Website Companies: How to Choose the Right Web Agency

For most businesses, the search for website companies starts with a single click and balloons into a months-long chain of meetings. Hundreds of agencies, freelancers and large hosting providers all make the same promises: "original design, mobile-friendly, SEO-focused, fast delivery." A poor pick eats not only the money you spend, but months of operational drag, brand reputation and lost organic traffic. This guide pulls together the contract, technology, pricing and legal checklist you need to choose the right web agency from the crowded field of website-building firms for your specific corporate needs.

Website Company, Web Design Agency, Software House: They Aren't Actually the Same

In the industry, terms like "website companies," "web design firms," and "web agency" are used interchangeably; in reality, their service scopes diverge significantly. Signing with a provider in the wrong category leads to halfway-through-project surprises like "that's not something we do." Let's clarify what each type actually delivers.

Hosting & domain-focused providers: Their core business is selling servers, domain names and SSL certificates. They typically address website design through "ready-made templates + drag-and-drop editors" (JetSite, SiteBuilder, etc.). Fast for SMBs and low-budget brochure sites, but inadequate for corporate projects.
Web design agencies: Heavy emphasis on visual design, brand identity, UI/UX. They build brand-specific designs on top of pre-existing themes for platforms like WordPress, Webflow, Shopify. Their workflow runs Figma → theme customization → content upload.
Digital agencies: Bundle design + SEO + social media + ad management into a single package. They work on annual retainer models, optimizing continuously rather than delivering one-off projects.
Software houses: For projects requiring custom backends — marketplaces, B2B portals, membership systems, calculators, complex API integrations. Deep expertise in Laravel,.NET, Node.js, Python; content-side capabilities may be weak.
Solo freelancers / micro studios: Flexible, fast, cheap; but bottleneck the moment scope grows. Illness, military service, overseas travel can stall your project for weeks.

Picking the right type depends on your project's scale and long-term plan. Talking to a software house for a 5-page brochure site, or signing with a solo freelancer to build a marketplace, are equally distinct flavors of mistake.

Needs Analysis: What Type of Website Do You Actually Need?

Before you start agency-hunting, give an honest answer to: "Do I really know what I want?" The biggest time-sink brandname has seen in the field is the customer who, halfway through, decides "actually, let's add a blog, an online booking, and Turkish-English bilingual support too..." Every added line item changes the price, the delivery date, and the technology choice.

Brochure / corporate presence site (5–15 pages): Home, about, services, references, blog, contact. WordPress + premium theme or a static site generator (Astro, Eleventy) is enough.
Corporate portal: Dealer login, customer portal, document management, order tracking. Requires custom backend.
E-commerce site: Product catalog, cart, payment integration (iyzico, Param, PayTR), shipping, invoicing. WooCommerce, OpenCart, Ticimax, Ideasoft, Shopify, Shopier.
Marketplace: Multi-vendor, commission structure, multi-user dashboards. Pre-built infrastructure is limited; usually means custom software.
Blog / publishing platform: SEO architecture, multiple authors, subscriptions, paywall, ad slots. WordPress with a suitable theme, or Ghost.
SaaS landing + web app: Marketing site is built separately from the application (React/Vue). Often requires two distinct teams.

Before budgeting, write down answers to three questions: 1) What business goal will this site serve (lead, sales, brand, content)? 2) What's my expected monthly traffic? 3) Who will write the content and who will keep it updated? Most botched purchases come down to never having asked the third question.

