Property website design: how to choose the right company

Choosing the right partner to produce your website can make the difference between online marketing success and failure. A lot rides on the decision. Once you make your choice, it’s costly and difficult to change. Furthermore, if you don’t get your search engine optimisation (SEO) right at the beginning, it can cost thousands to sort out.

To help you make the right decision, we have put together a table of questions for you to ask potential suppliers together with some useful links and tips. It is not a definitive list of everything you need to know but it covers the main issues. If you can get satisfactory answers these questions below, you will be well on your way to hiring a good web design company for your business.

Development & Design Experience

The best way to judge a web design company is by their past projects. If you have any doubts about their expertise, it is worth cold calling one of the clients they mention on their website to ask for a reference. Before you do that however, we recommend you ask yourself the questions below.

Question	Comments	Useful Links
Do they have experience in building property websites?	Essential, as property sites require database functionality. You will pay more or get a sub-standard website if they don’t have this experience.
Do you like the websites they have designed for other clients?	Look for examples of sites they’ve developed which are good looking, clean and have plenty of room for images. You need to “sell a dream”. Are they up to it?	We like Foxtons David Stanley Redfern
Do they have a standard system to upload property content?	You should ask for a demonstration of how it works and ideally compare at least two companies.
Do they have a content management system (CMS) that allows you to make basic changes without incurring costs?	You should be able to add basic things like news items and about us copy. The more you can change yourself the less you will incur in ongoing charges.	Drupal is one of the most popular CMS’s. You won’t need something this complicated but you can get the idea of what a CMS is with their demo. Username: admin Password: demo

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Services

Your web designer should SEO expertise or you should recruit the help of someone that does before you approve final designs. It’s critical for the success of your business that you get this right.

Keyword Strategy: Do they offer a keyword research service to help you determine which words to put in your pages?	You MUST get this done BEFORE you build your site or you will waste money. Not all agencies offer this but you can always get it done externally	The Search High Street Introduction to SEO
Do they make the URL's look nice?	Look at the property pages of the sites they have built. The URL’s should contain keywords like this http://www.rightmove.co.uk/overseas/france/limousin rather than lots of ?’s, =’s and % signs	Introduction to SEO
Do they use property database to create lots of relevant web pages?	For example if you sell property in Denia and Alicante in Spain, they should create lots of pages around these phrases. Each page would be unique. One page might be titled <2 bed> <villa> for sale in <Denia>, <Spain>, another <3 bed> <house> for sale in <Alicante>, <Spain>	Introduction to SEO A good example of how to do this is DM Estates. See how they have pages for Villas, Apartments, Townhouses and Penthouses in all the main towns around Marbella
Do they put the key phrases in the right places?	The right places are the meta page title (the text that appears on the top bar in internet explorer), meta description (text that appears under the link in the Google search results), and the page titles (The main text headings and sub headings on the page itself). Note: The text should be similar but not the same or it will trigger Google spam filters	Look at this page from DM Estates for an example.
Do they have a section on the homepage that allows you to deep link into your property pages?	Most external links will go to your homepage. You want your most important property pages to be linked off this page to help give them link power	Look at the developers section at the bottom of the Globaledge.co.uk homepage for an example
Do they have a section on the homepage that allows you to deep link into your property pages?	Most external links will go to your homepage. You want your most important property pages to be linked off this page to help give them link power	Look at the developers section at the bottom of the Globaledge.co.uk homepage for an example

Technical Support

Although the bulk of the work and the cost will be upfront, ongoing support is necessary for you to make changes and solve any problems that arise.

Who will be assigned to project and what are their skills?	Ideally you will be assigned an experienced project manager who will help define your requirements and manage the project from beginning to end. This is really important with more complex projects but may not be necessary with basic sites
Who will be your day-to-day contact after the website is complete?	Having a person that has ownership of your work is important in any client-supplier relationship
How much will they charge to make changes to the site nn on-going basis?	The more you can do with the CMS and property upload system the better. Bespoke changes tend to cost between £50 and £100 per hour in the UK.
What kind of hosting packages do they offer?	Most web design companies will charge you a small monthly fee to host your site and provide email. Costs start at around £10 per month for the most basic packages. Ask about guaranteed uptime. It should be in excess of 99%.	List of UK web hosts http://uk.tophosts.com/top25-page2.html Best Web Hosting Reviews – reviews of US hosting companies

Costs

What should you pay for a website? This is a very common question but there is no definitive answer. If you want a simple website without property uploads or a unique design you could set up a Wordpress blog for free but this probably will not meet your needs.

The best option is to get prospective suppliers to answer the above questions and provide quotes. However it’s such important decision you should never buy just on price. If in doubt go for the best company within your budget that can demonstrate expertise in the following areas:

Web design
Search engine optimisation
Creating and managing property related database sites.

Property Websites from £175 a month

Globaledge offer a range of website design, SEO, translation and hosting services. Sites can be translated into up to 15 languages. Prices start at £175 per month. Contact Ashley Rigg on ashley.rigg@globaledge.co.uk for more information or DOWNLOAD OUR BROCHURE

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