How does one get a corporate website built. Who can do it and what is the process?

September 26, 2006 8:12 AM

How does one find, and choose, a designer or company to build a website? What companies (in Seattle) can you recommend? I have a friend who has a medium sized business in Seattle. He has a budget of $20,000 to $50,000 to build an Internet presence. He has no clue what to do or where to start.

I think he'd prefer companies in Seattle so he can meet with people locally. There are basically three questions: (1a) Who should he contact (what designers or companies can you recommend in Seattle.) (1b) Is there a quick (ideally: edited for quality in some way) directory of site development companies so he can find one himself? (There is no way he can surf and find sites he likes and contact those companies-- that is just not going to happen unfortunately.) (2) Is this 20k to 50k budget sufficient? (Obviously, the complexity of the site will influence this, but more broadly, are medium size companies that are putting up marketing websites spending 300k or 5k-- we don't even have a ballpark clue.) (3a) What is the process for hiring a web development company like this? Does he send a description of what he wants to 10 companies and have them bid or does he call three and let them come pitch something at his office? (3b) How much work does he absolutely minimally have to do to get it all together. He is so busy, in his dream world, someone would come spend an hour with him, pick his brain and would have enough info to build the site. Of course: unrealistic. But I have asked him to draw a basic site map so we know broadly what he wants his site to have and look like and this has proven difficult because of his (lack of) experience with the net. Having said that, he already has much of the content that he wants on the site from other, hardcopy, promotional stuff he has done. Will a good company / developer be able to hold his hand from beginning to end even if his current ideas of what he wants are as vague as: "I want a web site to promote my business"?

posted by limitedpie to computers & internet (13 comments total)

The place to start isn't with a site map or a budget or an RFP. The place to start is with a question: What does he want this web site to accomplish for his business? Is the web site promoting his business, or is it part of the business itself? Almost all of the answers to your other questions hinge on these issues.

(Side note: IMHO, 20-50k is a huge budget for a purely promotional site. Focus on communicating with clients and making it easy for them to for them to find what they're looking for, not on bells and whistles. Your customers will thank you for it.)
posted by j-dawg at 8:27 AM on September 26, 2006

j-dawg: This answer is simple. He has a service (not a concrete product) that competes with several other providers of the same service worldwide. He wants his *potential* customers to: (a) be able to find him and know he is one of the worldwide providers of the service (many potential customers would not know he provides the service and would not look for him specifically, so SEO has to be a part of the plan) and (b) learn from the site why he is the best provider / learn what makes his service special. In order to do this he has documents (research-- ready to go) and maybe a few videos (needs help with these) to put into (hopefully) a clean, sharp promotional website. Any potential customer who likes what they see would call / email him to learn more.
posted by limitedpie at 8:35 AM on September 26, 2006

I should add, if it might help anyone to recomend a company he can contact-- his potential customers already and absolutely know they have to buy this (expensive) service, they just haven't yet decided on the provider. So, the site doesn't need t to convince anyone they need it, but just inform them that he provides it and that he is the provider they should choose.
posted by limitedpie at 8:39 AM on September 26, 2006

I'm not in Seattle, so I don't have any specific recommendations, but given what you've said, I'd definitely look for a firm with a marketing focus, rather than a design or technology focus (although obviously you need competencies in all three.) Most importantly, you probably want a company that can look at the web site as a piece of a larger marketing strategy, and help him figure out the best way to fit the pieces together.

Best of luck...
posted by j-dawg at 8:50 AM on September 26, 2006

On preview, I see you've elaborated a bit while I was composing... but for what it's worth, these were my first thoughts for you:

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Holy crap, have him reign in that budget a bit. 10 grand ought to get you at least a nice, clean, database-driven, user-maintainable site with automated job apps, support forms, searchable knowledgebase, etc. 20 grand should include a live onsite photoshoot with supermodels. 50 grand should get you all of the above plus a new boat for the web developer.

