Guide
12 questions to ask before you hire a web designer
Most website projects that go wrong were decided at the quoting stage, not during the build. The questions below take twenty minutes to ask and reveal what a proposal never will: who owns the result, what happens after launch, what a change costs, and whether anyone will answer the phone in two years. Each one lists the answer you want and the answer that should worry you.
By James 11 min read
Why the questions matter more than the portfolio
Every web designer has a portfolio and almost all of them look fine, because a portfolio shows the work on the day it launched, presented by the person who made it. It tells you very little about what the site was like to own eighteen months later, whether it delivered enquiries, or whether the person who built it still answers emails.
The questions below are the ones that surface those things. They are all reasonable, a good supplier will answer every one without hesitation, and a supplier who becomes evasive on any of them has told you something useful for free.
Ask the same twelve of everyone you are considering. Comparing three answers to the same question is far more informative than comparing three proposals written to three different briefs.
1. Who owns the website when it is finished?
The answer you want is that you own all of it: the design, the content, the code and the database, with no licence that expires if the relationship does.
The answer that should worry you is any version of ownership that is conditional on continuing to pay. Monthly packages frequently work this way and it is legitimate as long as it is stated plainly. What is not acceptable is discovering it at the point you want to leave.
Free, before any money changes hands
Want this looked at properly, for nothing?
Ninety minutes mapping how the work actually flows, then a written plan and a fixed quote you keep either way. A working session, not a sales meeting.
- No obligation, no follow-up sequence
- You keep the plan and the quote
or call 01623 354250
2. Whose name is the domain registered in?
It should be yours. The registrant on record should be your business, and you should either hold the account login or be able to get it on request without a negotiation.
This is the single most important question on the list, because everything else can be rebuilt and a domain cannot be recreated. A supplier holding your domain in their own name has leverage over you that no contract term should allow.
The answer that should worry you is anything vague. If the response is that they manage it for you, ask specifically who the registrant is and to be shown the record.
3. What happens to my rankings when the new site goes live?
You want to hear about redirects, unprompted. A good answer describes pulling the list of pages that currently get traffic and mapping every one of them to a page on the new site, one hop, tested before launch.
The answer that should worry you is enthusiasm about the new site being better optimised, with no mention of the old URLs. Losing rankings in a rebuild is entirely avoidable and it happens constantly, because the redirect map is invisible work that nobody puts in a proposal.
There is more on this in our page about how a redesign should preserve what the old site earned.
4. Can I edit it myself, and will you show me how?
You want a yes with training included rather than sold afterwards, and you want the editing set up around the things you will actually change rather than every setting in the system.
The answer that should worry you is a site where every text change requires a request. That is a business model rather than a technical constraint, and it becomes expensive and slow within months.
5. What does a change cost after launch?
Ask for the hourly rate and for a real example: what would you charge to add a page, change the prices, or swap the photographs on the homepage.
A good answer is a plain rate and, ideally, an allowance included in a care plan so the small things do not each become a transaction. The answer that should worry you is a refusal to discuss it until the build is done.
6. Who hosts it, what does that cost, and what happens if I leave?
You want to know where the site will live, what the hosting costs after any included first year, and that you can take the site elsewhere without obstruction.
The answer that should worry you is hosting bundled invisibly into a monthly fee with no separate figure, because you cannot then tell what you are paying for it or what leaving would cost.
7. What happens about updates and security after launch?
The honest answer is that a website needs maintaining and somebody has to own it. You want a specific arrangement: who applies platform and plugin updates, on what schedule, and what happens when a security patch is urgent.
The answer that should worry you is that it will be fine, or that the platform updates itself. An unmaintained site is the most common way a small business gets compromised, and the fix is nearly always a known vulnerability that had a patch available for months.
For what that arrangement should include, see what a website care plan should cover.
8. Are backups taken, and have restores been tested?
Everybody says yes to the first half. The second half is the real question, and the answer you want is a date: when was a restore last tested.
An untested backup is a belief rather than a safeguard, and the moment you find out it never worked is always the worst possible moment.
9. How will we know whether the site is working?
You want conversion tracking configured at launch: form submissions and phone-number taps recorded as events, not just visitor numbers.
