64 Questions to Ask Your Website Design & Online Marketing Agency

Selecting the best solution for website design and online marketing is one of the most complex tasks a business must undertake. Putting together a website design RFP can be a nightmare. There are literally thousands of options from free-lance designers, to large national ad agencies and IT consultancies. Development processes range from a few hours putting together sites of amateur quality to projects by an organization with a proven and refined process for crafting a world-class web presence. Costs range from virtually free to millions of dollars - and every web developer is marketing their offering as a complete “results driven” solution.

So how can you determine who should create your next online brand or application? This checklist will help you cut through the marketing smoke and mirrors that some companies use to overcharge and hide deficiencies. It will arm you with the questions that will separate the real result-getters from the rest. In the end it will provide a true apples-to-apples comparison so you can make the right choice the first time.

The Business
1. How long have you been in business?
2. Are you financially stable and debt free?
3. How large is your company?
4. Are you local or national?

Experience
5. How many years have you been building websites?
6. How many online solutions have you developed?
7. Who are the largest companies you have done work for?
8. What are your core competencies?
9. Where can I see samples of your previous work?
10. For what industries have you created web solutions?
11. How do you measure the success of your websites?

Development Philosophy
12. Do you have a formal process that all projects go through?
13. What is the client role in the development process?
14. How will you provide constant communication to me on the status of my project throughout development?
15. Do I own the code used to create my website?
16. Will I be able to make changes to my site myself?
17. After I decide I want you to build my website what happens next?
18. Who will be assigned to my project team and what are their skill sets?
19. What background does your account management/sales staff have?
20. What are an account manager's primary duties during development?
21. How long will it take to develop my site?
22. Will I be required to provide materials based on a schedule you provide for me?
23. Will I have a single point-of-contact for any questions or issues I might have during the project?

The Cost
24. How much can I expect to pay for a complete website?
25. Are there any other support costs associated with a website?
26. What payment structure is offered for websites?
27. How can I be assured I won’t be hit with hidden charges?
28. What creative and web page development software do you use?
29. Is your code optimized using open standards?
30. In what browsers do you design and test your sites to view correctly?
31. Are your websites compliant with IE high security mode?
32. Do your websites follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines?
33. Do you build your websites to be search engine friendly?
34. Are you able to provide Flash animation?
35. Are you able to integrate streaming audio and video into your websites?
36. Are you able to develop advanced Rich Media Applications in Flash?
37. What other digital mediums are you proficient in?
38. Are you able to create interactive CD-ROM presentations?

Application/Technical Development
39. What web application development environment and servers do you use?
40. What sets your application development apart from other development companies?

Hosting
41. Do you provide hosting?
42. Is it in-house or do you outsource to another company and if so why them?
43. Do I have to host with you?
44. Does your hosting offer a control panel to allow me to manage all my web services?
45. How much space and/or bandwidth do I get with my hosting account?
46. Do you handle my domain name registration or transfer? Do you charge extra for this?
47. Do I own the domain name used for my site?
48. What steps do you take to prevent loss of my site due to server failure?
49. What is the guaranteed uptime for your hosting service?

E-Commerce
50. In what types of e-commerce are you proficient?
51. If my needs can be fulfilled with a standard off-the-shelf shopping cart which ones do you recommend/have experience with?
52. Do you provide seamless credit card processing with SSL security?
53. Does your merchant account service provide direct deposit of funds into my bank account?
54. How secure is the transaction process provided?
55. Does the card processing system provide address and CCV2 verification?
56. Does your shopping cart provide a secure administration system where I can change prices, add, and delete products?
57. Is your shopping cart search engine friendly?

Marketing
58. Do you have a proven history of success with search engine marketing (SEM)?
59. How many websites have you done SEM for?
60. In what kind of search engine marketing do you have expertise?
61. Are you able to guarantee a high ranking in the search engines with your search engine optimization strategy?
62. Will you explain how you are optimizing our site and what our money is paying for?
63. Will your website search engine optimization harm the usability or professionalism of our site?
64. What other ways can you help me market my website?