your organization? These are some important factors to consider. At the same time, look at the Web design firm’s breadth of experience – they may be able to address your immediate needs, but will they be able to provide solutions 6 months down the road, or 1 year later, or 5 years later?
Thanks to the distributed nature of the Internet, some of the better Web design firms have implemented systems that allow them to work better with clients. While reviewing the Web design firms, note the geographical location of their clients. A Web design firm that has worked with clients in many geographical locations will have a more global approach to your Web site.
Analyze the process
Does the Web design firm have a clearly stated process for designing and developing Web sites? Do they spend enough time understanding your Web site goals and planning how those will be achieved? Avoid selecting an individual designer, on a freelance basis, to design and develop your organization’s Web site. It is rare to find a single person capable of handling the combined visual and technical elements that make an effective Web presence. Additionally, by depending on an individual, your organization is at risk of losing its investment should anything occur to that one individual.
Determine what other products/services the firm can offer
What kind of value-added products or services can the design firm offer? If your organization is not currently dealing with a print design agency, for example, this might be a factor for dealing with one group over another. Similarly, can the firm provide database and software development should your organization wish to Web-enable some of its existing systems or processes?
During this stage, your organization should make contact with the potential Web design firms that are on your shortlist.
4. Get proposals
Once you have selected your top Web design firms, request that they send you a proposal. Ask that their proposal include an overview of your requirements and their proposed solution.
5. Evaluate the proposals
Start off by examining each proposal individually. Before dealing with the content, evaluate the format and presentation of the proposal. The winning Web design firm will be creating your organization’s image on the Internet, viewable to millions of Internet users. How did they present themselves? Do they communicate with you using their Web site and digital documents?
After your organization has reviewed all proposals, compare them with each other. How do they fare in terms of presentation? Do they present upgrade paths for your project, going beyond the needs of the immediate goals outlined?
Once you have made a decision, contact the Web design firms that did not win the contract, and share with them the strengths and weaknesses of their proposals, and the reasons (in general terms) why your organization selected the winning firm. Lastly, contact the winning Web design firm and let them know the good news.
Web Site Linking
Your goal is to increase relevant “incoming links.” Incoming links are the links pointing to your site’s pages from another site. When certain words are used in the text of those links, your site is more likely to rank well in the search engines for the words that were used.
Search engines now put so much emphasis on the text contained in links, that it is nearly impossible to achieve good rankings for competitive or generic search terms without an active linking strategy. Therefore, the argument goes, you must focus on cultivating incoming links with your targeted keywords. OJO: Link building is time consuming and expensive.
Web Site Content
Rather than focus on highly competitive search terms, content advocates prefer to use “SEO copywriting” methods to enhance the content of a website, and cover a broader range of search terms. Because of the expense of an intensive linking strategy, competitive search terms are simply out of reach for many web sites.
Many content advocates say "they managed to get keyword rankings for very competitive search terms without a heavy emphasis on links". OJO: Less expensive, it works across time.
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