Traffic figures on their own tell you almost nothing. Enquiries per hundred visitors tells you whether the site is doing its job, and it is the difference between a site you can improve and a site you can only have opinions about.
The answer that should worry you is a promise of monthly traffic reports with no mention of what a visitor actually does.
10. How fast will it be, and how will you prove it?
You want a commitment measured on a real mobile connection after launch, not on a developer's laptop. Core Web Vitals are the standard measure and there is no reason for a supplier to be vague about them.
Speed is not a technical nicety. A site that takes four seconds to become usable on a phone loses a meaningful share of visitors before it renders, and most of your visitors are on a phone.
11. Who is actually doing the work?
You want to know whether the person you are speaking to is building it, and if not, who is. Subcontracting is entirely normal and not a problem in itself. Subcontracting that is concealed is a problem, because it usually means the person who understands your site is not the person you can ring.
Ask for names. A supplier who will not name the people doing the work is telling you something about how the relationship will run afterwards.
12. Can I speak to a client whose site you built two years ago?
Not the newest work. A site that has been live a couple of years shows you what a build looks like once real life has happened to it: whether it still loads quickly, whether it has been kept current, and whether the supplier was still answering after the invoice was paid.
The answer that should worry you is a portfolio of recent launches and no older references. It is the single most revealing question on this list and the one people ask least.
The short version, to take to a meeting
Print this, ask all twelve, and write the answers down. Comparing them afterwards is where the decision actually gets made.
- Who owns the design, content, code and database when it is finished?
- Whose name is the domain registered in, and can I see the record?
- How will you preserve my existing rankings, and will you map every old URL?
- Can I edit it myself, and is training included?
- What does a typical small change cost after launch?
- Who hosts it, what does it cost after year one, and can I leave?
- Who applies updates and security patches, and on what schedule?
- When was a restore from backup last tested?
- Will conversion tracking be set up on forms and phone taps at launch?
- What page speed are you committing to, and how will you measure it?
- Who is physically building this, by name?
- Can I speak to a client whose site you built two years ago?
Two questions worth asking yourself as well
The first is what you actually want the site to do. A great many website projects begin because the current one looks dated, which is a reason to redesign but not a way to judge whether the result worked. Enquiries, bookings, applications or orders are measurable. Looking modern is not.
The second is who will own it internally. A website with nobody responsible for it drifts within a year: prices go out of date, staff who left remain on the team page, and the enquiry form quietly stops delivering to an address nobody checks. That is not a supplier problem and no contract fixes it.
Frequently asked questions
If the answer is not here, ask us. You will get a straight one, from someone who does the work.
Mon–Fri, 9am–5:30pm
What should I ask a web designer before hiring them?
The twelve above, and if you only ask three, ask whose name the domain is registered in, how they will preserve your existing rankings, and whether you can speak to a client whose site they built two years ago. Those three surface most of what goes wrong later.
How do I know if a web designer is any good?
Look at sites they built two years ago rather than last month, and check how they load on a phone. A portfolio shows work on launch day. An older site shows you what it was like to own, whether it was maintained, and whether the supplier stayed in touch.
Should the domain be registered in my name?
Yes, always. Everything else on a website can be rebuilt and a domain cannot be recreated. If a supplier holds your domain in their own name they have leverage over you that no contract term should allow, and it is worth checking today whatever stage you are at.
Is it normal for a web designer to subcontract?
Entirely normal and not a problem in itself. What matters is that it is disclosed and that you know who to ring. Concealed subcontracting usually means the person who understands your site is not the person answering your emails.
How much should I expect to pay?
Between £250 and £5,000 for most UK small business sites, depending on type and how much content and design work is included. What matters more than the headline figure is what is excluded from it and what the five-year total looks like.
What is the most common mistake in a website project?
Rebuilding without redirecting the old URLs. The site launches, it looks far better, and within a fortnight the enquiries have halved because every page Google had indexed now returns a not-found error. It is completely avoidable and it happens constantly.
Should I get a fixed price or an hourly rate?
A fixed price against a written scope, so the risk of an underestimate sits with the supplier rather than with you. Ask separately what the hourly rate is for changes afterwards, because that is the number you will live with.
