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Chicago Web Development Agency | Web Design
Looking for Chicago web development companies?
Digital Authority Partners has the experienced, proven team to take your web development project to the next level.
Let’s Talk About Your Web Project
Julian Gnatenco, CEO @ JGBilling Group
In less than three months, Digital Authority Partners has designed and developed one of the most visually engaging, user friendly and sleek websites we’ve ever seen. We’re now miles ahead of our competition. And with the help of DAP’s SEO and marketing services, after 15 months of working together, we’ve increased leads 300% year over year and more than doubled our revenue.
Work With One Of Chicago’s Top Web Development Agencies.
Digital Authority Partners is an award-winning professional services agency that helps Chicago businesses create immersive web experiences. We deliver customized websites that form the centerpiece of companies’ brand identity, profitability, and growth strategy.
As a Chicago web development agency, we understand what it takes for Chicago companies to compete locally and on a national stage. Our track record of successful delivery includes industry-leading web experiences for organizations ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies.
We Don’t Just Develop Your Next Amazing Website.
We Help You Grow Your Digital Presence As Well
We look at your current users and customers, gathering qualitative and quantitative data that will inform the best user experience to engage and hold their attention. We don’t just make our best guess and leave it at that, either—we test our assumptions by putting your website in the hands of actual users, getting feedback from their experience, and making adjustments based on those observations.
No single manager, director, or stakeholder has the magic key to unlock the best web experience. We talk to every stakeholder with an interest in the success of the website to discover the core purpose behind the development process—what success looks like to them. By first knowing where we want to go, we can draw up a plan to get there.
Your brand is your organization’s most important asset. The real estate, the inventory, the intellectual property–none of it matters without brand awareness and brand reputation. Mindful of this, we approach your web development project as a centerpiece of your brand strategy—not just a website for its own sake, but a critical tool to develop the strength of your business.
You may have an idea of what you want your website to do, but no idea how to do it. That’s completely okay! That’s our job. We invite our clients to let their imaginations run wild. You can even come to us with an idea that you want to turn into a business, and our Chicago web development team will use their experience and expertise to design the perfect solution to make that business a reality.
We look at your current users and customers, gathering qualitative and quantitative data that will inform the best user experience to engage and hold their attention. We don’t just make our best guess and leave it at that, either—we test our assumptions by putting your website in the hands of actual users, getting feedback from their experience, and making adjustments based on those observations.
No single manager, director, or stakeholder has the magic key to unlock the best web experience. We talk to every stakeholder with an interest in the success of the website to discover the core purpose behind the development process—what success looks like to them. By first knowing where we want to go, we can draw up a plan to get there.
Your brand is your organization’s most important asset. The real estate, the inventory, the intellectual property–none of it matters without brand awareness and brand reputation. Mindful of this, we approach your web development project as a centerpiece of your brand strategy—not just a website for its own sake, but a critical tool to develop the strength of your business.
You may have an idea of what you want your website to do, but no idea how to do it. That’s completely okay! That’s our job. We invite our clients to let their imaginations run wild. You can even come to us with an idea that you want to turn into a business, and our Chicago web development team will use their experience and expertise to design the perfect solution to make that business a reality.
DAP performs a thorough inventory of your current inventory of written, audio, and video content, with an eye toward freshness, relevance, and responsiveness to user demand. To build a content strategy going forward, we have to know where you’re at right now. You may be underutilizing your current content and have unrealized opportunities to repurpose it.
“User personas” are an avatar for your generic user. You may have several user personas regularly frequenting your site, and you need to customize your web experience to each of them. We use AI persona generators to model your ideal users—even giving them names! We’re not designing for the whole known universe, but for Shaun who resonates with your brand message or Shauna who needs your specific product.
Once we understand where you are with your content, we need to determine how far apart we are from where you want to be. DAP performs a comprehensive gap analysis that determines what your content strategy is missing, so we can make a step-by-step action plan to bridge the gap.
