15 questions to ask before you hire a web designer

About the money

1. What is the total cost in year one, and in year three?

Not the build fee. Everything: hosting, domain, SSL, licences, support, changes. Good answer: a short itemised list. Bad answer: a single number, or “it depends” without a follow-up.

2. What does a small text change cost, and how quickly is it done?

This one question predicts whether your site will still be accurate in two years. If the answer is “£95 an hour, minimum one hour”, you will stop asking, and the site will drift out of date.

3. Are there any annual licence fees?

Premium themes and plugins renew every year. Good answer: a list with costs and whose account they sit in, or “none, it is hand-built”. Bad answer: vagueness.

4. What is the payment schedule, and what happens if we stop?

Staged payments against milestones protect both sides. Ask what you own if the project ends halfway.

About ownership

5. Who will the domain be registered to?

You. In your name or your company’s, in an account you can log into. Anything else is a problem waiting to happen. There is more on this in our domains and hosting guide.

6. If I leave, what do I take with me?

Good answer: domain, content, and either the site files or a clear buy-out figure. Bad answer: hesitation, or terms that only exist verbally.

7. Where will the site be hosted, and can I access that account?

You do not have to manage it, but you should be able to get to it. “Our server” with no further detail is worth probing.

About the work

8. Is this a bespoke design or a theme?

Both are legitimate. Being charged bespoke prices for theme work is not. Ask directly and ask to see the theme if there is one.

9. What is it built on, and why that?

You are not testing their technology choice; you are testing whether they have one. A designer who has thought about it will explain the trade-off in a sentence. Our own take is in WordPress, Wix or custom.

10. Who writes the words?

The most commonly skipped line in a quote. If it is you, know that now and budget the evenings.

11. What exactly does “SEO included” cover?

Good answer: page structure, titles and descriptions, schema, sitemap, Search Console, Google Business Profile, internal linking. Bad answer: “we install an SEO plugin”. That is a text box, not a service.

12. How will I know if it is working?

Ask what will be measured and what you will see. Enquiries, calls, and rankings for terms that matter. “Traffic” on its own is a vanity number.

About what happens afterwards

13. Who applies security updates, and how often?

Somebody must own this. If the answer is unclear, it is nobody, and an unmaintained site gets compromised eventually.

14. What happens if the site goes down on a Saturday?

Ask for the actual process, not a promise. Who is alerted, how, and what is the realistic response time. Also ask what happens when they are on holiday.

15. Can I see a site you built two years ago, and speak to that client?

The best question on the list. Anyone can show you a launch. Far fewer can show you something that has aged well, is still fast, still ranks and whose owner is still happy. A designer who is pleased to be asked this is usually a good sign.

What good looks like

A designer worth hiring will answer most of these without being asked, will tell you when something is not worth paying for, and will occasionally tell you that you do not need them. That last one is the strongest signal there is — which is why we wrote a whole page on when not to hire us.