Finding the Best Website Design Agencies: Reviews of the Top 4 Agencies

If you’re a growing company considering a new website design, you’ll weigh a few options.

You could hire a team of freelancers on UpWork.

You could do it all in-house.

Or, you could scour the HubSpot Partner page and find an agency to work with. While it will seem like you have your pick of agencies, in truth, what you have is a massive list of partners. And you’ll quickly learn that there are a ton of web design agencies out there with various pricing tiers and experience.

While I’m biased, because Lean Labs is an agency that offers great web design services, we’re not a fit for everyone. There are some web design agencies besides Lean Labs that are exceptional options, due to their professionalism, talent, and employees.

Finding the Best Website Design Agencies: Reviewing Top 4 Agencies

In my experience, before you hire a web design agency, it’s critical to do a few things first. You need to understand the problem you’re solving for your customer and the value you bring to the market. If you don’t can’t articulate why your customer would hire you, or what they’re looking to accomplish, you’ll have a hard time building a site, no matter who you choose.

Then, to really understand whether or not a web design agency is a match, you need a solid understanding of your website goals and objectives. You want to figure out your expectations. Do you want to work with a local agency? Do you mind working with a remote team? What’s your timeline?

From there, you can evaluate some of the best web design agencies out there.

#1. SmartBug 

SmartBug Media is a diamond agency partner with HubSpot, located in Irvine, CA. SmartBug serves North and South America, as well as Europe, the Middle East and Africa, specializing in financial services, medical wellness, and technology software. Their clients, such as AFPA Fitness, Ingram Micro, and BLINK Design Group, love their support, expertise, and follow-up.

“SmartBug is an agency full of experts without all the ego. Our dedicated strategists are always thinking 5-10 steps ahead and very communicative about each task they execute. It's not just about getting it done – they also teach us why we should be doing it a certain way.” - Elizabeth Yu, MBA, Quest Software

SmartBug has a well-documented website strategy approach that includes time for website discovery, the buyer journey, content and SEO, and development.

#2. IMPACT 

 

I have a few friends who work (and have worked) at IMPACT, so I might have a small bias here. I’ve also gotten the opportunity to hear people from IMPACT speak at Traffic and Conversion, as well as Inbound.

IMPACT is another diamond agency partner located in New Haven, CT, specializing in business services, medical wellness, and ECommerce. They serve North America and the EMEA. IMPACT clients, such as Label Insight, Accent Computer Solutions, and Lien Desk, call them strategic, smart, and likable.

“Working with Impact has not only given us a great new website that is driving way more business, but they are a joy to work with. Super responsive, and struck a good balance of bringing their expertise as well as keeping our voice and vision.” - Kelly Rogala, The Go Game

IMPACT'S agile web design process is based on user research and continuous improvement. You can also hire them for additional custom development work, such as ROI calculators and complex integrations.

 #3. Salted Stone

 

Salted Stone is a highly experienced web design agency, serving North America, EMEA, as well as APAC. They specialize in architecture, automotive transport, and construction renovation, with offices in Los Angeles, CA, USA & Sydney, NSW, Australia. Salted Stone is a diamond agency partner, with clients raving about their web design abilities.

“On a typical website project, there are always discrepancies between the initial mockups and the final implementation. With SaltedStone, I have been blown away by their capacity to make the design mockups become real in the templates implementation -there is literally no difference.” - Aurelien Blaha, Digimind

Salted Stone works directly with key stakeholders to develop strong website branding and content before building out wireframes and layouts.

 #4. New Breed

New Breed is a web design agency and diamond agency partner in Burlington, Vermont, serving North America, South America, EMEA, and APAC. They serve technology software, consulting advisory, and technology hardware storage companies. Their clients love their methodical approach and exceptional communication.

“It was fantastic having New Breed in our corner for our website redesign. Not only were they great communicators, project managers, and developers, they felt very much like an extension of our team. In New Breed, we got a partner in our project that was invested in all the details, from big to small.” - Eric Sagalyn, Salsify

New Breed's website projects include phases to build out persona planning, information architecture, design and content, as well as template development.

The Right Approach To Web Design

The web design agency you choose for your new website or redesign can be the difference between a mediocre website and an excellent site. However, aside from selecting the right agency, you also need to understand where you’re currently at with your website performance, and how you hope to improve.

We use a free tool with twelve strategic questions to determine the health of websites, using our Website Health Exam. Using the exam, you can gauge the effectiveness of your existing site and how much change you need to experience better performance.