A big part of brand messaging is a unified style. Your users can’t build a relationship with your brand if they feel like there’s a different person talking to them every time they encounter your brand. We standardize and systematize your brand voice with a uniform style guide, customized to your brand and mindful of its values and purpose.
DAP performs a thorough inventory of your current inventory of written, audio, and video content, with an eye toward freshness, relevance, and responsiveness to user demand. To build a content strategy going forward, we have to know where you’re at right now. You may be underutilizing your current content and have unrealized opportunities to repurpose it.
“User personas” are an avatar for your generic user. You may have several user personas regularly frequenting your site, and you need to customize your web experience to each of them. We use AI persona generators to model your ideal users—even giving them names! We’re not designing for the whole known universe, but for Shaun who resonates with your brand message or Shauna who needs your specific product.
Once we understand where you are with your content, we need to determine how far apart we are from where you want to be. DAP performs a comprehensive gap analysis that determines what your content strategy is missing, so we can make a step-by-step action plan to bridge the gap.
A big part of brand messaging is a unified style. Your users can’t build a relationship with your brand if they feel like there’s a different person talking to them every time they encounter your brand. We standardize and systematize your brand voice with a uniform style guide, customized to your brand and mindful of its values and purpose.
Just like physical products, digital products like a website benefit from a robust prototyping process. A prototype of a website allows you to test-drive the experience, identifying problem areas and giving feedback to help bring the website into alignment with your brand message.
DAP’s Chicago web development team includes UX experts who understand how users prefer to interact with websites, removing any unforced errors in the experience design that stand between you and your user. With airtight UX, your users can have an immersive brand experience that builds customer relationships and delivers needle-moving results.
Just because you aren’t a Pixar animator, it doesn’t mean you are doomed to a boring website. DAP employs expert animators and illustrators that add the “wow” factor to your website. From explainer videos to microinteractions, we design 21st-century web experiences with painstaking attention to the details that make a difference.
Just as content needs to be unified, so too does design. We create design systems customized to your brand that unify a user’s visual experience of your brand, whether the user is viewing your home page, sub page, blog, social media assets, or any other branded property.
Just like physical products, digital products like a website benefit from a robust prototyping process. A prototype of a website allows you to test-drive the experience, identifying problem areas and giving feedback to help bring the website into alignment with your brand message.
DAP’s Chicago web development team includes UX experts who understand how users prefer to interact with websites, removing any unforced errors in the experience design that stand between you and your user. With airtight UX, your users can have an immersive brand experience that builds customer relationships and delivers needle-moving results.
Just because you aren’t a Pixar animator, it doesn’t mean you are doomed to a boring website. DAP employs expert animators and illustrators that add the “wow” factor to your website. From explainer videos to microinteractions, we design 21st-century web experiences with painstaking attention to the details that make a difference.
Just as content needs to be unified, so too does design. We create design systems customized to your brand that unify a user’s visual experience of your brand, whether the user is viewing your home page, sub page, blog, social media assets, or any other branded property.
Modern websites often perform the same functions we expect from mobile apps. They must often integrate seamlessly with the brand’s mobile app, so actions on the mobile app reflect on the website and vice versa. With a good web app, the website is the product or service. DAP develops websites with an eye toward making the website a service unto itself.
Websites must also impress users on whatever screen or device they find themselves on—whether it be a desktop browser, tablet, or smartphone. DAP designs fully-responsive websites that preserve their beauty and UX on any size screen, and retain their speed and function on any speed of processor.
Many websites fail to fully realize their potential because they are not designed with search engine optimization in mind. The most beautiful website in the world does an organization no good if no one can find it. We optimize your website for search deployment, including on-page SEO, keyword optimization, and crawlability.
Cybercrime is a danger to everyone. Data breaches can end companies large and small. Some organizations may have stiff regulatory burdens to comply with in terms of cybersecurity. DAP takes care to develop every project to requisite security standards, choosing the platform and architecture best suited to provide the right level of protection.
