Kelpie Media
Bathgate, West Lothian
Bathgate, West Lothian
You want a creative but highly adaptable and easy to use website, but you don’t know where to go as there seems to be more and more “Web Design Companies” appearing daily on the net.
You need a new logo, flyer, or business stationery design, but you need someone who can bring designs from your online presence into line with your offline branding.
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What makes a great website?
In this day and age, the best websites have 5 key factors in common that make them a success.
1 - Google Friendly
2 - Incredible Content
3 - Mobile friendly Design
4 - Social Media Interaction
5 - Great Images and Video
Google Friendly sites will be much more likely to appear on the front page, it comes down to whether or not your site has the right keywords spread throughout your content, your images are labelled correctly and page headings and links are relevant.
Incredible content is now arguably more important than anything else when it comes to getting found on Google. Unlike times passed, it is no longer good enough to have your site score well by a robot. Google now rewards owners of sites who provide their visitors with valuable information that keeps them coming back for more... So write great content.
Mobile visitors represent over 50% of many sites' visitors these days. So it is critical that your design is mobile friendly and in laypersons' terms, that means that the site reformats itself depending on the dimensions of the screen it is being viewed on. That's all in the site code and not all sites have this code. Needless to say, ours do.
If you're on Social Media make sure your site has links to your accounts and your accounts link back to your site. you will increase the number of visitors and it makes your site far more dynamic and Google loves it.
Finally, ensure that your images are all labelled correctly as some of your users may rely on accessibility features. As for videos, remember that some people absorb info in different ways and a video caters for those visitors and as Youtube is owned by Google , it helps with your ranking too.
What questions might you ask a client when starting a new project?
There are 5 key questions to ask when starting a new project (in no particular order)
1 - Budget
2 - Deadline
3 - Audience
4 - Current Brand Guidelines
5 - Any other contractors involved
Every Designer has a set hourly rate. It can range from £20 to £100+ per hour. What you get for that rate is a range of skills, creativity and customer service. It may be the case that you can hire a top-notch designer to produce a flyer design that only takes him or her 2 hours and they charge £200 and you can get the same job done from a mediocre designer for the same price but they will spend 10 hours on the project. Never assume that a higher hourly rate means that a larger overal budget is needed. Expert designers often have things in place that can help speed the process along and you may find there is less to and fro, and that you get the product you expected, first time, not the fourth.
The Deadline can have an effect on the budget, if you want it done yesterday, your designer may adjust their hourly rate upwards, due to the fact that they will need to suspend work on other projects and hire in extra staff to work on your project. If you are flexible on your deadline you will likely be able to negotiate a better price.
A good designer will always ask you "what is the audience", or "what is the purpose of this project", it is a question intended to draw out information that will lead to a closer understanding of the design and content needs. A site for a teen audience will be designed differently to a flyer advertising a dinner dance for senior citizens.
Not asking if you have any current brand guidelines is a schoolboy error that many cheaper designers will make. They will have a favoured design style, push on without asking what you need and come back with something that doesn't meet your requirements. This can be a costly mistake, the cost of which the designer will have to bear which will reduce the time they are will to spend on the project or worse still the will attempt to pass the cost onto you. If you have brand guidelines, make them available to your designer early on, to avoid confusion.
In website design, in particular, it is common for more than one contractor to work on a project. You may elect have a company work on social media, another to do PPC and yet another to work on the e-commerce element. A good designer should always confirm if there are other contractors involved. It is critical that if there is, that a project manager is running the project. This can sometimes be the client, but better still it should be the main contractor and an expert designer will always charge a little more for project management services. But in our experience, it is worth it.
Describe your creative process.
We will always provide the following.
1 - A mood board (images provided as a result from our intitial discussion, siting examples the client likes as well as ideas generated by us)
2 - A contract detailing what was agreed, including requirements, costs and deadlines
3 - Various Drafts of the design
4 - Content and site structure (websites only)
5 - Beta sites for testing (websites only)
What information do you need from a client before you can start work?
We will normally go through a project initiation questionnaire which will vary in size depending on the scale of the project and the elements requested. But as previously stated we always require any existing brand guidelines and examples of designs the clients' like.
What do you love most about your job?
I have been a designer for over 20 years, I attended art school and it is something I always wanted to do. The best thing about my job is the variety, and the feeling of having helped a client find a solution to a problem that will ultimately increase their sales and hopefully their profit. A successful client will always come back for more. So it is in my interest to do the best job I can every time.
What inspired you to start your own business?
I wanted the flexibility to work for who I wanted, when I want and to fit work around my family commitments. With 2 children, I enjoy the flexibility that having my own business gives me, as the business has grown I am able to choose the projects I work on while maintaining creative control supervising an incredible group of designers who work across more disciplines than I could master in a lifetime. The ultimate win-win. Our customers know they can come to us with any questions and requirements and we will be able to match the right talent with the job, be it design, animation, web development or digital marketing.
Why should our clients choose you?
We provide up to the minute design ideas across multiple creative disciplines. We project manage all projects with PRINCE2 methodology and ensure our customers are happy before we take final payment.
We want to work on interesting projects and our rate can be adjusted depending on urgency and sector. So its always worth getting in touch to see if we can give you a discount.
