Most people choose a web designer once or twice in a working life, so there is no chance to get good at it. The quotes arrive, they vary wildly, and every proposal sounds confident. This guide gives you the questions I would ask if I were hiring, and what the answers tell you.
I am a web designer in Dartmouth, so I am not neutral. But these questions are the ones I would want a client to ask me, and the ones that make a bad fit obvious early, which saves both sides a great deal of time.
Before you ask anyone anything
Write down, in one or two sentences, what the website is for. Not “a new website” but “more enquiries from people in South Devon looking for a kitchen fitter” or “bookings without phone calls”. Every question below is easier to judge against a goal, and a designer who does not ask about yours in the first conversation is a warning sign in itself.
The twelve questions
1. Who will actually do the work?
At an agency the person who pitches is often not the person who designs, who is not the person who builds, who is not the person who answers the phone later. None of that is wrong, but you should know. If you are talking to a freelancer, ask the same question: some subcontract the build or the copy. The best answer is a clear one.
2. Can I see three sites you built that are still live?
Portfolios show launch day. Live sites show what happened next: whether the business kept it up, whether it still loads quickly, whether it was built to last. Open them on your phone. If a designer cannot point to live work, or the live work looks nothing like the portfolio, ask why.
3. What will you need from me, and when?
Websites stall for one reason more than any other: the client is waiting on the designer while the designer is waiting on the client, for photos, text, logins or decisions. A good designer tells you up front what they need, when, and what happens if it is late. See what a small business website should include for the content you will be asked for.
4. Who writes the words?
The most common gap in a web project. Many designers assume you will supply the copy; many clients assume the designer will. Ask directly. If the answer is “you”, budget time for it, because writing a website is a bigger job than it looks. If the answer is “we do”, ask who, and read something they have written.
5. How will the site be found?
Listen for specifics: how the pages will be planned around what people search for, how titles and headings are written, how speed is handled, what happens to old addresses if you have an existing site. A vague “it will be SEO-friendly” is not an answer. I have written about why SEO belongs in the design stage; whoever you choose should be able to explain the same ideas in their own words.
6. What will it score on PageSpeed Insights?
Google publishes a free test of any website’s speed at pagespeed.web.dev. Ask what score the designer aims for on mobile, then test their own website and their recent work. A designer whose own site scores badly is telling you something. (Here is what the scores mean.)
7. Which platform, and why that one?
Hand-coded, WordPress, Squarespace, Shopify, Webflow: each is right for some projects and wrong for others. What you want to hear is a reason that relates to your business, not a reason that relates to what the designer always uses. If you want the background, read hand-coded vs WordPress.
8. Who owns the site, the domain and the hosting?
The answer should be “you”. The domain name should be registered in your name, the hosting account should be yours, and you should receive the design files and the code or platform access when the project is paid for. Some designers keep clients by holding the keys. Do not sign up for that.
9. What is included, and what will cost extra?
Ask for a written scope: number of pages, who supplies what, how many rounds of revisions, whether forms, maps, bookings or integrations are included, whether photography and copy are included. Then ask what commonly turns out to cost extra. An honest answer here saves an argument later.
10. What happens after launch?
Websites need updating, backing up and occasionally fixing. Ask whether support is included for a period, what a care plan covers and costs, and how quickly you could get a change made. Ask too whether you will be able to edit text and images yourself without paying for every tweak.
11. How do you handle an existing site’s rankings?
Only relevant if you already have a website, but critical if you do. A redesign that changes page addresses without redirects can lose years of search visibility overnight. The designer should talk about an audit of what currently ranks, a redirect plan, and checking Search Console after launch. If they look blank, keep looking.
12. What would you not do, and why?
My favourite question. A good designer has opinions: things they would leave out of your site, features they would talk you out of, trends they think are a waste of money. Someone who agrees with everything you suggest is not advising you; they are taking an order.
Warning signs
- A quote before a conversation. A price with no understanding of the goal is a guess, and you will pay for the guess one way or another.
- Guaranteed rankings. Nobody can guarantee a position on Google. Anyone who does is either naive or dishonest.
- Their own site is slow or dated. Test it. It is the one site they had complete control over.
- No live examples. Mock-ups are easy. Sites that have survived two years of real use are the evidence.
- Vague ownership. If you cannot get a straight answer about who owns what, assume the answer is “not you”.
- Everything is yes. See question twelve.
Freelancer or agency?
Neither is better in general. An agency brings several specialists and the capacity for large projects, at the cost of layers between you and the work. An experienced independent designer offers one point of contact who does everything, which keeps the parts of your site pulling in the same direction, but you are relying on one person’s skills across design, build, search and words. Ask about each of those four, whoever you talk to.
Local or not?
A web designer in Dartmouth can meet you in person, knows the local market and the way people here search, and can be in your shop or office within the hour if something matters. None of that is essential: most of the work happens by phone, video call and email wherever the designer sits. What matters more is whether they understand your customers. Local helps with that; it does not guarantee it.
If you would like to put these questions to me, get in touch. I will answer all twelve, including the ones that make me look less than perfect, because that is how you should choose a web designer: on the answers.
