Website Design Services

What you need to know before you outsource website design

The number of website design firms and freelance contractors offering their services to design and code your next website is virtually unlimited. Web code is an international language which eliminates local, state and national barriers when evaluating the available talent pool. A quick web search will identify a plethora of firms at the ready. Search for website themes and templates and you'll find commerce sites like Envato Market with an overwhelming selection of website themes and add-ons at surprisingly low prices. So why even hire a design firm?

The answer as to why to hire a design firm or consultant lies with the availability of a website manager to your team. Do you have a team member that knows HTML5, CSS and the principals behind responsive website design? If you want a dynamic website that stores and populates some or all of your site's content by interacting with a database, then you'll need to be sure your website manager understands more advanced website languages like php as well as how to manage a MYSQL or MSSQL database.

Decision makers should familiarize themselves with basic website terminology prior to hiring a website design firm or an employee to manage their company's website(s).

The Basics

Here are slamdunkmarketing.com's standards for every website we design. We suggest you incorporate these standards in the coding requirements for your websites. We only deliver responsive websites that are HTML5 compliant utilizing standard cascading style sheets (CSS) with site-specific variations in colors, fonts, etc.

In addition to creating site templates to make updating websites easier and more consistent, we also build our templates utilizing php include files for portions of the site most often updated including site navigation and footers. Include files allow the site manager to make site-wide changes without having to open site templates and/or page files.

We store Meta Data in a database to make it easier to update and to help prevent duplication in meta tags. The website templates and themes we build utilize php to pull the appropriate meta data into the individual site pages.

We balance site design and visual appeal with functionality. In addition to creating responsive websites, we consider how the website design and delivery can make the site more accessible for individuals with disabilities.

Code. Test. Recode. Repeat™

Even the smallest website encompasses thousands to tens of thousands of lines of code. It is unrealistic to think that any website designer or website manager will create flawless code without continually testing the code, tweaking the code and retesting.

Bootstrap 3 and Bootstrap 4 Upgrade Services

We will update your site's existing templates to take advantage of the speed gains available when you convert a website based on Bootstrap or Bootstrap 4 templates to Bootstrap 5. As long as you're updating your site's code, you should probably consider creating a new look and updating your site's content and content marketing plan.

If you plan on handling the update from an earlier version of Bootstrap, we have a suite of free Bootstrap 5 tools to make the transition easier for you.