What Are Web Services? The Full Scope List

"Building a website" is, in practice, the sum of 12–18 separate services. When an agency proposal lands, walk line by line through what's included and what gets billed extra. Typical scope:

Discovery / brief workshop — project goals, target audience, competitor analysis
Information architecture (IA) — sitemap, navigation, user journey
Wireframe — low-fidelity structural drafts (Balsamiq, Figma low-fi)
UI design — high-fidelity visual design (Figma, Adobe XD)
Mockup and prototype — interaction simulation, clickable flow
Development — frontend (HTML/CSS/JS) + backend (PHP/Node/.NET) + database
Content writing — copywriting, SEO-aligned blog posts
Visual production — photography, stock licensing, icons/illustrations, video
SEO foundation — title/description optimization, schema markup, sitemap.xml, robots.txt
Hosting setup — server, domain, SSL, email accounts
Testing — functional, cross-browser, mobile, performance, accessibility
Training — admin panel walkthrough, recorded video
Launch — DNS cutover, 301 redirects from the old site, indexing
Warranty & maintenance — bug-fix window (typically 1–3 months), security updates
Monthly retainer — content updates, performance reports, small enhancements

Two firms can quote anywhere from 50,000 TRY to 250,000 TRY for the same project; the difference usually lies in the "what's in, what's out" lines. Anything not specified in the contract comes back later as an extra invoice. Whether hosting is managed by the agency or by you must be spelled out explicitly.

Typology of Website Firms in Turkey

There are hundreds of providers in the Turkish market, but the vast majority falls under a handful of core archetypes. Each model has distinct strengths and weaknesses, distinct pricing policies, and distinct customer profiles.

1. Large Hosting Companies and Site-Builder Solutions

Large providers like Natro, Turhost, İsimTescil, Hostinger have in recent years stacked "site builder" and "web design service" layers on top of their hosting business. Advantages: hosting + domain + site on a single invoice, fast deployment (within hours), self-service editor. Disadvantages: limited customization, high lock-in risk during migration (templates and custom code don't move to other platforms), no real design brief. Reasonable for a 5-page presentation site; insufficient for a brand-defining project.

2. City-Based Web Design Agencies

Especially across Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Bursa, Antalya — every city hosts 10–50-person agencies. Their typical portfolio is WordPress + premium theme; some also work on the Laravel or.NET side. Agencies with ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certifications, 15+ headcount, and 5+ years of operating history are generally safe bets. Prices range between 60,000–400,000 TRY (2026 data, varies by provider, approximate).

3. Niche / Vertical Specialist Agencies

There are agencies specialized in healthcare, legal, automotive, real estate, e-commerce, tourism. Advantage: they understand the regulations, content standards, and terminology of your sector. Disadvantage: their themes can become eerily similar across the industry, possibly clashing with your "differentiation" claim. For sectors with advertising restrictions like law and healthcare, niche agencies' regulatory knowledge is a major plus.

4. Digital Agencies (360° Service)

They sell design + SEO + social media + ad management + content production as a single package. They work on monthly retainers in the 30,000–150,000 TRY range. Comfortable to bundle everything into one contract; but you can't assume the team is equally strong in every discipline. Typically the design is good, code quality average, SEO superficial. Makes sense for brand-communication-heavy companies; for technical projects, a separate software house may be wiser.

5. Software Houses / Custom Software Firms

The right address for projects requiring complex backends, ERP integration, multiple roles/permissions, mobile apps. They typically use React/Next.js + Node/Java/.NET stacks. The design side is either handled by an in-house UI/UX team or outsourced to a partner agency. Hourly rates run 800–3,500 TRY (2026, depending on seniority and tech). Using one for a brochure site is wasteful overkill.

6. Freelance Developers and Micro Studios

Reachable via Behance, Dribbble, GitHub, LinkedIn. Flexible, fast, comparatively cheap (15,000–80,000 TRY band for small projects). The main risk: dependence on a single person. Illness, military service, another job, lost contact — your project's chance of stalling is multiples higher than with an agency. The clause "all source code, design files, and account credentials are delivered to us in full" is non-negotiable in the contract.

14-Item Evaluation Checklist for Picking the Right Firm

To keep enthusiastic first-meeting promises from turning into three-months-later disappointment, run this checklist past every prospective provider. Demand concrete, measurable answers to each item; evasive answers are a red flag.

