How to find a good web design company

Looking for a web design company? This article looks at how exactly you identify a good we design company from its portfolio page.

1. Presence of portfolio

It’s pretty obvious that web design company must have its own web site with a neat portfolio of its previous works. But don't be taken away by the site alone. Portfolio is like a "face" of a web design company. It tells you about what the company did and how well they did it. But this is not all.

2. Total number of works

Though this provides a lot of indications, there is no standard number that can guarantee that you’re going to deal with web design guru. It is true that 50 projects is better than 5, but quality is equally important. Check out on that. And while you do that, do remember that an average website design takes 2 to 4 weeks to be finished.

But what can this information then give you? Firstly, you can see whether the company has enough expertise. Also, it can tell you if it has a stable employee base, a well-oiled development process, and enough staff to enable round-the-clock performance, so as to ensure that when you commit your site design to the said company you can be sure that it won’t be new work for them.

3. Type of work done

Look carefully at each project in the portfolio page. How many of them are similar to the one you need? Analyse this by industry, site, technology used, and look and feel?

2-3? Good!

> 5? Excellent!!

None? There could be reasons for this too – such as the owner not wanting publish it, or web site not being live anymore - so if the company has passed all these tests, you must then ask the company if they have ever done the task that you now need.

4. Quality

Look at all the sites the company has designed/developed. See how long it takes for the home page to load

A few seconds? Fine, the web designer knows how to optimize images.
A few minutes? This is okay for a Flash site since the whole site is loaded at once in case of Flash and can also take longer because of sound and visual effects.

But if a simple HTML web site takes more than 2-3 minutes to load you know something’s wrong. Check other HTML sites from the portfolio - if they too take ages to load, it's better you search for another web development company.

How to know if a domain has been dropped

With more and more businesses building an online presence, a useful original domain name may be difference to find. However, dropped domains may be the perfect opportunity for you to begin building your business’ online identity.

What is a dropped domain?

A domain is, simply put, the more memorable name of a website or URL rather than a string of letters, numbers, and symbols. Examples: facebook.com, e-bay.com, google.com

A dropped domain means that it has expired. The owner hasn’t renewed the license with their domain registrar. The registrar can sell the domain at auction. The process and timeline can vary from registrar to registrar.

Know before you pay

Check the page authority (PA) and domain authority (DA) for domains before you buy. There are tools available on the internet that let you judge the quality of the domain. Make use of them before you take a call.

Know if it’s banned from Google

• It may have a high rating, but if it cannot be found by search engines, it’s not useful.
• Check domain names in Google cache, an online tool that allows you to see what version of the page is currently in its index.
• If you find a good domain that is banned, you can take the risk to purchase the domain and then appeal to Google with a ban consideration request.

Know if it’s banned from Google Adsense

Look at tools to check if a site is banned. Bannedcheck.com, Isbanned.com and iWebtool.com are some of the sites that let you know if a domain has been banned.

Check the website’s archive

To know what kind of website was associated with that particular domain, go to archive.org, type in the domain URL. A calendar will let you choose a date, even as far back as two decades, to see what the website looked like then.

Transfer of information

Check the WHOIS database for domain information. Has it been banned from search engines? What type of content has it been associated with? Check the internet archives to see if it was relevant to your business.

So, these are just some of the tools with which you get to know if a domain was really dropped or not. In the next article, we shall look at how to buy dropped domains.