Choose a website development company by its process and by what you'll own, not just by its portfolio. Check for written scope, ownership of the domain, code and accounts, how form submissions are stored, how you'll edit content, whether technical SEO is included and what support looks like after launch.
Start with the job your website must do
Write one sentence: what should the site generate? Quote requests, bookings, sales, credibility for enterprise buyers? That sentence filters out vendors who only sell templates.
Criteria that matter
Process
Ask for the phases: discovery, sitemap, content, design, build, QA, launch. Skipping straight to "pick a theme" is a warning sign.
Ownership
Get it in writing that:
- the domain is registered to your company;
- you have admin access to the site and hosting;
- you can take the code and files to another vendor.
Lead handling
Where does a form submission go? If it's only an email and that email lands in spam, the lead is gone. Solid builds store submissions and show them in a dashboard.
Technical SEO
Performance, unique titles and descriptions, structured data, redirects from the old site. "We'll do SEO later" often means expensive fixes.
Editing and support
Can your team change copy or publish a post without help? What's included after launch, for how long, and how fast do they respond?
Questions for the first call
- Who will work on our project and how do we reach them?
- What's the timeline and when do you need our content?
- What's out of scope, and what would it cost?
- How will we measure whether the site generates leads?
- Can we talk to a past client?
Red flags
- Guaranteed first-page rankings.
- A fixed price before any questions.
- No written scope.
- Domain registered in the vendor's name.
- No conversation about content.
Working with a remote team
Location matters less than process. Remote teams work well when decisions are written down, increments are testable in the browser and there are overlapping hours. Exacta Labs is based in Brazil (UTC−3), which overlaps with US East Coast mornings and European afternoons.
Agency or software company?
Marketing agencies shine at brand and campaigns. Software companies shine at integrations, applications and automation. If your site needs to talk to a CRM, booking system or internal tools, favor a team that builds software.
See how much a business website costs and our website development service.