Modern websites often perform the same functions we expect from mobile apps. They must often integrate seamlessly with the brand’s mobile app, so actions on the mobile app reflect on the website and vice versa. With a good web app, the website is the product or service. DAP develops websites with an eye toward making the website a service unto itself.
Websites must also impress users on whatever screen or device they find themselves on—whether it be a desktop browser, tablet, or smartphone. DAP designs fully-responsive websites that preserve their beauty and UX on any size screen, and retain their speed and function on any speed of processor.
Many websites fail to fully realize their potential because they are not designed with search engine optimization in mind. The most beautiful website in the world does an organization no good if no one can find it. We optimize your website for search deployment, including on-page SEO, keyword optimization, and crawlability.
Cybercrime is a danger to everyone. Data breaches can end companies large and small. Some organizations may have stiff regulatory burdens to comply with in terms of cybersecurity. DAP takes care to develop every project to requisite security standards, choosing the platform and architecture best suited to provide the right level of protection.
Tracking your data will only get you so far if you don’t have a clear understanding of which data points are truly meaningful for your business and why. We will help you sort through the noise to pinpoint your key performance indicators (KPIs), so that your data analysis can truly guide your decision making and point you in the right direction.
Event taxonomies represent a foundational piece of your analytics strategy, giving you a clearer understanding of the range of user behavior across your website and what it means. DAP’s analytics experts will help you create taxonomies that cut through the noise and give you a clear view of how your users are interacting with your site, and what it means.
Entrepreneurs and executives rarely have time to do A/B testing. It’s tedious work, but it’s essential in determining whether or not you are truly putting your best foot forward with respect to UX and content. DAP takes care of the A/B testing for you, exhaustively contrasting different UX and design approaches to zero in on the most effective option.
It’s easy to become lost in the sea of data available from different reporting tools and platforms. We will configure your data to align with the agreed upon KPIs in a manner that highlights the critical information you need and the relevant takeaways, giving you the tools to make the right decisions simply and efficiently.
Tracking your data will only get you so far if you don’t have a clear understanding of which data points are truly meaningful for your business and why. We will help you sort through the noise to pinpoint your key performance indicators (KPIs), so that your data analysis can truly guide your decision making and point you in the right direction.
Event taxonomies represent a foundational piece of your analytics strategy, giving you a clearer understanding of the range of user behavior across your website and what it means. DAP’s analytics experts will help you create taxonomies that cut through the noise and give you a clear view of how your users are interacting with your site, and what it means.
Entrepreneurs and executives rarely have time to do A/B testing. It’s tedious work, but it’s essential in determining whether or not you are truly putting your best foot forward with respect to UX and content. DAP takes care of the A/B testing for you, exhaustively contrasting different UX and design approaches to zero in on the most effective option.
It’s easy to become lost in the sea of data available from different reporting tools and platforms. We will configure your data to align with the agreed upon KPIs in a manner that highlights the critical information you need and the relevant takeaways, giving you the tools to make the right decisions simply and efficiently.
Again, if no one can find your website, what’s the point? In addition to making the site searchable, DAP pays extra attention to on-page SEO, including lean design, meta content, tagging, proper nesting, and interlinking. We can also provide a comprehensive content SEO strategy to improve your site’s authority and visibility.
Finding the right strategies for cultivating a core audience and continually engaging them with relevant content that will deliver valuable users to your site is critical for any business. We can help you resourcefully grow your email audience and implement strategies that will leverage that audience for maximum value.
Too many companies eat into their valuable marketing budget with a poorly thought-out paid search strategy. We will help you identify the opportunities that will actually deliver a positive ROI for your business, helping you zero in on the tactics and strategies that are most likely to generate relevant leads.
