The Top Web Design Companies to Hire in 2020

A visually stunning website is a must in today’s hyper-competitive environment. You need to look memorable, convenient, and helpful. The best design companies exercise their technical skills to produce the maximum effect. What’s more, they design with respect to your core message, brand identity, user behavior, and requirements.

To bring you the best web design on the market, we thoroughly researched the various aspects of how these companies do business and the value they produce for their clients. We checked out the companies’ own websites as well as their clients’ websites, expecting the same respect and appreciation for midsized companies, enterprises, and small start-ups alike. Here are the main categories we explored to make sure you choose the company that suits you best:

1. Company service focus
2. Ability to meet quality goals
3. Online reputation, reviews, interviews
4. Team management, customer support
5. Cost efficiency, value for money

To help you decide which of the best web design companies are for you, we’ve listed the primary industry focuses and main services offered by the 20 companies we selected here. We prioritized companies whose primary focus is web design. After all, we didn’t want to let their online reputation and any positive reviews relating to other services like digital marketing or app development mask lower-quality web design.

Most companies do both web design and web development or offer separate logo design and branding services. Depending on how far ahead you are with your business vision and website framework, it may be a good idea to combine some of the features the company offers, like graphic and web design (if you don’t yet have a logo), or web design and branding (if your brand is not clearly defined). Some web design companies may also recommend other experts.

We have also listed the industry focus or the specific niche each company has worked with. Some have more experience working with healthcare, medicine, real estate, or e-commerce. This is important, as you’ll want to take advantage of their experience to help you meet industry goals in a broader sense. You should always bear this in mind when choosing the right web design business.

When web design is done effectively, the minute you visit a company’s website, you know what they’re about. There are several important quality standards that we want to see. We evaluated over 70 companies, and you’d be surprised how many we dropped after seeing their own websites. Some common issues included messed up alignment, an ineffective use of contrast that draws the viewer’s attention to the wrong things, a chosen type that’s difficult to read, or letters that are too small. About 20% of the websites were ditched right away because they didn’t tick this box. If some of the allegedly top web design companies can’t make their own websites look good, there’s little they can do for others, right?

Understanding your customer’s business objectives and goals is a key aspect of web design—and any business cooperation in general. What is the website’s primary purpose? To amuse, inform, or sell products? Ideally, these parameters are clearly stated before the design process even starts, and everything is done with regards to this information. Who is the site meant for, and what do they expect to find there? Does the website follow the target audience’s navigation logic? Do the visuals entice the user’s attention and imagination?

A responsive web design is a must when it comes to delivering a quality final product. In today’s mobile-first industry standard, making sure your website is equally approachable, appealing, and functional across devices is of vital importance. That’s where desktop and mobile design come to mind. So we have checked at least 15 of their clients’ websites’ responsiveness to make sure no quality is lost when moving from desktop to mobile web design.

Most web designers use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. On an open a webpage, HTML and other languages provide information on the style and structure related to the header, footer, and page layout in general, as well as site colors and image positioning. We checked if the companies are using up-to-date web design software to produce websites that work well in various browsers and devices. We also paid close attention to exactly how easy it will be to keep using the website in the long run.

The content of some websites is updated on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis. That’s why most use simple creation tools, as it makes optimization easier. We interviewed customers to check just how easy it was for them to keep their website operational with little need for ongoing support from the web design team.  

Whether they outsource web design teams or have in-house designers, the most effective web design firms’ project management and design teams are innovative and creative; they know their aesthetics and are fully aware of the high stakes of user-centric web design.

After evaluating whether every agency was good enough when it came to the value they provide for your company, we decided to dig deeper. We ditched a large number of web design firms during the first phase of the evaluation process, so when it was time to conduct client and employee interviews, the company list had already been culled pretty well.

We took a deep dive into the inner workings of numerous companies to find out if their quality of service would match our standards. It was also important to check how effective each company was at communication. A great deal of your cooperation with your web design agency of choice will be process-based—and it can go on for months. Therefore, it’s vital to choose a company that will provide value that represents your core beliefs and message, your brand, and your unique plans for the future.

In order to make sure your work relationship is professional, easygoing, and enjoyable, we went through company reviews on Trustpilot, Google, and elsewhere. We also set up a pretend venture and signed up for these companies’ services; we then flooded them with tedious questions and demands so we could observe their behavior. Only the most respectful, courteous, helpful, and precise answers landed firms on our web design company names list.

The companies we listed were tested for the following company culture features:

• Successful, two-way communication with clients, and whether the company is client-oriented and open to suggestions, comments, questions, and cooperation.
• Response frequency, or how quickly the company responds to your email. How about to your messages on social networks, or your complaints? Are they available when they say they are?
• Adherence to deadlines, living up to prognoses, and whether the company is honest and realistic. Keeping promises and making correct assessments means a great deal when time is money. So we interviewed clients and checked online credentials and reviews. Only the web design agencies that honor their agreements made it to our list.
• Transparency in reporting, or whether the company checks in with you when any large piece of work is finished. Mistakes and misunderstandings always occur, but the damage is reduced a great deal if mistakes are caught early. Company portfolios gave us a fine insight into their work plans and organization style.

We made sure your ride will run smoothly by checking each company’s management style. Some web design agencies will even switch to the management tool your employees are already using to better suit your needs. Check if this is an option.

Integrating you, the customer, into the design process will help build more appropriate, custom solutions and reduce expenses. We did some mock tests and client interviews to make sure you’re covered.

When are employees stressed? When their future is insecure, when the planning skills are terrible, and when they fear for the success of their projects in the absence of proven solutions. There’s no room for this sort of behavior as you work with your chosen web design firm.

The cost of your web design will depend on a wide array of factors. During our pricing evaluation process, we sought out cost-effective solutions instead of focusing on particularly pricy or cheap ones.

• We checked company characteristics like transparency, honesty, and adherence to deadlines to make sure there are no hidden technical and financial pitfalls. We made sure you’d be covered.
• We checked specifications like the services offered and industry focus or niche experience. You can use these indicators to find the right match for your budget level, technical expectations, and the amount of time you’re willing to invest. Web design pricing ranges from under $10,000 up to $50,000 per project.

Finally, decide on your pricing preferences, and you’re ready to go! Enjoy the process, and your visually stunning, user-friendly, easy-to-navigate website will soon be the envy of your competition.