There are many factors to consider when approaching the design of any new website. The most important we feel is building your website on a scalable platform like Joomla CMS or Wordpress. It's virtually impossible to sit down at the start of a design project and predict the direction your website will take in the long term. When we first started to build websites we had no idea that blogs and social media integration would be a pre requisite of any new website in 2010. In fact, blogs and social media were barely invented back then!

So, always consider that you might have to add to your website in the future, some form of functionality, a new look/feel, advance module or whatever. That's why we try to approach all new projects using Joomla as the design platform. Joomla is a powerful open source content management system that has a wide range of plug-in modules, allowing your websites functionality to grow as your business grows.

Hosting is also important. People think it's the last consideration and they can simply pick up and move to another host if they outgrow their present host company. That's fine until you start moving MY Sql databases and other script applications that are setup to a specific set of server parameters. So always host with a reputable company who've been around for a while. It doesn't mean you have to pay more, we offer excellent hosting packages for $9 month. We are resellers for a major web hosting company with whom we have maintained a flawless working relationship for almost 10 years.

Once you've established a platform and host company you'll want to find a good designer. There are many to choose from and it sometimes helps to find a local company if you feel your project is quite complex and person to person interaction would be beneficial. (This is rarely the case). Almost every web designer will claim to have "SEO" experience. That's often complete nonsense. Those claims are made because it's expected of them, but few actually have the in depth knowledge it takes to design with SEO as a focus factor.

Ongoing support is hard to gauge from the outset, it isn't until you've worked with a company for a while that you'll really know what their support is all about. Checkout a couple references if you can, otherwise it's taking a gamble. The good thing about having your website built on a Joomla CMS platform is that you won't be locked-into any particular design company. If they let you down you can shop around.