Is the portfolio verifiable? Open the reference sites — are they still live, and is the performance/design genuinely the agency's contribution? Fake portfolios are common.
Can I call a current client? Ask for a chance to have a 10-minute phone call with at least 2 customers. If they refuse, think twice.
Who's on the team? Vet the agency's staff on LinkedIn — how many designers, how many developers? There are agencies claiming a "50-person team" while only 4 employees show up on LinkedIn.
Who owns the source code? Does the contract say "all source code, design files, and account credentials belong to the customer"?
Which platform/technology? WordPress, Laravel, custom? Who decides — the agency or you? Is there vendor lock-in risk?
How far does SEO go? Just technical SEO, or does it include content writing? Is there monthly reporting?
Mobile performance target? Is there a numeric Lighthouse mobile score target (90+) in the contract?
Who'll prepare KVKK and privacy notices? Since you are the data controller, will the texts come from a lawyer or as copy-paste?
Accessibility (a11y): Is WCAG 2.2 AA compliance targeted? It carries legal weight for public institutions and large companies.
Performance budget: Are page weight (in KB), TTFB, LCP, INP targets in the contract? Is Core Web Vitals the reference?
Warranty period? Is there a 1-, 3-, or 6-month bug-fix warranty post-launch? Which complaints are resolved free during that window?
How does maintenance work? How many hours of work does the monthly fee cover? How are overage hours billed?
Cancellation terms: If I cancel after 6 months, what do I lose? Under what conditions does the source code become mine?
Exit plan: When the contract ends and I want to switch agencies, how does the handover work? Which documents/credentials will I receive?

If demanding written answers to these 14 items feels rude to you, just consider it a stress test for how professional the agency stays when asked tough questions. The simple rule the brandname team learned in the field: a good agency isn't bothered by hard questions.

Website Pricing: 2026 Turkey Bands

Few providers publish open pricing; most say "depends on the project." The bands below are approximate ranges observed in the Turkish corporate buyer market as of Q1 2026. Varies by provider, city, sector, and urgency. Bands are one-time setup fees; monthly hosting, content, and SEO are separate.

Single landing page (static): 8,000–35,000 TRY (around $250–1,100 USD)
Brochure/corporate presence site (5–10 pages, WordPress + theme): 25,000–90,000 TRY (around $800–2,800 USD)
Corporate site (custom theme, blog, multi-language): 70,000–250,000 TRY (around $2,200–7,800 USD)
E-commerce site (WooCommerce, 100–500 SKUs, payment integration): 80,000–350,000 TRY (around $2,500–11,000 USD)
E-commerce (using Ideasoft, Ticimax): 25,000–120,000 TRY setup + 1,500–6,000 TRY monthly platform fee
Custom web app / B2B portal: 250,000–2,500,000+ TRY
Marketplace: Between 400,000 TRY and 5,000,000+ TRY
Monthly SEO retainer: 12,000–80,000 TRY/month
Monthly maintenance contract (content + technical): 5,000–35,000 TRY/month

Freelancer marketplaces like Armut and Bionluk feature offers starting at 3,000 TRY; but in that price segment, delivery and warranty risks are markedly higher. "Suspiciously cheap" offers usually hide single-theme reuse, missing content migration, and undelivered source code as standard traps.

Contract: Clauses You Must Never Skip

Starting work without a written contract in the web design industry turns into multi-year "there's no proof" disputes. A solid contract should contain the following clauses.

Scope of work: Page count, function list, languages included, image quantities.
Intellectual property rights: Who owns the design files (Figma, Photoshop), source code, and photo rights?
Delivery dates and milestones: Design approval, mid-delivery, launch, warranty period.
Payment plan: 30% upfront + 30% on design approval + 30% on development completion + 10% at launch is a common split.
Revision rights: How many revision rounds are included, how are extra revisions billed?
Late penalty: If the agency delays, what daily deduction applies?
Cancellation and termination: Early-termination conditions, refund ratio, partial-delivery rights.
Confidentiality (NDA): Customer data, internal-process info, future plans won't be shared with third parties.
Warranty period: 1–6 months of post-launch bug-fix warranty.
Liability cap: Maximum exposure for damages caused by agency error (typically the project price).
Dispute resolution: Competent court, arbitration option, mediation procedure.
KVKK compliance: The agency's obligations as a data processor, data processing agreement (DPA).

