PatraCompany Blog

What to Look for When Hiring a Maine Web Design Company

Written by Paul Michaud | June 16, 2017

Have you ever thought, “I’d like more business. Maybe I need a new website.” Your instincts may be spot on. However as beneficial as a new website could be for your Maine business, there’s much to consider. Gaining ROI demands a clear vision of how to use this as an opportunity to revamp your brand.

For this to happen, your best value comes from a Maine web design company. Yes, you can hire someone out of India and get a beautiful website. However it’s only when your shiny new website is paired with the right messaging you see a significant change from what you’re already experiencing.

Thus you benefit most when web design is part of a cohesive marketing approach. The cultural context is essential, especially for local businesses. A study cited at a major international conference shows that cultural adaptation of web content increases purchase intentions. Because of this, we believe you should look for these key qualities before you settle on a web design company.

1. Ability to Align Your Web Design with the Golden Circle

The most successful companies share one quality—they “think, act, and communicate from the inside out.” They know how to leverage the Golden Circle.

What is the Golden Circle?

Picture three circles nested within each other. The innermost circle is the ‘why’ circle. The one surrounding it is the ‘how’ circle. The outermost circle surrounding the ‘why’ and ‘how’ is ‘what.’

Most businesses approach their customers with a message that’s dedicated to the outside layer—the ‘what’ we do or ‘what’ we offer. They usually touch on ‘how’ they do ‘what’ they do or ‘how’ what they offer makes a difference. Yet rarely do they recognize how central ‘why’ should be to their business.

If you already have a website, it’s most likely replete with ‘what’ information. It’s a common approach. You might even have great content that makes it easy for people to “understand vast amounts of complicated information.” Yet, there remains an unfortunate obstacle to a better ROI. Features, benefits, facts and figures don’t “drive behavior.”

Website Redesign and Content Re-messaging Go Together

If your website’s content remains focused on what you do, your redesign will become a disappointment. Our goal at PatraCompany is to shift the focus of your website away from what you offer, how that benefits your customers and why they should buy your product or service. Instead, we move our clients toward a website where ‘Why’ leads to ‘How’ and closes with ‘What.’

Why do we do this? Because we agree with Simon Sinek. “People don’t buy what you do. They buy ‘why’ you do it.”

Features and all those things may close the buying decision. However, it’s the why that speaks “directly to the part of the brain that controls behavior.” If your website captures your visitors at this level, all the ‘How’ and ‘What’ information is so much more effective. As Sinek says, when be begin with ‘why,’ “We allow people to rationalize” their decisions based on “all the things we say and do” in our how and what messages.

Apple and Google have both done this so effectively that no one questions when either company introduces new technology into the marketplace. It’s expected because of the ‘why.’ Apple’s ‘why’ has created customer loyalty and anticipation.

So How Do We Help You Speak from the Inside Out?

  • We work with you to ensure you understand your ‘why’ clearly. What is the purpose driving you to offer the service or products you do? Why does your business exist?
  • Then we help you hone the message sharing how you fulfill the core purpose behind your existence in the marketplace.
  • Finally, we move onto messaging that shares what you do to fulfill your core purpose.

We believe the more content you have on your website with a “Why>How>What” focus, the better your website will work for you. Good design will just make your great content shine all the more.

2. Ability to Use Growth-Driven Design Principles

Any business that has gone through a website redesign expects it to be fraught with challenges. After all, ever since websites moved beyond basic HTML, web design methodologies have resembled a weed patch. The norm? Opinion drives decisions, and a ‘set-it-and-forget-it’ mentality rules. Missed deadlines. Up-front costs. Budget surprises.

However, all these problems are no longer necessary. The old, inefficient model—one never designed for efficiency if a redesign became necessary—has been replaced. The web design company you hire in Maine should be a Growth-Driven Design Agency.

What is Growth-Driven Design?

Growth-Driven Design is a methodology founded on the SCRUM agile process. The philosophy driving the process is to keep your website live, properly integrated and tested at all times.

PatraCompany does this by first making sure we understand your customer’s world, so your website continues to solve their problems throughout the website overhaul. For example, we set SMART goals so your transformed website drives your business goals. And we conduct user experience (UX) research so we’re not guessing about what will make your website as user-friendly as possible. These are just two of the strategies we use to develop a wishlist where we collaborate with you on grading the value an idea has with your audience and how well it concurrently fuels your business goals.

Once we’ve established this foundation, we get your website launched as quickly as possible. Why? Because you can’t afford to wait 3 - 6 months to find out something isn’t going to work as expected.

We’re able to do this because we focus in the beginning on the 20% that makes 80% of the impact on your business. For example, we might migrate your existing website content to a shiny ‘new’ site, and then use our data to transform your most important pages first. Meanwhile, your website remains functional and generates ROI.

The benefits of this design strategy continue long past the initial website design. Because growth-driven design includes the continuous improvement concept, we put a website hierarchy in place to guide ongoing performance improvements. Instead of following the crowd, you become proactive in identifying when you need adjustments in strategy.

3. Ability to Back Up Promises with Data

Unfortunately, many companies promise results and ranking. However, if they don’t provide an outline of the strategies and analysis upon which they make those promises, beware. The old website redesign model often damages ranking seriously, especially if it isn’t done carefully.

Fortunately, following growth-driven design practices eliminates many of the issues created by the traditional method. For example, because you can keep your audience engaged—a key component in retaining ranking—you don’t lose ranking. Also, because changes are implemented on a continuous basis (rather than dumped on the internet all at once), Google reads these signals positively.

Invest in Growing Your Business

If your ultimate goal is to grow your business, we encourage you to look for a Maine web design company that can fulfill all three of these expectations. And while you are looking, we invite you to consider us. Oh, and if you feel like a bit of research download our free eBook: 7 Analogies To Help Explain Inbound Marketing below.

Sources: Q. Wang | youtube.com | Image Source: HubSpot