Double your sales! How to find the best web production partner

We need to create a website. However, we lack the technical skills and knowledge for website production in-house.

In such an environment, when the need arises to create a website, the questions of 'Who should we team up with?' and 'To whom should we outsource?' are always present, aren't they? Should we choose based on price, or ease of working together? What criteria should we use to select a partner to lead the project to success?

Also, should we even choose to outsource in the first place? There are cases where it's better to hire someone. In fact, to be honest, if you're serious about your website, you should first consider hiring someone. However, due to various circumstances, there might be cases where you can't hire a web creator and have no choice but to outsource. In such cases, what kind of outsourcing partner should you choose?

This time, we will explain the specific criteria for choosing the right partner. Please refer to situations similar to your current circumstances, including cases where outsourcing is acceptable and situations where hiring someone will definitely lead to better results.

Is a 'strategy for achieving results' incorporated into the production process?

If you are satisfied with just creating a website, you will not achieve any results. What's important is whether you can create a well-thought-out website that leads to results. It's not enough for it to just look cool or stylish; you need a perspective like that of a tool or app, considering whether it's easy for users to obtain information and easy to use.

In such a situation, for example, even if you create a site that only excels in design, it will just end up being 'cool'. It's like tools that are cool but difficult to use, or houses that are stylish but difficult to live in. If the practicality is low, many people will quickly stop using it.

So, will they thoroughly consider design and marketing? Also, let's ask about their 'production process' and how it will be incorporated into the site. If you ask about their production process for achieving results (even if, in the end, not many results were achieved) and there is no 'strategy for generating results,' and they only talk about the process of simply creating a website, then you cannot expect results.

Let me reiterate, the first thing to ask about is the 'production process'. Is there a 'strategy for achieving results' within it? If a strategy for achieving results is integrated, then you can have high expectations. However, there are also cases where you might want a site with high design quality even if it doesn't yield results, and in such instances, I believe it's perfectly fine to choose a partner specializing in design.

Is the past portfolio of satisfactory quality?

A portfolio refers to achievements.

Production companies and freelance creators should all have a portfolio. First, ask to see their portfolio. The more extensive their track record, the higher the probability that they are a reliable partner who can deliver properly. The number of achievements is almost a guarantee.

And let's judge the quality by looking at the portfolio. However, if you haven't interacted much with websites, it might be difficult to determine what kind of site can be considered high quality.

By the way, the quality in this case refers solely to 'design aesthetics'. Regarding programming and technology, frankly, it's difficult to judge when making a decision. Especially concerning programming, it's not something that can be viewed externally, and partners are unlikely to disclose it. The only thing that can be considered as a guarantee of technology is the number of past achievements. For now, we will have no choice but to judge based on design.

When judging what constitutes a high-quality website, it's important to first discard your 'personal preferences.' Your preferences don't directly lead to results. The most important thing is whether the site is easy for users to use, conveys information clearly, and looks visually appealing.

So, after discarding your personal preferences, how should you judge quality? The answer is simple: have many people around you look at it. Then, ask them to evaluate the quality of the portfolio you received. If many people give positive feedback, they would be an excellent partner. If nearly half of the people give negative or unimpressive feedback, honestly, it's better not to make the request. In any case, stop relying on your own feelings to make judgments.

Do they have extensive experience in creating the type of site you want?

There are various types of websites. Different types require different creation methods and suitable partners. Here, we will explain what types of sites exist and what kind of partner is appropriate. Please consider this in relation to the site you need to create.

Corporate WebsiteIn the case of

A corporate website is a homepage for introducing a company. It is mainly used for sales and branding. Nowadays, every company has a website to introduce itself.

To further expand your company's recognition and branding and connect it to sales, what kind of production partner should you team up with? Corporate websites generally don't have very frequent updates. If there's a blog, updates might be frequent, but that's just a blog, and it rarely requires the skills of a technician.

Therefore, if you are only creating a corporate website, there isn't much need to hire an in-house web creator. So, you'll be looking for outsourcing, but what kind of outsourcing partner is suitable?

It would be best to ask a company that can handle information design properly. Pick out corporate websites from their portfolio and actually check them. Then, you can judge the following points yourself.

• Can you understand what the company does within 3-5 seconds of opening the page?
• If vision-focused, is the vision directly conveyed?
• Can you 'without hesitation' grasp the company's strengths and other features?
• Is it engaging or memorable?
• Can you reach the main pages within 2 clicks?

For now, try to check if all four of these points can be achieved 'without hesitation and without feeling out of place.' If you feel unsure by yourself, it's also important to have others try it. Usually, if the information design is not solid, you might get lost in the operation or find it difficult to grasp. If you operate it yourself and get quite lost or understanding doesn't progress smoothly, it might be better to reconsider the request.

In the case of web services

Web services include, for example, 'Tabelog' and 'Hot Pepper.' 'CrowdWorks' and 'Lancers' are also web services. Of course, there are apps that you download and use on smartphones, but any type that provides some service on the web and charges through monthly subscriptions or platform fees can be called a web service.