Website design is just the beginning. DAP also uses the same design systems and style guidance to develop marketing collateral—from white papers to banners to social media ads—that unify around brand visual signifiers and messages. Everywhere a user encounters your brand, they will find the same unity of design and message.
Again, if no one can find your website, what’s the point? In addition to making the site searchable, DAP pays extra attention to on-page SEO, including lean design, meta content, tagging, proper nesting, and interlinking. We can also provide a comprehensive content SEO strategy to improve your site’s authority and visibility.
Finding the right strategies for cultivating a core audience and continually engaging them with relevant content that will deliver valuable users to your site is critical for any business. We can help you resourcefully grow your email audience and implement strategies that will leverage that audience for maximum value.
Too many companies eat into their valuable marketing budget with a poorly thought-out paid search strategy. We will help you identify the opportunities that will actually deliver a positive ROI for your business, helping you zero in on the tactics and strategies that are most likely to generate relevant leads.
Website design is just the beginning. DAP also uses the same design systems and style guidance to develop marketing collateral—from white papers to banners to social media ads—that unify around brand visual signifiers and messages. Everywhere a user encounters your brand, they will find the same unity of design and message.
Creating Immersive Web Experiences Across Web, Tablet and Mobile since 2015
You may have heard of numerous ways a website can be built, but WordPress probably keeps coming up. And that’s because 35% of the web is built on WordPress. There’s a reason for this. WordPress started as a blogging platform but quickly became a go-to tool to execute a cost-effective web development strategy. When you choose WordPress, you’re choosing the tool used to build the official websites for PlayStation, Yelp, eBay, the Walt Disney Company, and 75 million other websites.
WordPress allows you to develop a website without having to write code from scratch. It’s not the only platform for which this is true, but WordPress is favored by developers like DAP because it is infinitely customizable. Once you know how to use WordPress, there’s no need to expend the time and money building a website from the ground up. If you can imagine it, WordPress can do it.
WordPress has useful features, including:
- Cloud-Based Development Platform. You, your web developer, or your site admins can access the back-end bones of your website from anywhere in the world, on any device, provided that you have an internet connection and your login credentials. Whether you need to make a change, post a blog, or collect analytics, your site is there for you, wherever you go.
- 54,000+ Free Plugins. Plugins add features to your website easily, without having to edit the code of your website. The robust selection of plugins makes WordPress even easier and more cost-effective to customize. Popular plugins include analytics, eCommerce integrations, social media integrations, and SEO tools.
- Safe and Secure. WordPress is one of the safest and most secure web platforms on the market. DAP takes additional precautions to protect your website from cybercriminals and comply with web security mandates.
DAP is a leading WordPress developer in Chicago. It is a powerful tool in creating web experiences without limits.
There’s more to a successful ecommerce site than putting a “Buy Now” button on a product page. The best ecommerce sites are money machines that generate sales with minimal input from the site owner. To accomplish this, an ecom site needs to walk customers through a buyer’s journey designed to end with a purchase.
The typical buyer’s journey moves customers through three stages: awareness, consideration, and decision. Buyer’s journeys on ecom sites differ from other sites—calibrated to collect leads, schedule sales calls, etc.—because they have to get the buyer to that “Checkout” button. Weakness in the buyer’s journey at any point could lead to inaction, abandoned carts, and sales lost to competitors.
Whether retail sales are a company’s central revenue stream or they only use their ecom platform to sell swag, DAP’s Chicago web development team designs world-class customer journeys in every ecommerce website we develop.
Awareness comes from marketing, but the site itself must do the heavy lifting of consideration, leading to decision.
- Trust. Customers only hit “Complete Purchase” on stores that they trust. DAP builds ecommerce sites that emphasize trust vectors at every touchpoint, including encryption and data security, testimonials, watchdog certifications, and regulatory compliance.