The contract should not be signed without review by a lawyer. The legal budget runs 5,000–15,000 TRY; on a 200,000 TRY project, treat it as an insurance premium.

Technology Choices: Which Platform for Which Scenario?

The platform an agency pushes for is usually the one most profitable for them — not necessarily the most appropriate for you. The platform decision determines your operating cost over the next 5+ years. For deeper background, see our pieces on software development processes and Nginx configuration.

WordPress: Widespread but Demands Responsibility

Roughly 43% of websites in the world run on WordPress (W3Techs data). Open source, vast ecosystem, thousands of themes and plugins. The most common pick in the Turkish market. But a WordPress install without security updates gets compromised in 6 months via brute-force or plugin vulnerability. Our WordPress SEO plugin recommendations piece is a good starting point on the SEO side.

If you choose WordPress, make sure the agency follows these security standards: regular SALT key rotation, IP whitelist or 2FA on wp-admin, fewer than 20 plugins, an absolute ban on nulled premium themes, automatic core updates enabled, a security plugin like Wordfence/Sucuri/MalCare, and server-level cache as covered in our LSCache guide.

E-commerce: WooCommerce, Ideasoft, Ticimax, Shopify, Custom

The e-commerce decision is not just about design; it's a choice about payment/shipping/accounting integration, tax reporting, and annual operating cost.

WooCommerce (WordPress plugin): Flexible, free, large ecosystem. Requires performance tuning at high traffic. Lives on your hosting, under your responsibility. 0 TRY/month platform fee; but hosting + plugins + security + maintenance = 3,000–15,000 TRY/month.
Ideasoft / Ticimax / TSoft: Turkey's SaaS e-commerce platforms. Quick setup, ready KVKK and e-invoice compliance, local shipping integrations. 1,500–8,000 TRY/month platform fee, possible sales commission. Customization is bounded by the platform.
Shopify: The global SaaS leader. Premium themes, large app store, advantageous for cross-border sales. $29–399 USD monthly + transaction fees. Turkey-specific shipping and invoice integrations are weak.
OpenCart / PrestaShop: Open-source, less popular. Encountered in SMB projects.
Custom (Laravel/Next.js + Stripe/iyzico): For projects with very large catalogs or unusual business rules. 12+ months of development, seven-figure budgets. Stay away unless you're certain it's the right call.

Headless / Modern Stack: Next.js, Astro, SvelteKit

Content lives in a headless CMS (Strapi, Sanity, Contentful, Prismic) while the frontend lives in a separate framework (Next.js, Astro, SvelteKit). Advantages: outstanding speed, SEO-friendly static generation, multi-channel publishing. Disadvantages: setup is complex, maintenance requires senior developers, most small agencies are inexperienced with this architecture. Ideal for high-traffic content sites; overkill for simple corporate sites.

Hosting and Domain Planning

The hosting decision is too often delegated to the wrong person. When you say "the agency handles it" and prepay for a 3–4 year package, parting ways with that agency turns into months of trying to retrieve files. Our hosting types guide explains which scenario calls for which hosting tier.

The domain must always be registered in the customer's name. It belongs in your panel, not the agency's. Otherwise an agency bankruptcy can cost you the domain.
The hosting account should preferably be in your name; the agency can have admin (IAM) access.
cPanel/Plesk passwords must be rotated as soon as you take the project over.
Backup responsibility must be spelled out in the contract; require "weekly off-site backup."
SSL auto-renewal should be guaranteed via Let's Encrypt or similar; our Let's Encrypt SSL setup piece is a useful reference.
DNS management should sit with an independent provider like Cloudflare; you don't want to depend on the agency.

