Besides choosing a web studio, there is another problem many clients face after paying for and receiving a finished website: the website exists, but nobody finds it in search. The reason is simple: an inexperienced client usually checks only how the site looks, and many web studios take advantage of that.
Search engine optimization is a separate area and is often sold separately, but a website should meet the basic requirements from the very beginning so it can move forward in search naturally. Later it can be improved further if there are many competitors to outrank.
In this article I decided to review the companies that create websites in Aktau and help you choose worthy candidates. You can order a website from other cities in Kazakhstan, Russia, or Ukraine; today that is not a problem. Still, many clients want to meet the contractor in person, look them in the eye, explain the details, discuss options, or push them to fix something if the result is not right.
Where You Can Order a Website
I found 8 candidates in Google.kz search results. Note: the list is currently sorted arbitrarily, not by rating. I wrote them down in the order I found them.
- creativelab.kz
- artvision.kz
- aktausoft.kz
- * webseo.kz
- freshart.biz
- rockets.kz
- stroilexx.kz
- caspian-dream.kz
- mediana.kz
* Our own company, WebSEO.kz, is also on the list, but we will not review ourselves. We could write an honest opinion, but it would not be objective. If one of our competitors ever decides to analyze our website, we will be glad to see it.
How to Choose a Web Studio
Nothing says more about a web studio's quality than its own website. You can also check websites from the portfolio, but those sites may already have been changed by clients after delivery. The studio's own website is the real indicator.
We will compare appearance, internal code, errors, speed, prices, and portfolio.
Comparison criteria:
- Design and usability
- Mobile responsiveness
- Code errors and validity
- Meta tags and headings, including SEO analysis
- Loading speed and optimization
- Prices
- Portfolio size, not portfolio quality
At the end of the article we will summarize all indicators and name the winners.
Comparison of Web Studios
- A convenient, attractive, and clear landing page. You can spend quite a while moving the mouse over the interactive elements and scrolling up and down. (10 points)
- The site has a mobile version and a tablet version. Everything is very convenient. (10 points)
- 74 code errors were found. The code is a mess. I had never seen anything like it and thought a site with this code would not even work, but somehow it does, and it does not even freeze. For that I give it a solid three. (3 points)
- The SEO analysis shows violations of all the main rules. Everything that can be duplicated is duplicated, although the rules say it should not be. I will not describe everything, but the H1 heading is a good example. This is the markup for the most important heading on a site. By all website-building rules there should be only one such heading, but this studio has 7 of them. That is a serious error, and not the only one. (2 points)
- The loading speed is surprisingly good, even though the site itself is large and exceeds recommended standards. I assume this speed was achieved not by improving the site, but by using better hosting. I will not lower the score, but I will not give the maximum either. (7 points)
- Prices and services.
- Business card website - from 30,000 KZT.
- Business website - from 100,000 KZT.
- Corporate website - from 70,000 KZT.
- Online store - from 150,000 KZT.
- Information portal - from 100,000 KZT.
- Support and maintenance - from 10,000 KZT/month.
- The portfolio contains 29 websites.
- A good interface. Everything is easy and simple, and the necessary information appears in the right place at the right time. Usability deserves a solid ten. The only issue is that the footer sometimes jumps on the homepage while comments are scrolling. (10 points)
- Responsiveness exists, but it is not fully polished. On a phone the convenience drops sharply. Spacing is sometimes missing and sometimes too large; some elements should have stretched across the screen but did not, and because reviews auto-scroll on the homepage, the footer keeps jumping, which is distracting. (7 points)
- No serious code errors were found. Everyone has minor errors, and sometimes it is simply impossible to get rid of them, so we will not count those. (10 points)
- The meta tags are in good order. The same is true for headings: the structure is correct and has no unnecessary elements. (10 points)
- The site is lightweight and the loading speed is good. The test showed a very small excess in loading time, but visually I did not notice it, and speed-test results always fluctuate depending on server load and other factors. (10 points)
- For some reason, website prices are fixed, which suggests a template-based approach without considering all the small details a client may need. There is a VIP tariff starting from 500,000 KZT; only then, apparently, will they listen closely.