- Content. Nearly half of all buyers look at 3-5 pieces of content produced by a company before they ever even reach out to that company. If your marketing strategy includes SEO and social media marketing, your content is probably the way most customers discover your brand. DAP takes a proactive approach to generating useful, appealing content for every ecom site. It’s not a luxury; it’s a cornerstone of ecommerce.
- Remarketing. Without arming an ecommerce site for remarketing, your traffic is like ships passing in the night, never to be seen again. DAP arms ecom sites in development with the tools needed to remarket to visitors who don’t take action on the site, as well as reclaim visitors who abandon shopping carts.
- Urgency. A sense of urgency raises buying temperature and prevents comparison-shopping of competitors. DAP automates the creation of urgency through time-sensitive discounts, inventory counters, and other techniques encouraging visitors to buy now.
DAP takes a thorough, comprehensive approach to ecommerce development, building user experiences that close sales.
For some websites, XML Web services, and integrated web applications, .NET development is preferable to WordPress development. .NET is an open-source framework created by Microsoft designed to code for Windows, Microsoft Azure Cloud, and XML Web services.
.NET consists of the sprawling Framework Class Library (FCL), with language interoperability assured by Common Language Runtime (CLR). The framework was designed to speed up development, reduce the cost of development, and make deployment easier.
- Less Coding. .NET framework is designed around object-oriented coding, which eliminates superfluous coding and allows developers to reuse code and other components. Less coding means lower costs.
- Easy Deployment. After development comes deployment, and the .NET framework is designed for easy deployment. It’s built for safe code execution with reduced code conflicts, as well as deployment-friendly features like side-by-side versioning, controlled code sharing, and partially trusted code.
- Security. .NET development uses ASP.NET security, which supports three different forms of authentication. CLR and FCL also offer code-access security, role-based security, and other provisions for secure development and deployment of web services.
- Interoperability. .NET is a language-independent framework, allowing DAP developers to pick the compliant language best suited to your development project. Options include C#, managed C++, IronPython, IronRuby, VB.NET, Visual COBOL, and many more.
- Service-Oriented Architecture. .NET is a great choice for Web Services, because applications coded in different languages, even on different platforms, can interact and interoperate with each other.
- Legacy Integrations. .NET can process all types of XML files and quickly write files into any format, making it easy to integrate your .NET development project with legacy systems.
DAP’s Chicago web development team can offer an informed opinion about the appropriateness of .NET Framework for your project. If it’s the way to go, DAP employs the best .NET development team in Chicago.
Developed in 1995, Java web development is everywhere on the internet—in embedded systems, web scripting games, mobile apps, and much more. Most online banking applications use Java, as do industry-leading enterprise websites like facebook.com, amazon.com, google.com, and other giants.
The best reason to choose Java web development is the desire for maximum flexibility. Java is designed to be platform-independent. The programming language is associated with the acronym WORA—“Write Once, Run Anywhere.” Java code can run in almost any system or on almost any platform.
Other reasons to choose Java for your web development project include:
- Security. Java web development is a great choice for security-conscious organizations because of the many security features built into Java development platforms. These include encryption, advanced authentication, and access control, combining to make Java web development one of the most secure options.
- Robust API Selection. Java provides a rich selection of application programming interfaces (APIs). If Java doesn’t have an API for a function, a compatible API can almost always be found in open source libraries like Apache POI, Apache Commons, and Google Guava.
- Multi-Threading. Java’s support of multi-threading makes it the ideal choice to program sites and applications that require multiple users or multiple threads to operate at one time. Multi-thread environments built in Java are faster, more reliable, and perform multiple operations seamlessly.
- Scalable. One of the reasons organizations and enterprises program in Java is the scalability of the Java language. Sites written in Java can easily be adapted to handle a huge uptick in traffic or activity. Java programming is also easy to scale horizontally.
- Object-Oriented Programming. OOP allows code to be reused and easily managed, making the development process easier, more affordable, and repeatable.