If local hosting in Turkey is preferred, providers like Natro, Turhost, Doruk Net, Veriteknik can be considered. For abroad, Hetzner, DigitalOcean, AWS, Cloudflare Pages, Vercel, Netlify are frequently chosen for modern stacks.

Design Process: From Brief to Launch

A professional agency's process is structured to minimize surprises and maximize visibility. Typical flow of an 8–14 week project:

Week 0 – Brief & Discovery: Goal, target audience, competitors, personas, success criteria are defined. 2–4 hour workshop.
Week 1 – Information architecture: Sitemap, navigation structure, content flow are drafted.
Week 2–3 – Wireframe & UX: Low-fidelity drafts, user journey, interaction points.
Week 4–5 – UI Design: High-fidelity visual design, brand identity application, mobile screens.
Week 6 – Approval & revision: Customer feedback, final revisions, design freeze.
Week 7–10 – Development: Frontend + backend coding, content upload, integrations.
Week 11 – Test & QA: Cross-browser, mobile, accessibility, performance testing.
Week 12 – Training & Documentation: Admin panel walkthrough, recorded video, user guide.
Week 13 – Launch: DNS cutover, 301 redirects from the old site, Search Console submission, sitemap.
Week 14+ – Warranty & monitoring: 1–3 month warranty, performance/SEO tracking.

At every stage the agency should request written sign-off. A verbal "all good" turns into disputes later. Keep written records via Figma comments, email threads, or a project management tool (Asana, ClickUp, Trello).

Content Production: The Knot Most Projects Can't Untangle

60% of website projects slip schedule because of content delays. Customers say "we'll provide the content," then weeks pass without copy or photography arriving. The launch date ends up sliding 2–3 months.

Content scope must be clarified in the contract: how many pages of copy, how many blog posts, how many photos, any video?
Copywriting is a separate line item; the quality of "SEO-friendly copy" claimed by agencies is highly inconsistent.
Photography requires a separate budget. A site stuffed with stock images dilutes brand perception.
Video for a 1-minute corporate intro typically requires a 25,000–150,000 TRY budget.
Translation and localization for English/Arabic/German requires professional translators; Google Translate destroys brand reputation.
Coordinate the content calendar with launch: 4 weeks before launch, 80% of content should be ready.

If the customer is writing the content, the agency should provide a "content template" (Google Doc) that pre-specifies, for each page, the character count, the headings, and the CTAs needed. Without this template, customer-supplied content is always "insufficient/incomplete."

SEO Expectations: Drawing Realistic Boundaries

"SEO-friendly site" is the most over-promised line in the Turkish market. There are 6–18 months and consistent content production between a site being technically SEO-compliant and actually winning organic traffic. Agencies guaranteeing "page 1 on Google" at launch are making impossible promises.

Technical SEO Standard (Should Be Ready at Launch)

Correct title and meta description on every page
Schema markup (Organization, BreadcrumbList, Article, Product)
sitemap.xml and robots.txt properly configured
Canonical URL definitions
Open Graph + Twitter Card meta tags
Mobile-first responsive structure
Core Web Vitals targets (LCP < 2.5s, INP < 200ms, CLS < 0.1)
HTTPS + HSTS enabled
301 redirects from old to new site
Search Console + Google Analytics 4 installed
Hreflang on multilingual sites
Image alt on every image

Validate schema markup correctness with Google's Rich Results Test. Misconfigured schema does more harm than good. Our Technical SEO checklist lists all 50+ items in full.

Off-page and Content SEO: A Journey Outside the Contract

Backlink acquisition, content production, digital PR — these aren't one-time projects but ongoing operations. Done with the agency on a monthly SEO retainer. Realistic results to expect: top 10 for low-competition keywords after 6 months, page 1 for medium-competition terms after 12 months, meaningful position for high-competition terms after 18+ months. Steer clear of anyone who exaggerates this timeline.

