Level One Web Design

Q: What's your name and position in the company?
A: Thomas Jay

Q: Describe your company in 5 words.
A: Professional Timely Cutting-Edge Web Design

Q: What's your business philosophy?
A: We attempt to help small to medium-sized businesses with their online presence to help them look current and professional. We create custom websites specifically for their company taking their industry into account. We then try to help them achieve better organic search engine rankings by imparting "best practices" that they should be using to promote their online identity.

Q: Describe your office environment.
A: Professional, but laid back.

Q: Describe how your team interact and work together.
A: We're currently a young company, so there are only two of us, but we've worked together at a previous design company for four years. We tend to agree on almost everything web related, so it's usually easy to find the direction we need to take to tackle various projects.

Q: What makes you different from other web design companies?
A: We deliver on-time and on-budget. We're willing to work with the client to help them get the website they want and in some cases, try to help steer them in the direction that they should be moving in.

Q: How do you get the majority of your business?
A: Referrals

Q: Describe how you manage projects from the initial client contact to completion and handover.
A: Gather information, submit proposal, create site mock-ups, build site from chosen mock-up, get site completion okay, instruct client how to manage it.

Q: What do you think is the most crucial element of creating a good client relationship?
A: Communication. First off, we need to understand the client, their business, their industry and their needs. We then try to help the client understand why we make certain decisions that may not make sense to them if they come from a non-technical background.

Q: How do you manage demanding clients?
A: We've had very little problems with this, but there are occasions where the client will demand that something be a certain way, even if we don't agree that it's the best route that they should be taking. Ultimately, if we've explained our reasoning and the client still wants what they want, we'll do it for them, since it's their website and they're the ones that are paying for it.

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, Portfolio's of previous work, and talking to previous clients that have worked with the companies.

Q: Where do you see your company in 10 years time?
A: Growing and incorporating additional talent and skill-sets that allow us to broaden our overall capabilities.

Q: Where do you see the web design industry in the future?
A: Web technologies are changing daily, so it's likely going to be something we haven't even conceived of yet. Currently, with the addition of HTML5 & CSS3, we have a whole new slew of ways to make more semantic, better looking websites using lighter-weight code that increases the sites download speed, which will play well into the increasing mobile market. Most websites will either be made "Responsive" or have a separate mobile version.

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

Q: How was your company name chosen?
A: We made lists of words that we felt would represent us and then tried to find domain names that would work for those words. While not completely necessary, we did want a .com if we could find one that wasn't taken. We pride ourselves on making top-notch websites, so the "Level One" came from that idea.

Q: If you were to give your clients one tip on how to get the most from their website what would it be?
A: Don't treat your website as an afterthought. In today's world, your website is the face of your organization and should represent your company in the most positive light.