We wrote a guide to choosing a web design agency in Leicester earlier this year. This is the Huddersfield version, because half of our team works here and the market is different enough to deserve its own.
Huddersfield is an odd market for web design. There are plenty of people doing it, from one-person freelancers in Holmfirth to agencies in Leeds who will happily drive over for a meeting. The quality range is enormous and the websites all describe themselves in the same six words.
We're one of the options, so read this knowing that. But most of it applies whoever you hire.
Start with what the site is for
Before you compare anybody, write one sentence about what the website has to do. Not "look more professional". Something you could check in six months.
- "Get us twenty enquiries a month from trade customers in West Yorkshire."
- "Stop the phone ringing with questions the site should answer."
- "Let customers check stock and order without emailing us."
That sentence decides who you should be talking to. The first two are marketing sites, and a good freelancer can do them well. The third is software wearing a website, and that's a different kind of supplier entirely.
Freelancer, agency or studio?
A freelancer is often the right call for a small, content-led site. You deal with one person, the cost is lower, and a good Huddersfield freelancer will know the local market. The risk is concentration: if they get ill, get busy or get a job, your website goes with them. Ask what happens in that case and listen carefully to the answer.
A larger agency, often in Leeds or Manchester, brings more people and more process. You'll likely deal with an account manager, and the people doing the work may be juniors or subcontractors you never meet. That isn't automatically bad, but it's worth knowing who is actually building the thing.
A studio sits in between: a small team where the people you meet are the people who design and build it. That's what we are. It suits businesses whose site needs to do something, not just say something, and who want to sit across a table from whoever is making the decisions.
A useful test: ask who will write the code. If the answer involves a name you haven't met, a "development partner" or the word "offshore", you've learned how the project is really run.
What a Kirklees business website usually needs
We've built a lot of sites for businesses within half an hour of Armitage Bridge, and the same needs come up again and again.
It has to explain something complicated. A lot of Huddersfield firms are manufacturers, engineers or specialist trades. Their products don't fit a five-page template, and the site has to do the job a good salesperson does on the phone.
It has to work on a phone, on a poor signal. Measured, not assumed. Plenty of the people looking you up are on a site visit or in a van, not at a desk.
Your team needs to update it. If changing a price or adding a case study means emailing the agency, it won't happen. A proper content management system, built around your content, is the difference between a site that stays current and one that's quietly three years out of date.
It needs to be found locally. That means a Google Business Profile that matches the site, structured data that tells search engines where you are, and a page for each service you want to be found for. We cover this properly in how to get into the Google map pack.
Five questions for every web designer on the list
Ask each of them the same five things, in the same order:
- Who exactly will design it, and who will build it? Can you meet both?
- Can I see a site you built that does something complicated? Not just a nice-looking one.
- Who will own the code, the domain and the hosting? The only good answer is "you".
- What happens after launch? Who fixes things, how fast, and what does it cost?
- What would make you tell me not to do this? A designer who will never talk you out of anything is selling, not advising.
The fifth is the one that sorts it. Sometimes a template built well by someone local is the better use of the money, and the right designer will say so on the first call, even when that designer is us.
Price, honestly
Most of our website projects land between £5,000 and £30,000, and you get a fixed price before anything starts. Under about £5,000, a good local freelancer on a well-chosen template is often the smarter spend, and we'll point you in that direction. There's a longer breakdown in how much a website costs.
Where we fit
We're at Brooke's Mill in Armitage Bridge, ten minutes from town, with a second studio in Leicester. Design and build happen in the same room, we build on Laravel rather than bending a theme, and 88% of our clients stay with us after launch.
If you'd like to see how we approach web design in Huddersfield, the page has the detail. Or come to the mill, have a coffee, and bring the sentence about what your site is for. That's usually the most useful hour of the whole project.
