When it's time for a new web design, you'll want a design team that really knows their stuff. After all, most consumers these days turn to the Internet first for information, initial research, and product reviews. You'll want a web design team that is cognizant of the current best practices, has a great portfolio, and can tell you directly what's wrong with your current design and what they intend to do differently to start attracting customers and driving new traffic to your site.

Ease of navigation. This is a crucial aspect of any website design. Do you use radial charts or other organizational methods to layout the navigation and understand the user's path through the website? Ask your potential vendors how they intend to go about designing the navigational aspects of your website design.

Consistency of design. Having a consistent design throughout all the pages makes sure the user knows where they are in the site and where they can go to find what they need at all times. This means that the 'feel' of the site must remain consistent throughout the web design. This creates a sense of comfort for the user and ensures they stay on your site longer. A consistent design means the overall mission and message of the site is carried through consistently.

Visual appeal. This is where you get to look at the new team's portfolio of site to see if the work they've done before is visually appealing. Ask them why they used the colors they chose. Does the design carry through to subpages or is it entirely focused on the home page and lost thereafter? Can the user dig deeper into the website design and still know where they are in the Internet?

Speedy download times. In an era of high-speed access, this might not seem like an important factor, but not every user is accessing your website via the highest speeds. Some are working with clunky access, older browsers, and working in remote areas with spotty access. In addition, whose site do you want users to access when bandwidth is compromised? Hint: it's yours, not the competition's.

    Compliant code. This is necessary because you simply do not want to have a high maintenance, unreliable problem on your hands later – long after your web design team has moved on to other projects. Ensuring that your website design team is using W3C standards can be tough, but if you ask them to show you examples of it upfront, they are far more likely to pay attention to that detail throughout the project.

Industry analysts who watch trends in website design are clear that the above factors are still vital to high-quality and highly likeable web designs. It's important when you are interviewing a design team that you communicate the fact that these factors are highly important to you and to your company's ability to grow revenues and earn profits.

Web design teams with good success records will understand what you are looking for, and they'll present portfolio options that help you determine whether they are the right website design and website development team for your needs. Remember, there are many companies out there providing the same thing, but you aren't interested in the same old thing, you want the right thing – what will make your business grow.