The partner you should team up with when creating such web services must first be able to respond flexibly. Hypothesis testing and improvements occur frequently, so considering the effort of getting a quote for each outsourced task, it would be cheaper and more flexible to hire someone.

If you rely on outsourcing, you need a partner who can operate at the same level as hiring someone in-house. It's rare for web services to succeed from the outset with everything known. As you proceed, through numerous changes, corrections, hypothesis testing, and improvements, you finally understand what you should be creating. If you work with someone who doesn't understand this, creators may lose motivation due to extensive improvements, or they may be reluctant (or refuse) to make necessary corrections and improvements, often leading to a breakdown in the relationship midway.

Therefore, it's better to approach web service development with a 'system and contract' that can flexibly respond to minor improvements from the start. Rather than deciding what to build from the beginning, you need a partner who can take the stance of creating through trial and error together. Considering this, hiring is still the best strategy, but if you're outsourcing, it might be a good idea to convey this intention from the beginning and ask if it's possible, and if so, what kind of contract formats are available.

For Landing Pages

A landing page is often a single-page website specialized in sales. It's often described as the 'homepage version of TV shopping.' The structure of TV shopping is designed to produce overwhelming results in 'selling products.' Therefore, if you directly adapt the TV shopping structure to a website, it becomes a very 'easy-to-sell site.'

What's essential for a landing page is, above all, 'whether it can produce results.' While visual design is important, it's better to focus on the text and structure. The key is whether viewing the page stimulates purchasing intent. For an event, does it make you want to participate? For an inquiry, does it make you actually want to contact them? If you can create a site that appeals to such human psychology, you can be called a professional landing page creator.

The selection criteria are simple: show the landing page created by the partner to several people who might want that product or service, and see if it piques their interest. If it can make them want it even a little, then that landing page is working effectively, and you can be sure that the production partner has considerable expertise.

If you don't have a track record of landing pages, the top page of a website within their portfolio can serve as a good substitute. If showing the top page similarly stimulates purchasing intent, they can likely develop effective landing pages. In the first place, the meaning of 'landing page' also includes the top page of a website.

Some web production teams specialize in landing pages and accept production requests for them. If you only need a landing page to be created, commissioning a production team that specializes in landing pages is one option.

For Project-Based Sites

These are sites temporarily needed for campaigns or events. While such projects can sometimes be brainstormed with the web production team, it's often the case that the type of campaign is decided, and only the site request is made. Of course, there are also cases where the production team proposes, 'How about this kind of project?'

For such campaigns, the power required from a production partner is often design capability. It's particularly beneficial to have a production partner who can create designs that are fun and convey a world view through graphical presentation. This is because the campaign content itself is already decided, and the production team is not involved in creating the campaign content. If they excel at producing output that makes people want to participate in the project joyfully, that's sufficient.

Therefore, the key is whether you can judge that the design quality is high when you look at the portfolio. However, as I mentioned in other sections, design quality does not equal your personal preference. Objectivity is necessary for judging the quality of design, and it is important that many users find it "good." So, when evaluating a design, always show it to multiple other people and then evaluate their impressions. As a result, if many people evaluate the design as cool or cute, indicating high design quality, you can judge that the partner is capable of appropriate output.

For business system development

For example, systems used internally, such as customer management systems and attendance management systems, are sometimes developed on the web. Such business systems are completely different from typical website production, which aims to increase sales or enhance brand power. Rather than relying on a company that is good at presenting websites, it would be better to entrust it to a team with extensive experience in system development.

In nature, it can be close to web service development, and it goes without saying that continuous hypothesis testing and improvement are necessary. As you use it, you will understand the direction of "this would be better," and you may suddenly be forced to make many changes. It's closer to the idea of creating a "tool" than a web service. It is necessary to have abundant means of verification and improvement, as well as knowledge and expertise regarding usability and ease of handling.

In addition, security needs to be thoroughly built in, so advanced system development knowledge is required. That's why it's better to choose a production partner who has "extensive experience in system development" and, even if you compromise a little on the appearance, seeks knowledge and expertise regarding design as a blueprint (the Japanese word 'sekkei' translates to 'design' in English).

For operation, maintenance, and improvement

Operation and maintenance refers to creating value and making improvements after a website has been produced, so that it can continue to deliver results long-term. Honestly, it's often said that "just building a website is meaningless," and that's because "the truth cannot be determined without actually trying it out" regarding whether the initially created website is optimal for users. Only after launching it to the market and having users try it out do the site's improvement points and user behavior become visible. That's why our production team, "QUON," incorporates user testing into the production process and designs the workflow to create a user-centric site from the start.

In reality, for website production, how well you can continue to make improvements after operations begin is often more important than the initial creation. So, regarding what kind of partner to choose, honestly, it's easier to get results by hiring a creator and continuing improvements in-house rather than outsourcing. If it's in-house, you can constantly analyze your own site, have a deep understanding of the industry, pursue a user perspective, and easily repeat improvements. This is not the case with outsourcing. Even with average technical skills, someone who always takes a user perspective, possesses insight, and can think for themselves – hiring such a person will lead to better results.

