“Best” is not a single thing
An agency that excels at large ecommerce builds may be poorly suited to a five-page site for a local firm. A brilliant design studio may not be the right choice for a complex integration project.
The useful question is not who is best overall, but who is the best fit for this project, this budget and this team.
What to evaluate
Relevant experience
Not just an impressive portfolio — work comparable to yours in complexity and type. Ask to see something similar and check whether it is still live and still performing.
Verify their claims yourself
Run their portfolio sites through a page speed test. Check them on a phone. Try navigating with a keyboard. An agency that talks about performance and ships slow sites has told you something useful.
How they communicate during the sale
This predicts how they will communicate during the project. Slow, vague or evasive answers now will not improve once they have your deposit.
Who actually does the work
In larger agencies, the people who pitch are often not the people who build. Ask who will be on your project and whether you will speak to them directly.
Comparing quotes fairly
Quotes are rarely comparable as written. One may include content writing, another may not. One may include three months of support, another thirty days. One may be a template build, another fully custom.
Ask each supplier for the same specific things: what is included, what is explicitly excluded, what happens after launch, what ongoing costs there are, and who owns what.
The cheapest quote is often cheapest because it covers less. That can be fine, as long as you know it.
Warning signs
Unwillingness to give any pricing indication before a long sales process. Guaranteed rankings. Full payment up front. Refusal to hand over hosting or domain access. Proprietary platforms you cannot leave. No written scope.
Where we fit
We suit businesses that want a fast, accessible, search-visible site and direct access to the people building it. We are a good fit for projects from around £1,450 to £25,000, and for ongoing SEO and marketing retainers.
We are not the right choice for very large enterprise programmes needing a big account team, or for businesses wanting the cheapest possible option. When we are not the right fit, we say so on the first call.
To see how we deliver this work ourselves, read our Backend Web Development and Custom Web Apps page.
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