- Landing Page - 130,000 KZT.
- Business card website - 130,000 KZT.
- Catalog website - 200,000 KZT.
- Online store - 300,000 KZT.
- The portfolio contains 17 websites.
- There is no design. It is not immediately clear what they do or where you have landed. The navigation is tiny and sits in the corner, leading to three almost empty pages, one of which is "Home" and also "About us". Clicking the logo does not take you to the homepage. (0 points)
- There is no responsiveness and no mobile version. (0 points)
- The site uses ancient table layout with a single stylesheet, although most styles are not moved into that file and are written directly in the code. I will not overload you with details. Even in this small amount of code there are serious errors. How they managed that is unclear. (0 points)
- A harsh error was made in the description meta tag, visible in the screenshot. Headings and other hints for search engines are missing completely. The SEO analysis failed. (0 points)
- Loading speed is no longer a meaningful indicator here, but we will score it for the record. (7 points)
- Prices are not listed on the site, and there is no downloadable price list.
- There is a portfolio with 10 websites.
- The large static header is confusing: you click menu items, but visually nothing changes. I had to click around quite a bit to understand what was what, and I still had questions about ordering and prices. (7 points)
- The header links seemed too small and hard to read even on a desktop, and the design is not responsive. On a mobile device it is hard to read and hard to tap the right link. (0 points)
- I have no complaints about the code. Everything is structured and organized. Comments in the code would help anyone who decides to adjust the site or change the code. (10 points)
- Nobody even tried to make life easier for search robots or help the site reach the top. There is no site description, no headings, no subheadings, and no other useful elements. (0 points)
- They also did not try to improve speed. The server is not configured, images are not optimized, but at least they did not make the problem worse with lots of animation. (4 points)
- I did not find prices for the web studio's services.
- The portfolio contains 6 websites dated 2010-2012.
- A minimalist design that still manages to include everything necessary: portfolio, service descriptions, links to download a price list and commercial offer, callback form, contacts, and social networks. I think that is enough. It is a pity the portfolio is not clickable, but picking on small details is not my task here. (10 points)
- Responsiveness exists, but scrolling slide elements spoil the experience again. Portfolio slides do not shrink to 100%, so only part of them is visible and the only option is horizontal scrolling. The scrolling services block changes height, causing the footer and callback form to jump up and down and interfere with entering a phone number. (7 points)
- Code validation produced a poor result. There are enough errors, including serious issues. (2 points)
- There is an error in the headings: the H1 tag appears twice. It seems to be a simple oversight that should surface during the next self-audit and be fixed, because the rest of the headings are acceptable. The meta tags, however, are written poorly and contain validation errors. How this was not noticed and fixed is a mystery. On the plus side, this is the only candidate with configured Open Graph markup and Schema.org microdata, which earns additional points. (8 points)
- Speed is good, but the site could be made lighter and faster without much difficulty. (9 points)
- The prices are vague. Each service in the price list includes a large set of tasks, but the cost of those tasks is not broken down; only a minimum price is shown, either for everything or for any listed task.
- Website development - from 75,000 KZT.
- Promotion and advertising - from 25,000 KZT.
- Website support - from 9,000 KZT.
- I counted 7 websites in the portfolio.
- When you open the site, it feels like you have landed on a construction company's website, even though you were looking for a web studio. Only after careful study does it become clear that the company has two or even three business areas. But why combine all of that on one website? If you create websites, make a separate site for foam blocks, a separate one for interior design, and a separate one for the web studio. Inside the "WEB Studio" section, not everything is immediately clear or convenient either. (3 points)
- The site is responsive, which is good. Everything works and displays as it should, although I think there are too many call, chat, and subscription buttons. (10 points)
- There are quite a few code errors. Many unnecessary empty blocks make the site heavier and add no value. (5 points)
- Heading tags are not properly configured. They exist, but nobody worked on them, and they are scattered chaotically. Necessary headings are missing, and there are many unnecessary ones; that is even worse than having none at all. There are fragments of microdata code, but it looks as if they came from a template that was never fully configured. (0 points)
- Many scripts and uncombined styles make the site very slow. (2 points)
- There is a "Prices" menu item, but no prices are listed there. It would be better to rename it to "What affects the price".