DAP employs the most talented Java development team in Chicago. We recommend Java development for enterprises, financial service companies, and many other complex web experiences.
Schedule your free consultation
Have questions about a Chicago website development project? Schedule a consultation with a DAP expert today and find out what we can do for your business.
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“We love nothing more than helping clients take a massive digital step forward with one of our development projects.” Michael Reddy |
Looking for your Next Web Development Agency in Chicago? We Work with the Very Best
Epocrates
Game-Changing Medical Reference Web App
Healthcare
Epocrates came to DAP to create an immersive subscription web app that medical professionals and medical students can use to quickly cross-reference medication interactions, drug safety information, disease information, and alternative medicines.
Dickson
Industry Leaders in Environmental Monitoring and Regulatory Compliance
Manufacturing
This B2B service provider needed robust content to answer specialized questions on the minds of their warm market—entrepreneurs in highly-regulated industries with sensitive compliance needs. Trust and authority is the name of the game when compliance is on the line.
Emory University
Second-Oldest Private University in Georgia
Healthcare
Struggling like all universities with COVID-19 restrictions, Emory University came to DAP to punch up their web presence and remain relevant to students facing the prospect of remote learning and disconnection from the brand.
Hiresphere
Immersive, Automated Employment Marketplace
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Hiresphere came to DAP to design a first-of-its-kind “control panel” for job-seekers and hiring managers to manage their job searches and talent searches like a business—an ingenious SaaS back office, but for hiring. They had the idea; we brought it to life.
State of Illinois Comptroller
Public Servant and State CFO
Government
With all government services making the move to digital offerings, the State Comptroller came to DAP to create an immersive website that would offer many comptroller services online. Since the comptroller is the chief financial officer of the state, security and privacy was of the essence, in addition to seamless UX.
Green Target
Strategic B2B Public Relations Agency
Professional Services Agency
Few industries suffer from a subpar web experience like PR. Green Target came to us to help align their web presence with their brand voice and reflect their authority as leaders in the Chicago public relations space.
The DAP Difference
Find out why so many businesses have placed their trust in DAP for their Chicago web development project.
Simply put, there’s no platform we aren’t fluent with. There’s no device we haven’t worked with with our Chicago-based clients. We’ve seen it all, and we are ready to leverage that knowledge and experience to propel your business forward.
We also stay steadfastly focused on the project’s budget, making sure to deliver high level results while staying within the projects’ financial guidelines.
From the Consumer Electronics Show to Time Magazine and CNBC, prestigious organizations have recognized DAP’s Chicago web development work as innovative, intuitive, and industry-leading.
When you work with DAP, you get more than web development. You get a partner committed to anticipating your needs and exceeding your goals.
Some of Our Work
Game-Changing Medical Reference Web App
Industry Leaders in Environmental Monitoring and Regulatory Compliance
Second-Oldest Private University in Georgia
Immersive, Automated Employment Marketplace
Public Servant and State CFO
Strategic B2B Public Relations Agency
Why work with us on your next Chicago Web Development Project
From building and testing your website to providing marketing strategies and ongoing support, DAP has expertise in every step of the website development process.
Concept
1-2 weeks
Work with one of our expert product managers to define the scope of your website, prioritize features, and write product requirements. Don’t worry—we do all the heavy lifting! Let your imagination run wild.
Design
2-3 weeks
Watch as your idea comes to life! We create the visual blueprint for your immersive new website. Your vision gets sketched out on multiple mood boards—you choose the best style for your brand.
Development
4-6 weeks
Sit back and relax while our award-winning team of Chicago developers creates the features and functionality for your new site.
Launch and Maintenance
Ongoing
Prepare for the big day! Your new website is launched into production with all the virtual fanfare we can muster for this amazing day.
SEO & Marketing
Ongoing
Reach new audiences, acquire new customers, and grow your online presence with our SEO and Marketing services. Our approach is guaranteed to meet your key performance goals and set your new website up for success.
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