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Having a quality website is imperative. Statistics show that 71% of businesses had a website in 2023—and a further 43% of small businesses plan to invest in their website performance. Whether you’re looking to improve your website or build a new one from scratch, consider a web design company to help.
A web design agency has the tools and experience necessary to craft responsive, compelling websites that will provide a great experience for users. To help you find the right agency for you, we’ve compiled this list of the best web design companies of 2024.
If you’re looking for a top-tier web design experience, DD.NYC is a great option. It offers a four-step design process that starts by discovering your needs. Then, its team of web designers collaborates with your brand to start building your site. The development stage is where backend designers get into the nitty-gritty of the work, while the final support stage helps you maintain and monitor yourself after it’s built.
DD.NYC offers WordPress-specific designs, mobile-responsive websites, corporate websites, brochure websites and custom designs for when none of those work for your needs. Throughout its eight years, it has successfully designed over 250 websites for big-name clients including L’Oréal, Walmart and Forbes.
In particular, DD.NYC focuses on the real estate, medical, finance/tech and industrial industries. In addition to basic web design, it can also offer branding, packaging design and graphic design services, making it an all-in-one option for launching a new brand.
If your company is looking for a beautifully designed, responsive website, DD.NYC should be your choice. The team has successfully handled several high-profile clients, which should give you confidence that it can also handle your site.
If your website budget leaves a lot to be desired, The Free Website Guys should be a top consideration. The company designs websites for free qualified applicants. The company accepts every two in five applicants, so you have a good chance of scoring a great deal. Even if you don’t qualify, the design service offers custom websites for the low price of $3,000.
Once you’re selected, The Free Website Guys builds the back end of your site on WordPress, including plugin installation. Next, you’ll choose a theme, and the company will tailor it to your liking. It gives you complete instructions on how to edit and update your site on your own moving forward. All sites are mobile optimized, search engine optimization (SEO) ready and load quickly to reduce abandonment rates. If you need ongoing maintenance and support, you can add that on for a fee. Other add-ons include lead magnet setup, app development and SEO reporting and optimization.
As with all free things in life, there are a few stipulations. First, your website has to be relatively simple—The Free Website Guys doesn’t create advanced functionalities for free. You’ll also need to host your site on WordPress and use one of the company’s preferred web hosting companies. The reason is that it makes money from affiliate commissions. Still, these are pretty small sacrifices to make for a free custom-designed site.
For companies that don’t want to invest a ton in their website at first, The Free Website Guys is an excellent starting point. If you outgrow your theme in the future, The Free Website Guys also offers paid design services with more thorough customization.
SmartSites specializes in home service, medical, B2B, B2C, industrial, e-commerce and local business websites. It can also design websites for content management systems (CMS) including WordPress, Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento), Shopify and more. And if you’re on the fence, SmartSites offers a huge portfolio of its previous work organized by industry, helping you to see what it’s capable of.
But why we really like SmartSites is its local focus. It specializes in redesigning old and tired small business websites to help make them modern and mobile-optimized. Other standout features include on-site SEO implementation, advanced website security, fast loading times and Google Analytics integrations.
SmartSites doesn’t offer ongoing support in its initial design packages, but it is a service you can add on after the fact if you need help. And if you need more assistance, SmartSites also offers logo and graphic design, content writing services and SEO marketing, all of which can help rocket your site to the top of search engine results pages (SERPs).
Local businesses that want a professional-looking site with modern features will appreciate the affordability and breadth of services offered by SmartSites.
Intero Digital made our list of the best SEO services , so it’s not a huge surprise to see it also excel at web design. Intero Digital’s web design services are heavily SEO-focused, meaning your new site should be well-positioned in SERPs. It does this by making lead generation a highlight of every page so you can push your viewers toward a sale. Also, it can design pages that will focus on top-of-funnel leads, hone measurable engagement and support the buyer’s journey.
Along with these digital marketing features, Intero Digital can integrate and migrate your site from an old CMS, optimize the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) and integrate e-commerce features to allow you to sell products directly. It can even work on brand positioning and messaging so you come across as professional, fun, serious—whatever your preferred tone is.
After choosing your CMS, Intero Digital creates a workable sitemap and wireframe. Then, once your site is almost ready, Intero Digital performs a cyclic process to test, analyze and measure your site to make sure it’s running smoothly.
Because Intero Digital is so focused on marketing and offers robust SEO and paid media services, we think it’s a good choice for businesses that can use the service to optimize immediate conversions.
Digital Silk specializes in B2C, B2B and e-commerce solutions. In particular, it creates websites that are optimized for conversion, engagement and traffic. It gives you the choice of creating a custom e-commerce design or using platforms such as Shopify , WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce or BigCommerce. You can also go the WordPress route if that’s what you’re used to.
The process begins with a strategy meeting to find the positioning for your brand, select your target audience and define measurable key performance indicators. From there, Digital Silk plans your site’s structure, begins to design the color and custom elements and adds in responsive elements.
The second to last step is a quality assurance test to make sure your site functions correctly without any bugs. Finally, Digital Silk sets up your server on your behalf, configures the DNS and adds in Cloudflare security protection. If you need other services after your website launches, Digital Silk also offers digital marketing and mobile app development.
Businesses looking to launch a new e-commerce store (or redesign an old one) will love the flexibility of Digital Silk.
If you’re looking to spare no expense, then Clay is the web design agency for you. It’s expensive, but for a reason—it’s trusted by some of the top names in the business, including UPS, Cisco, Uber and more. Unsurprisingly, it also covers a wide range of industries, including fintech, B2B, technology, crypto, e-commerce and more.