Performance and Speed: Put Numeric Targets in the Contract

"Mobile-friendly, loads fast" is not a commitment. Set numeric thresholds. PageSpeed Insights mobile score 80+, LCP < 2.5 seconds, page weight < 1.5MB. What happens if the agency misses these targets? It must be in the contract. Our site optimization guide covers end-to-end performance techniques in detail.

A performance budget can be attached to the contract as a JSON file; before launch, it's checked automatically in the CI/CD pipeline.

Security: Life Continues After Launch

A website doesn't end the day it's built; new vulnerabilities are published every day. The agency's post-launch security responsibility must be spelled out in the contract. A typical corporate security baseline includes: a comprehensive OWASP Top 10 audit, SQL injection protection, XSS and CSP, DDoS protection, JWT security.

Security headers: CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy, Permissions-Policy.
Regular backups: Daily automated DB + weekly file backup + monthly off-site (S3, B2, etc.).
WAF: A Cloudflare, ModSecurity, or comparable layer.
Rate limiting: For login, contact form, and API endpoints — see rate limiting strategies.
Penetration testing: At least one independent pen test per year.
Security monitoring dashboard: 24/7 monitoring with Sentry, BetterStack, UptimeRobot.

KVKK and Legal Obligations

Every website operating in Turkey falls under Law No. 6698 on the Protection of Personal Data (KVKK). It's you, as the data controller, who answers — not the agency. A KVKK breach means seven-figure TRY fines and lasting brand damage.

Disclosure (aydınlatma) text: Which data, for what purpose, for how long is collected; it must be accessible on the site.
Explicit consent: For marketing permission, cookie consent, etc., must be captured via checkbox (cannot be pre-checked by default).
Cookie consent banner: GDPR- and KVKK-compliant, with category-level choice.
Data processing agreement (DPA): With the agency, the hosting provider, the email provider.
VERBIS registration: Mandatory for companies above certain thresholds.
Contact forms: Linked KVKK text, explicit consent checkbox, conscious IP logging.
Additional for e-commerce: Distance sales contract, pre-information text, return/cancellation policy, ETBİS registration.

The agency "copy-pasting" these texts is no substitute for them being prepared by an actual lawyer. With a KVKK lawyer, the full set of texts can be produced for 5,000–25,000 TRY. Don't forget the annual update either.

Common Issues and Prevention

Common complaints we hear in brandname consultancy meetings, and how to prevent them:

"Once the site went live, the agency forgot us" — Put a 3–6 month warranty in the contract, define a response SLA (response within 24 hours mandatory).
"They won't hand over the source code" — Don't pay until the contract clause "all intellectual property rights belong to the customer" is in place.
"The domain is registered in the agency's panel" — On day one, register the domain in your own panel and grant the agency only DNS edit rights.
"There are no design files (Figma)" — A clause requiring delivery of Figma/PSD/AI files must be in the contract.
"The site is slow, nothing works" — Performance budget in the contract before launch; Lighthouse score reported at launch.
"We agreed on 5,000 TRY/month maintenance, but extra invoices keep coming" — The maintenance contract must clarify monthly included hours and overage billing.
"The agency went bankrupt / vanished" — Hosting in your name, source code on GitHub/GitLab in your account, a documented list of access to all third-party accounts in your hands.

Maintenance and Sustainability

Launch isn't the end of the project but the beginning. An unmaintained corporate site decays in 12–18 months: plugins fall out of date, content goes stale, mobile browsers introduce incompatibilities, security holes accumulate. A typical monthly maintenance contract should cover the following.

WordPress core/plugin/theme updates in a planned monthly window
Backup verification via monthly restore tests
Performance reports Lighthouse + Search Console data
SEO ranking reports for the target keyword set
Security scans automated weekly + monthly manual review
Usability testing with real users every 3 months
Content updates X new blog posts per month, Y existing-page updates
Emergency response SLA: 30 minutes for site down, 4 hours for critical errors, 24 hours for normal errors

If you start with an agency without a monthly maintenance contract, the first emergency answer you'll get is "we can look at it for 1,500 TRY/hour." An annual maintenance contract should be thought of like an insurance premium.