OK, seriously, we don't have enough information at this point for anyone to help much. A "marketing website" could be anything from 5 pages of info to a searchable, sortable interactive catalog of thousands of 3D rotatable product images with a customer-profiling product-selection wizard and order-fulfillment system.

If the first thing a design firm asks is "How much do you want to spend?", run. Look for the firm that asks, as j-dawg said, "What does he want this web site to accomplish for his business?"

And your friend must prepare better answers than "To give me a web presence." or "To increase my profits." Think of the different audiences and what they should be able to accomplish at the site. For some companies it might look something like this:

• Potential customers: find out about our company history, philosophy, and product line. Request more info. Order products.


• Existing customers: Subscribe to newsletters. Enter support requests. Track open support requests. View order and invoice history. Order products.


• Prospective employees: find out about our company history, philosophy, and product line. Submit applicant profile and resume.


• Competition: find out about our company history, philosophy, and product line without revealing client names or critical proprietary manufacturing techniques.

A few iterations of this discussion, with increasing detail, will begin to give a design/development firm a basis for a quote.
posted by Tubes at 8:56 AM on September 26, 2006

He may start a blog and show that he is passionate (and an expert). If he can build trust and share passion with an audience it may beats many marketing campaigns. He should consider reading Robert Scoble's book.
posted by vincentm at 9:11 AM on September 26, 2006

A friend of mine used to work for Zaaz and they're pretty good.

Blue Flavor also does good work.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:01 AM on September 26, 2006

forget the big bang theory, start small and build it out in phases. Think of it as ongoing marketing like buying advertising etc. To start, size it according to what your friend is up for now in terms of his involvement. Quality means more than quantity if it's main purpose is marketing / image making. Start with 5k and keep the rest for future development. Set it up, let it run for a couple months and see what kind of traffic it gets and gather feedback from users. Continue to develop according that and any new ideas that come up in the meantime. Don't do it all in flash...
posted by scheptech at 10:43 AM on September 26, 2006

I'm with the other posters. Your friend sounds like the website he's wanting is mostly static, and thus just needs a good clean 'look', as well as professional looking media/documents. Your friend doesn't know the net and doesn't feel he has the aesthetic sense to design it himself much less build it, but he doesn't need something groundbreaking- just something that doesn't look too low-rent. Certainly that will cost far less than his budget, at least to start- a fraction of what he's considering should get a very good local web designer to whip up a nice looking layout and framework to put his existing content into, and probably convert the docs/videos along with it. Hell, some of the rejected MeFi layout re-designs from that design contest were whipped up in a few hours- just for the pleasure of doing it.

And the problem isn't technical- a simple $99/yr webhosting solution would probably cover the hosting of his page and all he's likely trying to do.

It really sounds like the work he thinks he is looking for is first a good web designer to make a clean looking page- something not of the Timecube School of Web Design- and later to engage marketing/web design on a higher level for how to best use his site to increase business. The latter probably will be more expensive, but just getting a "professional" looking site shouldn't cost too much.

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Also, because no one's mentioned it: Seattle's not exactly a low-tech burg, and Metafilter is known for its intelligent albeit too cynical membership. Your friend seriously might want to consider posting something to MeJo, since this is pretty much the precise scenario it works for: find someone local who's got mad skillz, looking for a relatively straightforward web design gig. And while I have no reason to believe this other than life experience, I suspect those found through MeJo, much less that you mean to meet personally/locally, will be more honest than random person plucked from the yellow pages or craigslist.
posted by hincandenza at 11:01 AM on September 26, 2006

Hey, limitedpie, you should email me. I have some recommendations but don't want to post them here for various reasons.
posted by librarina at 11:20 AM on September 26, 2006

I can also recommend Blue Flavor. They will help define your focus and build something you need.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 12:48 PM on September 26, 2006

i'd first look at some competetiors sites and see what kind of presence they have- and figure out how to make yours better-

and based on that, get a quote.
posted by Izzmeister at 4:36 PM on September 26, 2006

I develop web sites for a living, feel free to e-mail me.
posted by banished at 11:47 AM on September 27, 2006