The best way to select your design firm

Trying to find the right web design company is not all that easy, i would compare it to trying to find a good fish restaurant Larnaca - you'll either find fabulous fresh fish, or you'll go home with food poisoning. Ok, Maybe not dramatic as that - but with so many designers out there, which one is the right one with the fresh idease. How do you decide which firm is best for your needs? Here are some of the factors i consider important to your decision:

• Company Portfolio. Dont judge a book by its cover, see what they have inside and ask yourself do i like it? is the style what im looking for?
• Not just a preety face . You have found the design but does it work? great designer but no functionality. marketing is a great issue also, can they promote you? Do they have expertise personel that deal with database programming or search engine optimization? You want to make sure that the firm you select is well-rounded enough to accomodate future site enhancements and design something that isn't just pretty, but also functional and easy to market on search engines.
• Customer Responsiveness. You have a question but i cant solve this question until next year. what is the responsiveness time for your support? Provide a price quotation within a couple of days and not weeks? Make meetings for follow-up questions? Make sure you know when and who you can reach whenever you need something done.
• Price. The most important factor at the end of the day is the how much is this idea going to set you back? When you compare price quotes though make sure you are comparing apples to apples. No web design firm will nock you back if you go with a competitors price quote and ask for a re-shuffle. The end product compared must be the same.

Some important questions to ask and consider:

1) What's the size of your firm?
A one- or two-person shop may not provide the range of services or the level of responsiveness you need, but may offer some personalized attention and price breaks that larger firms can't offer. Meanwhile, a larger agency is more likely to have a more comprehensive and well-defined process, but may be less flexible when it comes to incroporating last-minute changes without additional costs.

2) Do you outsource your projects?
This will help you determine if you're just dealing with middle-men or with the designers and programmers directly. You want to make sure that team that worked on the pieces found in the company's portfolio is the same one that will be working on your project.

3) What happens if I don't like my concept?
Some companies charge you extra after a certain number of revisions, so make sure you know what will happen up-front to avoid surprises. Be reasonable. No designer will want to make design changes into perpetuity, but they should allow for enough iterations so that you can be assured a final product that you're thrilled with.

4) Will my data be backed up on the server?
Making a mistake when working with dynamic content can be a headache and a half. make sure you have daily backup of your data so that you can restore to the last backup. if not the most important issue definatly on the top 5 list.