Proposal Comparison Template

After collecting offers from 3–5 firms, your head spins. Build a comparison matrix to score every proposal on the same axes. A practical example (0–10 points per item):

Portfolio fit / industry experience
Proposal clarity (is each line item itemized?)
Contract neutrality (balanced, or skewed in favor of the agency?)
Technology choice (no vendor lock-in?)
Team size and seniority
Quality of customer references
SEO/accessibility scope
Performance target (numeric)
Warranty period
Maintenance contract terms
KVKK/legal support
Exit plan
Communication speed (response times during sales conversations)
Total price / value

Score every agency on the same axes; the highest total wins, not the lowest price. 70% of cheap offers score 0 on contract neutrality or exit plan.

Post-Launch: Measurement and Continuous Improvement

The day the site goes live, the real work begins. For the first 90 days, track these metrics weekly.

Search Console: indexed pages, average position, click-through rate (CTR)
Google Analytics 4: sessions, conversions, engagement rate
Lighthouse mobile/desktop scores: 90+ target
Core Web Vitals (CrUX field data)
Server uptime: 99.9%+ target
Form and conversion rate (form fill, phone, WhatsApp)
Feedback and complaint count (usability problems)
Page load time p95

Pulling all this into a single Looker Studio (formerly Data Studio) dashboard lets a monthly 1-hour review meeting reveal trends. Return on investment (ROI) becomes visible.

Red Flags: Stay Away from These Firms

If you see one or more of the following signals, don't sign the contract.

Won't disclose annual revenue but claims "500+ projects"
Shows up with 4 people on LinkedIn but says "50-person team"
Provides a reference list but won't allow contact with any customer
Promises "guaranteed #1 on Google" (impossible)
Contract says "source code is the agency's property"
Insists on registering the domain to its own account
Demands 70%+ as upfront (normal is 30–40%)
Won't provide a written proposal, says "let's settle it on the phone"
Has no physical office address, only a P.O. box
Their own website is slow, dated, lacks SSL

In-house Team vs. Working with an Agency

Above a certain scale, building your own web team becomes economical. A typical 2-person in-house team (UI/UX designer + full-stack developer) costs 80,000–180,000 TRY/month. In-house makes sense for digital projects past that threshold; below it, an agency is more efficient.

Pick in-house: Need to ship 5+ different digital products per month, continuous A/B testing, heavy SEO investment, brand-control obsession.
Pick an agency: 1–2 large projects per year, low ongoing workload, multi-disciplinary expertise needs (design+code+SEO+ads), no in-house management capacity.
Hybrid (in-house + agency support): 1 digital marketing manager in-house, agency for production. Most mid-sized corporate companies' choice.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does a corporate website typically take to build?

A standard corporate presentation site (10–15 pages) takes 8–12 weeks from brief to launch. E-commerce takes 12–20 weeks, custom software 24+ weeks. Agencies offering urgent "fast packages" (4–6 weeks) exist; but in those packages, design originality and SEO depth are usually sacrificed.

Refresh or rebuild from scratch?

If the existing site is 3–5 years old and still pulling traffic in user analytics, consider a refresh (rebrand + theme change + content refresh) rather than a rebuild. Keeping the URL structure minimizes SEO loss. For 5+ year old sites with outdated tech (legacy PHP, jQuery dependencies), a rebuild is the better call. Preserving the existing URL structure and migrating to the new site via 301 redirects is essential.

Stay with the same agency 5 years, or switch frequently?

The ideal model is to objectively evaluate performance every 2–3 years and run a clean transition if a switch is needed. After 5+ years with the same agency, "blind spots" form; the agency stops tracking competing platforms and new technologies. Constant switching, on the other hand, costs 3 months of overhead each time.

Is a free quote really free?

