Website designing and development gives shape to the website, and to sustain and enhance that shape, website maintenance is required. It is not only sufficient to design a website, program it, and host it, but continued maintenance is crucial to keep the site updated, glitches free, and performing at its optimal level. However, one should not mistake maintenance with redesigning of the website. Website maintenance is more to do with on-going support to change content, images, or update information.
Most of the big companies have their own in-house web maintenance team. However, for small and medium businesses (SMBs), it is not possible to afford a separate team and it also may divert their attention from the core business. For these businesses, it is a good idea to outsource their website maintenance task to companies that specialize only in such services. Also, most of the web designing and development companies offer maintenance services too, and one can continue with them if the initial work has been satisfactory.For more details visit Web Design Mumbai and Website Maintenance.
Choosing a Web Design Company
With a multitude of web designers and developers out there, from freelancers to agencies, to online templates, how do you know what the right fit is for your company, and more importantly, for your goals and objectives? Choosing a web design company is not that a serious job. But choosing a good web design company is a real serious challenge. People say that Internet has made business processes simple and global, but how about the complexities that Internet offers which are unique.We will go through the entire process of selecting a Web Design and Development company in a structured way.
STEP 1 - Planning
The first step involves defining your needs. While searching for the right web designer, it is important to have a clear idea what role your new Web site or a redesigned one will fill. Will it provide information to your customers? Will it serve the needs of your employees? Or will it include an online shopping section so that you can sell your products to visitors? Most Web designers will need to know the following:
· The role of your new Web site.
· The intended market or audience of your Web site.
· Your budget.
STEP 2 - Searching and Creating a Primary list
Searching is a vigorous process and does not require any special skill other than diligence to effectively come up with good results that fulfill your requirements. Just scan through directories, check Google listings on specific keyword searches and ask for referrals from your friends or business partners. It does not have to be a very extensive research work.
STEP 3 - Evaluating and Shortlisting
Once you have gathered a list of potential web design firms you are ready to pare them down to a shortlist. This requires a bit of research work.
Portfolio - It's about the three C's - Credibility, Consistency, and Capability. How consistent they are? What are the parameters on which the company is capable enough to fulfill your requirement? Are there any testimonials that speak about their credibility? Do the projects in the portfolio have a consistent quality? Have they consistently given good results in the given time frame? Has the Web design company 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. When you've narrowed your search to a few design sources (through recommendations, web directories, or your competitors' sites), evaluate their online portfolios and their rate structure. A website doesn't have to be flashy or animated to do its job. Browse sites they have built, check ease of navigation, the organization of information, overall cleanliness and visitor-friendliness. Also, consider hiring a firm that demonstrates some familiarity with your type of business.
Experience and Fees - This is called the EF of web design firm. Experience and fees are very much inter-related. The general norm is the more experienced you are, the more you are paid. This interesting story can tell you what experience is all about.
STEP 4- Proposals
Once you have selected your short-list of top web development firms, request that they send you a proposal. Ask that their proposal include an overview of your requirements and their proposed solution. This will help to determine which web design firm understands your requirements best. Also, ask that each web design firm include a description of their development process and a price breakdown for the various aspects of the website project.
STEP 5 - Evaluating Proposals
Evaluate each proposal individually on the basis of merit. Take the following points into consideration:
a) Wellness of the proposal.
b) Respective strength and weaknesses of the companies.
c) Evaluate the presentation and format style.
STEP 6 - Selecting the Company
After your organization has reviewed all proposals, compare them with each other. How do they fare in terms of presentation? How do their processes appear in terms of project management? Do they present scalability and/or upgrade paths for your project, which go beyond the needs of the immediate goals outlined?
After going through all the above process, you should be able to zero in on to a particular company. If the doubt persists, establish communication process between the likely companies to understand their process and commitments.For more web designing information visit Web Designing.
Additionally, the activities under site maintenance include fixing bugs; correcting broken links; wrongly spelled text; page titles; adding new web pages; checking whether all the programmed forms are working; and more. Without a dedicated site maintenance support, the website can malfunction regularly, and it is credibility can be affected.
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