Decision Web Design

Q: What's your name and position in the company?
A: Dan Gaynor - co-owner & Designer, Mick McCarthy, co-owner - SEO & Content.

Q: Describe your company in 5 words.
A: No tricks, just good design.

Q: What's your business philosophy?
A: Web design is all about making choices and managing competing needs. Our philosophy is to create cost-effective create websites that attract traffic, convert visitors to customers, and are customer-focused. Websites without traffic or that do not convert are not worth investing in.

Q: Describe your office environment.
A: Distributed. We have two locations in Ireland (Drogheda & Carlow).

Q: Describe how your team interact and work together.
A: Our team communicates through face-2-face, email, phone, & video-conferencing. Each member of the team brings their own expertise (design, development, copywriting, optimisation, project management, etc.) When preparing a proposal for a customer, all views and options and placed on the table and then we ask: "what is best for the customer?"

Q: What makes you different from other web design companies?
A: Our philosophy is to put our own customer first by under-promising and over-delivering. When designing websites, we do so in the shoes of the visitor. We concentrate on usability, accessibility, visitor conversion, performance, look & feel – all the time optimised with a customer focus.

Q: How do you get the majority of your business?
A: The majority of our business is gained through 2 channels a) word of mouth, and b) online inquiries

Q: Describe how you manage projects from the initial client contact to completion and handover.
A: Customer brief – proposal + alternatives – development – testing – user acceptance – go live – maintenance. SEO & customer-focus throughout all steps.

Q: What do you think is the most crucial element of creating a good client relationship?
A: Number 1 is trust. Number 2 is respect. From these two a good client relationship is formed.

Q: How do you manage demanding clients?
A: If we are in a situation where the customer keeps changing requirements and moving the goal-post, then that says that we did a poor job upfront in understanding the customer's brief. To avoid this, we take extra care in listening to the customer and in providing alternative solutions.

Q: If a client was trying to decide between a shortlist of web design companies, how would you recommend they go about selecting the right one for them?
A: Budget, talk to clients, experience with past solutions to the customer’s requirement, discuss ROI implications with each company, performance targets for the actual website in relation to customer’s objectives. If everyone is still equal then do business with the person with which you have the most rapport.

Q: Where do you see your company in 10 years time?
A: Bigger !! and offering more solutions to customers.

Q: Where do you see the web design industry in the future?
A: With the internet expanding, there will be more and more businesses online competing for the same few search engine results pages. The key for customers will be to select a provider who can deliver cost-effective customer-focused websites that rank well locally, regionally, or nationally.

Q: What computers do you have use in your offices, PCs or Macs?
A: Both PC and Mac

Q: How was your company name chosen?
A: Keyword and market research.

Q: If you were to give your clients one tip on how to get the most from their website what would it be?
A: Focus on the visitor.