When you choose to have Clay build your website, you’re not just getting a stagnant landing page. It offers everything from content strategy and production to interactive experiences. The design team will be led by the co-founders and senior-level teams to ensure your project goes off without a hitch. Clay prides itself on its communication and transparency at every step of the process.
It also boasts that its work is “future-proof,” as many of the websites in its portfolio haven’t been updated for five years. Considering the average website life span is just two years and seven months, that’s some impressive longevity. Naturally, you can also opt for several other services from Clay, including branding, content and development.
Businesses that want to partner with a well-known web design agency can’t go wrong with Clay. Because of the price point, it might be best for businesses with larger pockets.
As soon as you visit the DIGITECH site, you can tell the designers are masters of their craft. The interactive, space-style website delivers a heavy dose of originality that showcases what you can expect with your web design. DIGITECH’s main focus is UX and SEO—both are considered from the very start to help keep coding clean.
It also boasts a content-first approach, meaning that once you nail down your messaging, it will create a visual design focused on your brand. After nailing down the basics, DIGITECH creates a wireframe of your site using FlowMapp, a collaborative tool that allows every team member to contribute. If necessary, it can also use full-stack development to create web applications that take your site to the next level.
Along with many of the other web design agencies on this list, DIGITECH also offers a few other services, including SEO, branding and identity and paid marketing. One thing it doesn’t mention is what happens after your site is complete, so we’re not sure if it includes ongoing support or not.
DIGITECH creates beautiful websites for brands that want to stand out from the crowd. It’s a great pick for businesses that want a marketing website to attract and engage readers.
A web design company is a company that can help you build a website for your business. A web design agency may employ web designers, web developers, graphic designers and UX/UI designers who all contribute their various skills to the production of a website. With their expertise, web design companies can build a site from scratch that’s completely customized for your needs, whether you want a responsive design, e-commerce gateways or interactive features.
Benefits of enlisting a web design company include professional expertise, advanced customization and more.
There’s a lot to consider before choosing a web design company. Here are some of the top factors to think about when you’re narrowing down your options.
Always check a web design company’s portfolio. Many agencies feature a collection of previous websites they’ve designed to showcase their skills. Browse these sites carefully to make sure you like the design and features. If something feels off or you think the design looks amateurish, consider another designer.
This is a given, but you have to make sure a web design company is within your budget. The best way to do this is to reach out for an estimate. After you provide details about your needs, a company can provide a personalized quote to build your site. Collect at least three to five quotes to see which companies are more affordable.
We estimate that it takes about 10 to 14 weeks on average to build a website. The agency you choose should offer a timeline similar to that if they’re competitive. If the agency is in high demand, it may take longer. Other agencies without a lot of clients may take less time. In any case, just make sure the production timeline matches your needs.
Always consider what past customers of the company are saying. Read through reviews on sites, such as Capterra, DesignRush, Clutch and G2, to get an idea of the pros and cons of the service. These reviews can often be far more enlightening than reading a company’s website copy and give tales of real-life experiences.
Web design companies aren’t typically very transparent about their pricing. They’re not intentionally gatekeeping, but rather, they withhold pricing because web design is such a customized experience. What it costs to build a simple one-page website is far different than what it costs for a multi-page e-commerce store.
Listing a standard set of web design prices could be misleading and inaccurate. Even the price ranges we’ve quoted in this article are averages curated from various customer experiences, so they may not reflect what you’d pay for a project. With all of this in mind, a good range for web design services is anywhere from $2,000 up to $150,000.
Typically, most companies are happy to provide a quote if you give them details about what you’re looking for. Companies typically charge by the project, but some do charge by the hour.
For most businesses that want a reputable web presence, hiring a web design company is the right choice. There is web design software available that can guide you in creating a site that will look mostly professional. But if you want advanced features, such as payment gateways, mobile-friendly designs and live chat integration, then having a professional build your site for you is a much better option.
To start, we took a look at ratings for each design service on four review sites: Capterra, DesignRush, Clutch and G2. We automatically disqualified any service that had a cumulative rating of less than 4.5 stars. Some services weren’t rated on every site, but we made sure they had high ratings on at least three of the sites to keep things fair.
After curating the highest-rated services, we then took a look at key offerings. Each service needed to have a thorough design process from start to finish. They also needed to include some industry-specific offerings as well as modern design principles focused on user experience, user interface and search engine optimization.
Other important considerations were whether or not the web design company has worked with any big-name clients. This isn’t a deal-breaker, as many designers purposely focus on local businesses instead of major corporations, and we included some of those picks on our list. However, the bigger the client, the more likely a company will do top-tier work.
Pricing and fees also played a consideration. Most companies did not offer transparent pricing systems since web design is such a complicated and personalized service. However, we were able to ascertain ranges by comparing customer reviews. We tried to find picks that offered good value for the money.
How much companies charge to design a website varies greatly depending on the industry, size of the website and design experience of the company. In our review of the top web design companies, we found companies designing websites for free up to companies charging over $100,000 for a site. The more you pay, the higher quality your site should be.
We recommend taking a look at reviews to see what customers are saying about a company. It’s also vital to look at a web design agency’s portfolio to take a look at their past work. Finally, get a quote from each company you’re considering to see which fits into your budget.
It can take anywhere from 150 to 500 hours to design a website from scratch. It all depends on the complexity and size of the website. A simple website built from a WordPress theme will take far fewer hours to complete than an interactive website completely built and coded from scratch.
Kristy Snyder is a freelance writer and editor with 12 years of experience, currently contributing to the Forbes Advisor Small Business vertical. She uses her experience managing her own successful small business to write articles about software, small business tools, loans, credit cards and online banking. Kristy’s work also appears in Newsweek and Fortune, focusing on personal finance.