When it comes to choosing an agency to work with when designing or redesigning a website, clients have an overwhelming number of options, making it difficult to know which is the right choice. But your relationship with an agency is a pretty close one — and it’s one that can last for months, so we'd recommend you look for a good fit. As a Webflow agency ourselves (👋) we've seen hundreds of client relationships from the inside out at Edgar Allan, both good and not-so-good. From that experience, here are a few tips on how to choose a partner that'll hopefully result in a working relationship that's more joyous than cringy.

First, what kind of project are you working on?

We could go on and on about why we love Webflow and why it’s the best choice for building today’s web, but we’re going to assume you’ve already made up your mind and want to move forward with building your site on the platform.

Before you can choose the right Webflow agency or freelancer for your project, you need to determine exactly what it is that you need done, along with a rough idea of your budget. At Edgar Allan, our work usually falls in this spectrum:

1. Straightforward Webflow migrations – For these projects, the majority of the work is migrating an existing site to the Webflow platform (and usually from WordPress), with minor, if any, updates to content or design.

2. Blended brand and Webflow projects – These projects include some migration and some new elements as well. Often, some of that new work comes in the form of branding and design: drafting off of the audience research, tone decisions and other strategic work that comes out of that, we may change the site experience in a meaningful way (like updating the site outline to be more user-friendly, and rethinking the way that pages are organized).

3. Full on, from-scratch, brand-to-build projects – These projects are appropriate for clients that don’t have any sort of web presence, for new brands or products, or companies that have a website but want to start from zero with an updated or new brand, visual identity, content, page design and experience. 

The kind of work you need done will dictate the Webflow agency you choose.

There are a lot of agencies that work in Webflow — all with different kinds of experience and offerings. They’re not all built the same however, and you’ll want to look to your project goals to help you choose. Many Webflow agencies, for example, only do straightforward migrations, while others prefer to build sites from scratch. The third choice is where things get interesting. Working with a brand-to-build capable agency like Edgar Allan offers you the most flexibility: Since we’re able to do it all, if we get into the project and you decide that you want to add elements to your site, we’ll be able to accommodate those changes (and this kind of thing happens all the time).

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Tailor your project — and its budget — to your needs.

As you consider what kind of project you need, you should also consider your budget. It probably goes without saying that from-scratch, brand-to-build projects are going to be considerably more expensive than straight-up Webflow migrations — but they’re often also necessary, and have good ROI in the long run. When you begin speaking with agencies, make your priorities clear, and work with your agency partner to find a solution that works best for you. 

One tip: A good agency will work with its clients to design projects together, not try to pigeonhole work into a templated, one-size-fits-all project plan. At Edgar Allan, we work with our clients to design projects together, lending our expertise to help shape the scope of work and inform exactly what we’ll be helping with. That way, everyone goes into the project with expectations set appropriately for exactly what’s being paid for, promised, and delivered.

How is Edgar Allan different from other Webflow agencies?

At Edgar Allan, we do it all. From branding to content design to SEO to UX to design to animation to 3D to development to training our clients on the Webflow platform, we can handle just about any client request. And if our client asks us for something that isn’t in our wheelhouse, we’ll help them find the best partner for their project and work in tandem with them to deliver something great.

We’ve also been working in Webflow for nearly 10 years — the entire time that we’ve been an agency, and more than twice as long as most other Webflow agencies. In that time, we’ve gotten the chance to work on basically every kind of Webflow site, including:

·   Enterprise work for major corporations

·   Complex, brand- and design-heavy builds

·   Cool animations

·   Apps

·   A personal 3D clubhouse

And after 10 years of great work, we were just recognized as the 2022 Webflow Agency of the Year. We’re pretty excited about it — and for what it means for our future as an agency. If you’d like to work with us, please reach out. We’ll work with you to meet your project needs and find the best solution for your brand and business.

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