“I didn’t feel any of the local providers presented compelling creative.”
At first glance, this kind of feedback sounds like it’s all about visuals. But in reality, it often points to something much deeper, a lack of strategy, unclear thinking behind the design, and nothing that truly aligns with the business goals.
When clients begin a website design project, they often start by imagining what the site will look like. That’s completely natural, after all, design is the most visible part of the process. But focusing too heavily on aesthetics without evaluating the thinking behind it can lead to a final product that looks good but doesn’t perform.
This guide is here to help you go beyond the visuals, to evaluate an agency’s process, priorities, and partnership approach, so you don’t just end up with a beautiful site, but one that actually works for your business.
1. Evaluate Their Discovery and Strategy Process
A great website doesn’t start with design—it starts with discovery.
Before any wireframes are created or colors are chosen, a strong agency will lead you through a discovery process that helps define goals, clarify your audience, map out user journeys, and build a strategy that drives the entire project forward.
Here’s what to look for:
- Do they ask smart, strategic questions up front? Are they trying to understand your business, your customers, your challenges, and what success looks like to you?
- Do they talk about user journeys and content strategy? A thoughtful agency will consider how users will interact with your site from first visit to conversion, not just what the homepage looks like.
- Do they offer discovery as a separate service? This is often a good sign that they take strategy seriously. Discovery can be a standalone engagement or the first phase of a larger project, but either way, it shows they value clarity before execution.
- Do they bring insights or just ask for direction? Agencies that simply wait for you to tell them what to build aren’t partners—they’re order takers. Look for a team that brings ideas to the table and helps shape the project with you.
Discovery isn’t just a checkbox. It’s what ensures the website you end up with actually supports the business you’re trying to grow.
At Holler Digital, we offer discovery as a separate service because we believe strategy should lead design, not follow it. Our goal isn’t just to launch a good-looking website, but to create one that is built to meet your business objectives from day one.
By starting with discovery, we’re able to:
- Clarify your goals and priorities
- Understand your users and how they navigate
- Identify opportunities for SEO and content improvements
- Uncover gaps that may be holding your current site back
This approach ensures the final product is more than just compelling creative, it’s a tool for measurable business growth.
It also drastically reduces the chances of scope creep. With clear goals and a defined strategy in place, we’re able to provide a quote for the remainder of the project that’s 99% accurate, not based on guesswork, assumptions, or what we built for the last client. That means fewer surprises, more predictability, and a smoother process for everyone involved.
2. Evaluate the Design Thinking Behind the Work
Once the strategy is in place, the next step is translating that into a design that supports your goals. This is where many projects lose momentum—when design becomes more about trends and visuals than function and intention.
Here’s how to evaluate whether an agency’s design work is rooted in smart thinking:
- Do their designs vary by industry and audience? Or do they all follow the same formula? Strong agencies tailor their design approach to each client, not just re-skin a past project.
- Can they explain the “why” behind design decisions? Design choices should be tied to user needs and business objectives. If everything is based on aesthetics alone, that’s a red flag.
- Do they think beyond the homepage? Anyone can design a flashy hero section. Look for an agency that considers the entire user journey, from landing pages to contact forms to calls-to-action.
- Are accessibility and usability part of the design process? A visually impressive site isn’t a success if it’s frustrating to use or inaccessible to a portion of your audience.
- Do they prototype, test, or iterate on their ideas? Design is rarely perfect on the first pass. The best agencies build in space for refinement and feedback before finalizing anything.
Compelling creative isn’t about showing off, it’s about clarity, connection, and conversion. The right design partner will know how to balance beauty with business impact.
At Holler Digital, our website design process starts with understanding both your business and your design preferences. We kick things off with our 20-Second Gut Test—a quick aesthetic assessment that gives us a sense of your visual taste and instincts.
From there, we don’t jump straight into layouts. Instead, we begin with a website style guide that includes fonts, colors, and core UI elements. We then create style tiles to give you a feel for how your brand could come to life online—these are reviewed together to ensure alignment before we move forward.
As a content-first agency, our content outline often acts as the wireframe. Once content priorities and page flow are clear, we move into homepage design, using early reviews to ensure it aligns with both business goals and user journeys.
We then design the full site and present it as an interactive prototype, giving you a realistic view of how the experience will feel—and another opportunity for feedback before development begins.
The result? A design that not only looks great but also reflects your brand, supports your users, and stays rooted in purpose.
