Most people only hire a web designer once every few years, so it is not something you get much practice at. You are spending real money on something you cannot fully judge until it is finished, and half the industry speaks in jargon that makes it hard to compare one quote against another. No wonder the whole thing feels like a bit of a gamble.
I have picked up a fair few clients over the years who came to me after a first website went wrong. The pattern is nearly always the same. The build itself was fine. What caught them out was everything around it: who owned the site, what the ongoing costs were, how quickly they could get a change made, whether it was ever going to bring in any work. Those are the things that decide whether you are happy in two years, and they are exactly the things that rarely come up in the sales chat.
So this is less a list of technical boxes to tick and more the conversation I would want a friend to have before they signed anything.
Start with what you actually need the site to do
Before you speak to anyone, get clear on the job. A website is not one thing. A joiner who wants the phone to ring needs something very different from a shop selling online, and both are different again from a consultant who mainly needs to look credible when someone Googles their name.
If your goal is enquiries, say so plainly at the first meeting and watch how the designer responds. The good ones will start asking about your customers, how people usually find you, and what a decent month of work looks like. The ones to be wary of will steer straight to how it will look, or start listing features. A pretty site that nobody contacts is a failure dressed up as a success. This is really the heart of it, and it is why we build every site around turning visitors into enquiries rather than just looking the part.
Look at their work, then look a little harder
Everyone will show you a portfolio, and every portfolio looks good, because designers only put their best three or four jobs in it. That tells you they can make something attractive. It does not tell you much else.
Push past the screenshots. Ask for a couple of sites they built a year or two ago and go and visit them on your phone. Are they still up? Do they load quickly? Does the business still seem to be trading? A designer whose older work has quietly rotted or been replaced is telling you something. And if you can, ask for the name of a client you could actually ring. A two-minute chat with someone who has lived with the finished site for a year is worth more than any case study.
It is also worth checking they have built for businesses roughly like yours. Someone who mostly does restaurants and photographers may not understand how a trade customer searches, or where things like Gas Safe or NICEIC registration need to sit to build trust. It is not a dealbreaker, but it is a fair question.
Ask who owns the website when it is finished
This is the one people forget, and the one that causes the most grief later. When the site is built and paid for, who owns it? Can you take it elsewhere if you ever want to?
Some designers build on their own closed platform, so the site only works while you keep paying them. That is not automatically wrong, and a fair monthly arrangement that includes hosting, updates and support can suit a small business well. Ours does, and plenty of people prefer not owning the technical headache. But you should know which model you are buying into before you sign, not discover it the day you want to move.
Ask two plain questions. If I stop working with you, what happens to my website? And who controls the domain name? Your domain, the web address itself, should be registered in your name with you as the owner. If a designer registers it under their own account, walk away, or at the very least get it moved before you go any further. I have seen businesses effectively held hostage over a domain they thought was theirs.
Get the ongoing costs in writing
The build price is the number everyone fixates on, but it is rarely where the real cost sits. A website needs hosting, a security certificate, software updates and the odd fix when something breaks. It will also need actual changes over its life, because your business will not stand still.
So ask what happens after launch. What does hosting cost? What is included, and what gets charged as an extra? If you want to add a new service page or swap a phone number in six months, is that a quick email or a fresh invoice? Get it written down. A cheap build with vague, open-ended charges after it can easily cost more over two years than a slightly dearer one with everything rolled into a clear monthly fee. If you want a fuller sense of the numbers involved, I have written separately about what a small business website should cost.
Be honest about turnaround and support
Think about how you will actually work with this person once the site is live. When you email asking for a small change, do you get it done that week, or does it disappear for a fortnight? For most small businesses, being able to get a quick change made, or to reach a real human when something goes wrong, matters more day to day than any clever feature in the original build.
Ask how they handle support and roughly how fast they turn things around. You are not just buying a website. You are starting a working relationship, and a designer who goes quiet after the invoice is paid is a common and expensive disappointment.
Watch for a few quiet red flags
A handful of things should make you slow down. A price that is dramatically lower than everyone else usually means corners are being cut somewhere, often in the parts you cannot see. A designer who only talks about looks and never about customers or enquiries is building you an ornament. Vague answers about ownership, hosting or ongoing costs tend to stay vague until the bill lands. And a very long tie-in with heavy exit fees is worth reading carefully before you commit.
None of these are automatically disqualifying. But each one is a reason to ask another question rather than sign.
Trust the conversation as much as the quote
In the end, you are choosing a person, or a small team, as much as a service. The right designer will ask about your business before they talk about themselves, explain things without drowning you in jargon, and be straight with you about what a website can and cannot do. If someone promises to get you to the top of Google in a fortnight, or waves away a sensible question, that is your answer.
A good website is not a one-off purchase you forget about. It is a tool that should quietly bring in work for years, and getting it built by someone who understands that is worth taking your time over. If you would like a straight, no-pressure conversation about what your business actually needs, and an honest view on whether we are the right fit, get in touch and tell us a bit about what you do. We would far rather talk you through the sensible option than sell you the expensive one.