If you cannot hire someone, it would be better to find an outsourcing partner who can provide continuous accompanying support. You need a team that will set up regular meetings, genuinely care for your site, and think with you about how to improve it to achieve results. Partner with a team that has expertise in site analysis, can collect data using tools like Google Analytics, analyze improvement points by listening to user feedback, and figure out how to make changes.

Can they also consider the customer acquisition funnel?

A website is meaningless if people don't visit it. Many people say, "My sales aren't increasing, so I want to renew my website," but before renewing the site, there are cases where "not enough people are visiting to measure results, so naturally, sales aren't increasing." For example, simply put, if a product or service is purchased by 1 out of 100 people, it's statistically obvious that sales won't increase if only 10 or 20 people visit the site. In such cases, it's better to think about the user flow design before renewing the site.

Nevertheless, there are production teams that don't consider user flow design when renewing or creating a website. If it's a team that knows about marketing and how to create a website that sells, if you ask them "how to create user flow," they will generously tell you, or at least propose consulting and web marketing services. If no such proposals come forth at all, it means they lack knowledge and insight into attracting customers in the first place, and it's impossible to say they grasp the overall picture of web marketing.

And to achieve results with a website, it's crucial what information is sent, how it's conveyed, and to which customers, to get them to visit the website. Only when the user flow and site content are as precise as a flow of water can they lead to results. How much a site's results improve largely depends on the user flow. For example, even if there's a track record of 10% of visitors making a purchase, it might just be that you happened to have a "customer list of people who want to buy immediately" and guided them from there to achieve that 10 percent. Simply posting the site on social media might not result in even 10% purchases. In other words, the user flow design, which dictates what path to take and who to bring, and the website's structure must always be consistent.

If the content posted on social media promotes "affordable purchases" but the website promotes "high quality," then the message is inconsistent. If an advertisement promotes "expensive but good quality" but the website talks about "friendly service," visitors will just leave the site thinking, "That's not what I wanted." In this way, user flow and site design are not separate but must be consistent. You can assume that a party who doesn't consider this, and has no particular ideas, has limited knowledge and insight into achieving results.

Is the way of working and communication acceptable to me?

I think we each have our own pace when it comes to how we work. For example, some might prefer direct face-to-face communication, while others might prefer minimal communication and contact, as long as good work is delivered by the deadline. Some might want a certain number of meetings, while others prefer as few meetings as possible. Everyone has a pace that makes it easy for them to work. Setting aside the client-production team relationship, there are ways for each to work together easily.

From a client's perspective, they might think that since they are paying, they want the work done thoroughly, but if the production team cannot work in the style they are inherently good at, they might not be able to exert their full potential. Let's consider the production team as a "super powerful weapon."

How a weapon is used is everything. If a weapon is used in an unreasonable way that doesn't match its performance or intended use, it's natural that its full power cannot be unleashed. If there was an incredibly sharp sword and it was used for cooking, it wouldn't even unleash half of its true value. Even though that sword might be able to defeat a demon lord who rules the world. A production team also has characteristics, just like a weapon, and that is their way of working. When placing an order, it's good to have the mindset of looking for a weapon that perfectly suits you.

And the characteristics of a production team are their way of working and communication itself. Can you communicate well with each other? Can you work at a rhythm that you both desire or can tolerate? Is the way of working what you both seek? Choose a production partner whose conditions match or are acceptable to you.

Can you grow to like them as a partner?

In fact, this might account for about half of the whole. If there's a premise of liking each other as partners, a feeling of 'I want to work with this person or company,' then you can overcome any difficulties through trial and error. Conversely, no matter how skilled they are, or how many other conditions are met, if you don't want to work with them as a partner, even minor difficulties might become insurmountable. In fact, unnecessary problems might even arise.

Therefore, consider whether you can grow to like them as a partner and a work colleague to be quite important for the partnership. You could even call it a prerequisite. Since it's a prerequisite, if this condition isn't met, all other conditions will fall apart. It's often said that if you have a 'bad first impression or a bad feeling' about someone, continuing the relationship often leads to trouble and collapse. The same applies to choosing a production partner. Please carefully assess whether you can grow to like the other person and if you can maintain a comfortable and easy-to-work-with relationship.

Summary

I've talked about the criteria for choosing a production partner, but honestly, I don't think it's very common for everything to match perfectly. There will likely be points where you have to compromise. In such cases, it's good to decide beforehand what your non-negotiable points are. 'I can compromise here, but not here.' If you verbalize and decide on such criteria, it will be easier to ultimately decide who to work with.

There are many production teams, and no two are exactly alike. While there may be many technically skilled individuals, only a handful of them can truly become partners. Sometimes you hear the phrase, 'There are countless replacements for technical skills,' but that's not true. Even if there are many technically capable teams, only a handful are truly compatible partners, ones with whom you can work together and achieve results.

If you are fortunate enough to meet a good partner, cherish that team. It's important to consider a long-term relationship and engage with them thoroughly. Beyond that, you will be able to achieve success using the web.