Everybody and their dog appears to be starting a Business Web Design company these days. In fact, anyone with a laptop seems to be able to provide this service, and the costs are dropping like flies—you can now build a website for a few hundred pounds or less.

What distinguishes one website design company from another, then? What are the differentiators that you need to look for in a firm in order to choose them above the competition.

This topic largely depends on the type of business you run. For instance, if you run a posh hotel with several restaurants, you’ll need a little more upscale website than, say, a local craftsman like a plumber or electrician; this will certainly have an impact on the cost.

The cost you pay, whether upfront or on a monthly basis, will also be reflected in your desire for frequent updates to your website.

One of the most important factors when choosing a website designer is whether or not search engine optimization (SEO) is included. Without this, people/customers searching for the keywords related to your website/business will never see your website. This is likely the most crucial consideration when choosing a website designer.

Today, creating websites is easier than it was five or ten years ago. Thanks to content management systems like WordPress, anyone with a basic understanding of computers can create a website; you don’t even need to know how to code in HTML. Due to the fact that SEO is so time-consuming to accomplish correctly, there are a lot of website design businesses popping up. What these companies can’t or won’t do is the most crucial thing to do with a website, which is SEO.

Simply enter “website design” and your location, for example, “website design in Lincoln,” into Google to find a local website design company. This will bring up a list of website designers in Lincoln, along with a map and small red flags indicating their locations. You should select one of these companies because their SEO abilities have been demonstrated by their placement on the first page of Google.

You must now decide how much you are willing to pay to rank on the first page of Google. I can almost guarantee that 98% of website designers will only want to build you a website first before charging you a fee for doing SEO work. Instead, you need the 2% of website design firms that offer everything as a package and let you pay for it on a monthly basis without having to sign a contract. Let me explain.

It seems a little unfair to expect you to pay £300 to £400 for a basic website when you don’t know if it will bring in any revenue or at the very least make your phone ring with inquiries if you are new to the world of website building.

The 2% of website design firms that are able to meet your needs will take care of paying for your domain name, creating and hosting your website, and getting it listed on Google’s first page (typically in the top three spots) all for free. They will also give you time to assess how much new business you have acquired during this period (normally 1 month from the time you get in to the top three spots).