- The "Our Work" section contains 21 websites.
- The design has no distinctive touch, and the appearance does not feel like a web studio. All necessary information is on the homepage, which clients will appreciate: open it, look through it, and understand everything. Even if someone misses the menu pressed to the right edge, it will not be a major problem. (5 points)
- There is no responsiveness or mobile version. (0 points)
- There are code errors and unnecessary clutter. (4 points)
- The meta description is missing. There are empty heading tags and several H1 headings. (0 points)
- The site is very heavy. It loads slowly despite its simplicity. (1 point)
- Website creation prices
- Landing Page - from 35,000 KZT.
- Business card website - from 50,000 KZT.
- Corporate website - from 70,000 KZT.
- Online store - from 120,000 KZT.
- The portfolio consists of 4 websites.
- The design resembles a page of an information portal. There is no main call to action, but the important points, priorities, and awards are described well lower on the page. Graphics are missing in the blog and on many other pages, and dry text is harder to read. On the other hand, there is an online calculator, which improves usability. (9 points)
- The site is not adapted for mobile devices. (0 points)
- 155 errors were found in the homepage code, which is a lot for professionals in this field. In their defense, I can only say that the errors are not especially critical. (4 points)
- Only H1 is present among the headings, and even that was added quite recently. Many other internal improvements were also made recently, although the site itself is almost 7 years old. Improvements are good, but some parameters should have been present from the start. If you decide to add headings, you should do it across the whole site, not only on the homepage. I have no complaints about the meta tags, but an SEO specialist's involvement would clearly help. (5 points)
- No optimization work was done. Images are heavy, scripts are not combined, cache and compression are not configured. (4 points)
- The site says that the 2017 price list is being reviewed and approved. There is an online calculator with a small number of parameters, so I was able to calculate the starting cost for two types of websites.
- Landing Page - from 50,000 KZT.
- Business card website - from 72,000 KZT.
- The portfolio is rightly the biggest point of pride for this site. It contains more than 100 works starting from 2007.
Automatic Website Analysis
Now let us move from a manual audit to automatic website analysis tools. Many resources can help evaluate a site and find its errors, but we will use only two and will not review each site in detail here. We will simply compare the final score.
| Web studio website | PageSpeed Insights | PR-CY Analysis |
|---|---|---|
| creativelab.kz | 59 and 75 (13*) | 65 |
| artvision.kz | 58 and 81 (14*) | 79 |
| aktausoft.kz | 78 and 84 (16*) | 58 |
| webseo.kz | 74 and 90 (16*) | 94 |
| freshart.biz | 59 and 69 (13*) | 51 |
| rockets.kz | 51 and 59 (11*) | 73 |
| stroilexx.kz | 0 and 0 (0*) | 67 |
| caspian-dream.kz | 0 and 0 (0*) | 57 |
| mediana.kz | 51 and 62 (11*) | 71 |
* PageSpeed Insights scores do not affect a site's rating as strongly, so the indicators were added together and divided by 10. This number in brackets is used when calculating the web studio rating.
The last update of all automatic analysis results was April 12, 2017, when mediana.kz was added to the review.
Which Web Studio to Choose
The choice of a web studio is entirely yours. With this review I only tried to make the task easier and explain what you should pay attention to when choosing a contractor for website creation.
Final scores from manual and automatic checks:
- 140 - artvision.kz
- 120 - rockets.kz
- 110 - creativelab.kz
- 104 - mediana.kz
- 87 - stroilexx.kz
- 85 - freshart.biz
- 81 - aktausoft.kz
- 67 - caspian-dream.kz
- XX - webseo.kz (if someone makes a review, our web studio will take its place in this list too)
If this comparison is not enough for you, or if you want to check a website yourself, use a technical website audit and error analysis before ordering work.
Reviews of Web Studios
Write your reviews of web studios in Aktau and elsewhere in the comments, and share your experience of ordering website creation and promotion.