Most agencies prepare the initial proposal at no cost. But detailed RFP (Request For Proposal) prep, prototype work, audit reports may be billed. The typical model is "deducted from the first invoice if the contract is signed."

Checklist: 30-Minute Quick Audit

If you have a meeting with an agency and want to do a fast quality check, run these 12 checks in 30 minutes.

1. Test the agency's own site in Lighthouse — if mobile score is below 80, think twice.
2. Test the agency's site on SSL Labs — anything below an A grade is a no-go.
3. Look at domain age via WHOIS — 3+ years is reasonable.
4. Verify employee count on the LinkedIn company page.
5. Visit 3 reference projects — still live, agency logo still there?
6. Search Google Maps, Trustpilot, Şikayet Var for customer reviews.
7. Are social media accounts active (post within the last 30 days)?
8. Check for ISO 27001/9001/sector-specific certifications, verify them.
9. Are the KVKK disclosure texts on their own site solidly written?
10. Are blog/publications real, or just SEO filler?
11. Is the GitHub/GitLab profile public, are there open-source contributions?
12. Can the tax number and official trade name be verified (e-Birlik, Trade Registry)?

Modern Trends: What's Becoming Standard in 2026?

A 2026-vintage website firm should offer the following items as standard:

AI-assisted content production (Claude, ChatGPT) for blog cadence
Headless CMS + static generation option
WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility baseline
Core Web Vitals contractual targets
Cookie-less analytics (Plausible, Umami) option
Server-side personalization (Cloudflare Workers, Edge Functions)
Multilingual + international SEO (hreflang)
Open Graph + structured data full coverage
Progressive Web App (PWA) option
WhatsApp Business API + chat widget integration
Composable payment integration (iyzico, Param, PayTR, Stripe)
Performance budget JSON contract attachment

An agency that omits these from its proposal hasn't kept up with modern standards. Not all of them are necessary for an ordinary brochure site; but their presence is an indicator of the agency's quality level.

Case Patterns: Three Sectors, Three Approaches

Manufacturing (B2B Industry)

Manufacturer websites are a mix of brochure + dealer portal + product catalog. The audience is procurement managers and engineers; thick catalogs, technical document downloads, and an RFQ (request-for-quote) form take center stage. Design should be clean, content heavy. Typical budget: 80,000–250,000 TRY setup + 8,000–20,000 TRY/month maintenance + SEO.

Service Sector (Healthcare, Legal, Consulting)

This sector has tight advertising regulation (Ministry of Health signage rules, TBB advertising ban, etc.). Site content cannot contain expressions that violate the regulations. Niche agencies are a major plus here. Online appointment module, blog, privacy-compliant case studies are typical line items. Budget: 60,000–180,000 TRY setup + 6,000–18,000 TRY/month.

Retail and E-commerce

Here speed, payment integration, and the mobile experience take priority. Mobile commerce share in Turkey has approached 70%. SaaS platform (Ideasoft, Ticimax), open source (WooCommerce), or international (Shopify) — make the call based on annual sales volume. Budget: 80,000–500,000 TRY setup + 10,000–50,000 TRY/month.

The Payoff of Working with the Right Agency

A well-chosen website firm can deliver, over 3 years: 5–15x organic traffic growth, 20–60% conversion improvement, measurable lift in brand perception. A bad pick eats not only the 200,000 TRY project fee, but 18 months of operational drag and the opportunity cost of lost organic traffic. Combined with the cross-channel integration in our digital marketing guide, ROI compounds exponentially.

References

web.dev — Google's official web performance knowledge base
WordPress documentation
Google Search Central
KVKK Authority official site
iyzico developer documentation
schema.org
WCAG 2.2 accessibility standard
Google Rich Results Test
PageSpeed Insights
W3Techs CMS market share data

Independent technical consulting for your website project

To analyze your needs, evaluate proposals impartially, review the contract, define a performance/SEO baseline, and plan post-launch maintenance, talk to the brandname team get in touch

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