What Do Web Design Services Include?

Every business needs a website. Not just any website, though — a well-designed website, one that will engage users and drive conversions. For many companies, that creates a dilemma, because they don’t have the necessary time or expertise to put together an engaging website.

For those businesses, the solution is to invest in web design services from a professional agency. If your business needs a new website — or help upgrading your current one — this may be the perfect option.

“But hang on,” you might be saying. “What are web design services? And what do web design services include?” 

Don’t worry — those are just the questions we’ll answer on this page. You can find more info below, and if you want to learn more about web design and digital marketing, you can also subscribe to our email newsletter!

What are web design services?

Web design services involve a professional agency helping you build a new website or optimize an existing one. The intent is to create a website that creates a positive user experience, ranks in search results, attracts traffic, and drives conversions.

Why do you need web design services?

As stated in the intro, every business needs a website. And depending on your skillset and experience, you may be able to create a website yourself. However, there are several notable benefits to partnering with an agency and letting them handle the workload for you:

• It saves you time and effort
• Agencies have more expertise
• Agencies have access to better web design tools

Given all those benefits, it’s often a smart move to partner with an agency rather than trying to do it all yourself and potentially getting a subpar website thrown together in your spare hours.

What do web design services include?

Your next question might be, “What do web design services include?” It’s a good question, and honestly, the answer will be different depending on which agency you choose. 

That said, there are several common web design services that most agencies offer, which we’ll cover below:

1. Domain and web hosting setup
2. Website structure and sitemap creation
3. Branding and graphic design
4. Content creation
5. Search engine optimization (SEO)
6. Ecommerce setup and optimization
7. Tracking and analytics

1. Domain and web hosting setup

You can’t start building a house until you have a plot of land to build it on. In the same way, you can’t create a website without first getting a domain and a web host. 

Your domain is essentially the address where your website can be found. (The domain of this site, for instance, is webfx.com.) Your web host, meanwhile, is the entity providing the physical servers where your website is stored.

The good news is, you don’t need to do all the work of finding a domain and web host yourself. Many web design agencies will help you do it if you haven’t already. Of course, you’ll still have full control of what your domain name will be and which web host you partner with, but the agency can do the work of researching and acquiring them for you.

2. Website structure and sitemap creation

Once you have a place to build your website, the actual building process begins. This is nearly always included in web design service packages. Your chosen agency will start building pages and connecting them together in an organized website structure, complete with a navigation setup to help users easily move around the site.

The agency will also create an XML sitemap, which shows the layout of your entire site. They’ll submit that sitemap to Google once the website is ready for launch, and Google will then crawl the whole site so that your pages can start having a shot at ranking in search results.

3. Branding and graphic design

When you think of common web design services, a site’s visual design is probably the first thing that comes to mind. It’s no surprise, then, that the graphic design of your website is one of the main services an agency will offer. The right agency will be able to create a look for your website that’s both functional and visually appealing. 

They’ll also be sure to design your site in a way that emphasizes your company’s unique branding. You don’t want a site that looks like every other website out there — you want to stand out so that site visitors will remember you even after they leave.

4. Content creation

Even with a perfect visual design, your site won’t make much of an impact if it doesn’t have anything interesting on it to draw users in. That’s why another of the most common web design services is content creation. An agency will help you create compelling content that users will want to see.

That content will be mostly written, but you can also get help creating graphics and videos. With all your content, the goal is to bring users to your website so you can turn them into leads and customers.

5. Search engine optimization (SEO)

SEO is technically its own marketing strategy. However, it’s so closely tied together with web design that many web design service packages will include at least some SEO services as well. The purpose of SEO is to optimize your website to have a better chance of ranking in relevant Google search results.

Some common SEO tactics that factor into web design include:

• Using responsive design to make your site mobile-friendly
• Optimizing your pages to load more quickly
• Implementing security protocols like HTTPS on your site

6. Ecommerce setup and optimization

If you want your website to have an online store, you can get help with that from an agency, too. Many agencies specialize in ecommerce websites, and they can help you build pages for all your products and organize them in a coherent way. They’ll also help you develop a smooth checkout process for customers.

As with the rest of your site, creating your online store will include a focus on everything from visual design to technical SEO processes to ensure a positive user experience.

7. Tracking and analytics

Web design isn’t a one-and-done thing. It’s an ongoing process — you want to continuously update your website based on the activity of site visitors. Is a particular type of content doing well? Consider creating more content of that type. Is a specific page not generating any traffic? Reoptimize the page. These constant improvements will help your site become much more successful over time.

But you don’t have to do it by yourself. Many agencies include tracking and analytics in their web design service packages, so you can let them do the work of monitoring your website performance and making any necessary changes.

Get top-of-the-line web design services from WebFX

All the common web design services on this list are essential if you want your website to succeed. In fact, it goes beyond just your website — your site is at the center of all your digital marketing, so without a well-designed site, none of your marketing will succeed. That’s why it’s so important to partner with the right agency.

At WebFX, we have over 29 years of experience designing top-of-the-line websites for our clients. When you partner with us for our web design services, we can help you optimize your site using all the tactics listed above.

Interested in working with us? Just give us a call at 888-601-5359 or contact us online today!