The Questions to Ask Web Designer Candidates Before Paying

The questions to ask web designer candidates are not about design. They are about ownership, scope and what happens after launch. Nine questions, asked before any money moves, will tell you more about how the next month goes than a portfolio ever will.

I answer all nine on this page, partly because you should hold me to the same standard, and partly because seeing one set of answers makes it much easier to hear when somebody else is dodging.

Who will the domain and hosting be registered to?

This is the first question and the most important one. The answer you want is your own name and your own email address, on accounts you can log into today.

When the accounts sit with the person who built the site, leaving means rebuilding. Not because anyone is holding your site hostage on purpose, but because a busy freelancer who has moved on is very slow to answer an email about a login. My answer: the hosting account is opened in your name with your email, the domain is registered to you, and you get the logins on day one, before the site is even finished.

Photo: Pexels

If we stop working together, what do I walk away with?

Ask it exactly like that. You are listening for files, logins and a way to keep the site running without them.

Who writes the words?

Most quotes quietly assume you will. That single assumption is what turns a two week project into a four month one, because the homepage copy never arrives and the build sits waiting on it.

If the answer is you, that is not disqualifying, but it changes the price you are comparing. Add the hours you will spend writing, or what a writer charges, before you decide the quote is cheap. My answer: I write all of it, and you correct it. It is the single biggest block of time in a build, which is covered in more detail in what the what every build includes actually includes.

What is the total, and what makes it go up?

Two questions in one, and the second half is where the trouble usually lives. A quote is not a price if there is a list of things that quietly add to it.

• Get the number in writing. Not a range, not a starting from. The whole number for the whole job.
• Ask what triggers extra cost. Extra pages, extra revision rounds, stock photography, plugins and integrations are the usual four.
• Ask what a page means to them. Ten services on one page is not the same job as ten paragraphs, and you want that settled before it is built.
• Ask when payment is due. Half up front and half at launch is normal. Everything up front, from somebody with no reviews, is not.

How long, counted from when?

Timelines are usually quoted from a start date that never quite exists. Ask what the clock starts on. Mine starts when you have sent everything and paid the first half, not from the first conversation, and it runs seven days.

What happens after it goes live?

Three things to pin down: who fixes it if something breaks, what small edits cost, and whether there is a monthly fee you are being signed up to.

There is nothing wrong with a monthly plan as long as it is optional and you can leave. What you are testing for is whether the site keeps working if you stop paying. If the answer is no, that is a rental with extra steps.

What SEO is included, and what is not?

This one catches out a lot of buyers, because SEO means two completely different things and both get sold under the same word.

Technical setup is part of building a site properly. Titles, headings, alt text, clean URLs, a sitemap, structured data, Search Console verified and analytics tracking your forms and phone taps. Content and keyword research is ongoing work that costs money every month. Anyone charging you monthly should be doing the second thing, and you should be able to see what they published.

The answers that should end the conversation

On the first one: nobody can guarantee a ranking, because nobody controls the search results. Anyone promising one is either inexperienced or counting on you not checking. I do not make claims about rankings, traffic or leads, and I would be suspicious of anybody who does.

How will this look on a phone, and can I see that before it is built?

Most of your visitors will be on a phone, so a design presented only as a wide desktop mockup is showing you the least important view.

Ask to see the phone layout. Ask what happens to the navigation, where the phone number sits, and how long the homepage is when it is one column instead of three. A designer who has thought about it will answer immediately. A designer who has not will tell you it is responsive, which is a description of the technology, not an answer about the design.

Who will find this site hard to use?

Small text on a pale background, contact details inside an image, a menu that only works on hover, a form with no labels. Each of those quietly excludes somebody, and older customers are the group most likely to be paying you.

You do not need to become an expert to ask the question. Ask how the site works for somebody with poor eyesight, or on a slow connection, or using a phone one handed in daylight. The answer tells you whether anybody has thought past the pretty picture.

How to run the conversation

1. Ask the ownership questions first

   Domain, hosting, files. If those answers are wrong, nothing else matters and you have saved yourself an hour.

2. Get the total and the triggers in writing

   A number in an email is worth more than a number on a call, for both of you.

3. Ask what they would remove

   Anybody who has done this a while will happily tell you which pages you do not need. Somebody selling by the page never will.

4. Ask what happens in month two

   The build is the easy part. What you want to know is who answers when the form breaks in November.

The question to ask yourself before you ask anybody else

What is this site for. Not in a general sense. What single thing should somebody do after reading it.

Call you, book a slot, request a quote, look at the menu and drive over. Pick one. A site built to do one thing well beats a site built to do five, and the answer changes what gets built, what gets left out, and what you should be paying for.

It also gives you a way to judge every recommendation you get. When somebody suggests a slideshow, an animation, a blog, or a fourth call to action, the question is whether it moves people toward that one thing. If it does not, it is decoration, and decoration is the part you can afford to cut.

Most people who are unhappy with their website did not get bad work. They got work with no single job to do, and every page tried to do everything at once.