3. Evaluate Their Approach to Technology and Performance
A beautiful design means nothing if the site is slow, inaccessible, or difficult to maintain. When evaluating a web agency, it’s critical to understand how they handle the technical side of things because that’s what ultimately impacts user experience, SEO, and long-term scalability.
Here’s what to look for:
- Do they talk about performance? Ask if they run tools like Lighthouse or GTmetrix during development. Are they optimizing assets, lazy loading media, minimizing scripts, and testing on mobile? If performance isn’t a part of their process, that’s a red flag.
- Do they follow best practices for SEO and accessibility? A modern agency should understand and implement semantic HTML, structured headings, alt text, and metadata. Bonus points for including schema markup and accessibility standards like WCAG 2.1.
- Are they building on the right platform for your needs? Make sure the CMS or technology stack they recommend isn’t just what they’re comfortable with—it should align with your goals and your team’s capabilities. Can you make updates yourself? Can it scale? Is it future-proof?
At Holler Digital, performance is part of the foundation, not a final polish. We build fast, responsive, and SEO-friendly websites using clean code, smart infrastructure, and modern best practices.
We also provide high-performance WordPress hosting, Edmonton’s Fastest Web Hosting, with server-side caching, real-time monitoring, and proactive support to ensure your site runs fast long after launch. Because a website that looks great but loads slowly, especially on mobile, isn’t serving your business or your users.
Bottom line: don’t just evaluate how a site looks. Ask how it works, how it scales, and how it’s built to perform.
4. Quick Tip: Test Your Site’s Performance
Not sure how your current website stacks up?
Try running a free test using:
Look for:
- Performance Score (aim for 80% or higher)
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) under 2.5 seconds
- Any red or orange warnings around images, scripts, or loading behavior
These tools can help you spot major issues and give you a solid starting point for improvement. You can even use them to test sites featured in an agency’s portfolio to see how their work performs in the real world, not just how it looks.
And if the results are confusing? We walk through these reports as part of our free website audit at Holler Digital.
5. Ask About Third-Party Integrations and Business Systems
Your website shouldn’t live in a silo. A strong digital partner will think beyond pages and pixels to ensure your site supports the tools and systems that power your business.
When evaluating an agency, ask:
- Can the website integrate with your CRM or marketing automation tools?
- Do they have experience working with the platforms you already use (like Salesforce, HubSpot, Mailchimp, or custom tools)?
- Can the website send leads, purchases, or form data directly into your backend systems?
- Are they thinking about future integrations and scalability?
At Holler Digital, we build websites that play nicely with the rest of your tech stack. Whether you’re using a custom CRM, email marketing tools, scheduling apps, or e-commerce platforms, we make sure your website supports—not disrupts—your existing operations.
Because a high-performing website isn’t just a digital front door. It’s a connected part of your business engine.
6. Post-Launch Support & Partnership
A great web design agency should do more than hand you a website and walk away. Look at what other services they offer and whether those align with your long-term goals.
After your site goes live, what happens next?
- Do they offer regular check-ins, reports, or performance audits?
- Is there training or documentation to help your team manage the site?
- Can they support you with ongoing SEO, content, or campaign work?
These offerings are more than just add-ons—they’re a signal that the agency sees themselves as a partner, not just a vendor.
At Holler Digital, we offer ongoing support, SEO, performance optimization, CRM strategy, and digital marketing services because we know your website is just one part of a much bigger picture. We aim to be a long-term digital partner, supporting your growth beyond launch day.
Choosing an agency with a broader view of your digital ecosystem can save you time, money, and countless headaches down the road.
Wrapping It Up: Choose With Clarity
Choosing the right web design agency isn’t just about who has the flashiest portfolio. It’s about finding a partner who understands your business goals, thinks strategically, and has the technical expertise to deliver a site that performs as good as it looks.
Start by defining what success looks like for your website—whether it’s generating leads, building credibility, or streamlining operations. Then look for a team that listens, asks smart questions, and has a process built around delivering measurable outcomes.
At the end of the day, your website should be a powerful business tool, not just a pretty page. And the agency you choose should be every bit as focused on growth, usability, and long-term value as you are.
You’re not looking to build a Ferrari that just turns heads—you want a BMW: elegant, dependable, high-performing, and built for the real world. Design and function working together without unnecessary complexity.
If you’re ready to talk about your next web project or just want a second opinion on your current site, we’re here to help.
Request a Free Website Audit or Book a Discovery Session with Holler Digital.
