Best Questions to Ask an Agency on a Website RFP

Design

Can you describe your requirements gathering and prototyping/wireframing process?

Can you describe the graphic design process?

Who would be the creative director on the project? What else have they designed?

Would you recommend Flash or HTML or a combination? [you want HTML here]

What do you do to ensure that design guidelines are met during the development process?

What rate do you charge for design?

Development

What programming language would be site be developed in?

Do you have in-house developers, or would you partner with a development company? If you partner, who is the development partner?

How is the development team broken down (e.g. architect, lead developer, QA, etc.)?

Can you describe the testing process?

What rate do you charge for development?

Platforms

What content management system platform do you recommend?  Can you show me example sites that use it?

Does your CMS platform have proven support for multiple languages?  How does translation work? How does management in multiple languages work?

What email marketing system do you recommend? [look for Constant Contact, MailChimp, Cheetah Mail, Exact Target, etc.]

What site search platform do you recommend? [look for Google]

Hosting

Where would the site be hosted?

What server technologies would the site be hosted on (e.g. Windows, Linux, etc.)?

What do you do to ensure that the site is properly indexed by search engines?

Search Engine Optimization

What steps do you take to ensure optimal on-page SEO?

What do you do for off-page SEO?

Do you have SEO expertise internally or do you work with a partner?

What are the costs associated with SEO?

What are the top three things you do to maximize SEO? [look for blog, W3C standards, linking, etc.]

What do you do to ensure that the site is properly indexed by search engines? [look for reference to googlesitemap.xml]

What tools do you use to assist with lead generation? [look for HubSpot]

Social Media

Does your CMS platform allow us to publish content  to Facebook? Twitter? Others?

How would I change the design and functionality of the Facebook page down the road?

Do you have experience managing a social media presence?

Mobile

Do you have experience building mobile sites? Can you show me some examples?

Do you normally recommend using the same design as the website for the mobile site or a different one? [you want to see a different design for each]

Would your CMS publish content to both the website and the mobile site or would I need separate systems for this?

Do you recommend a mobile app? Why? [probably don’t need for corporate site]

What did I miss?