What to ask a web designer before you sign

Start with ownership, because everything else is recoverable

Ask it plainly: if we stop working together two years from now, what do I take with me? The answer should be your domain, your website, your content, your photos, and the logins to anything running in your name. If any part of that answer is vague, stop and get it in writing before you talk about design.

The specific things worth naming out loud, because each one gets held hostage in a different way:

• The domain. It should be registered to you, in an account you can log into, with your card or your email on it. Registered by the agency on your behalf is how a business ends up renting its own name.
• The website itself. The finished site should be yours when it is paid for. Ask whether that includes the files, and whether another developer could pick it up.
• Google Business Profile. This one is often missed, and it is the listing that actually gets you calls. You should be the owner on the profile, with anyone else as a manager.
• Analytics and Search Console. Both should be properties on your account, shared with whoever works on the site. Years of history is worth something and you cannot get it back later.
• Photos and content you paid for. Ask for the originals, not just the versions that are on the site.

Ours, for the record: your content and the finished site are yours, and section 9 of our terms of service says so in writing rather than in a sales call. We keep the reusable tooling we build with, which is the normal line, and it does not stop anyone taking over the site.

Then pin down what the price actually includes

A quote that says “complete website” is not a scope. It is a word. These are the questions that turn it into something you can compare against another quote:

1. How many pages, and what happens when we need a sixth?
2. Who writes the words? If it is me, when do you need them, and what happens to the timeline if I am late?
3. Who supplies photos? Are stock images included, and do I have a licence for them?
4. How many rounds of changes are included, and what counts as a round?
5. What is explicitly not included in this number?
6. What will this cost me in year one, and what will it cost every year after that?

That last one is the question most quotes are built to avoid. A build fee and a monthly fee are two different numbers, and a low build with an expensive monthly can cost more by month eighteen than the quote that looked dearer on the day. We wrote the arithmetic out in what a small business website actually costs in Ontario, including the published ranges with links to the sources.

Ask what happens the week after launch

Launch is the easy part. The sites I see fail are almost never badly built. They are abandoned: an old phone number, hours that have not been right since 2021, a service the owner stopped offering, a contact form quietly bouncing into a mailbox nobody reads.

• Who fixes it if the site goes down on a Saturday, and how do I reach them?
• How long are bugs from the build fixed for free?
• Are backups being taken, where do they live, and has a restore ever been tested?
• What does a content change cost, and how quickly do they happen?
• Who updates the software the site runs on?

If the answer is a monthly plan, ask what is in it in specifics rather than in adjectives. What a website care plan actually covers is the full list, with the parts that are usually left vague.

Be specific about search, and be suspicious of promises

“Do you do SEO?” gets you a yes from everyone. Better questions:

• What search work is included in the build, and what is a separate ongoing service?
• Will you set up Search Console and analytics, in my account?
• If we are replacing an existing site, how are the old URLs redirected?
• Who manages my Google Business Profile, and what does that involve month to month?

The one answer that should end the meeting: anybody who promises you a position on Google. Nobody controls the ranking and nobody can promise a number of leads. We will not tell you what your results will be either, which is why our pages show break-even arithmetic against your own numbers instead of a forecast.

Red flags, in the order I would worry about them

• They will not put the scope and the price in writing before work starts.
• They cannot show you live sites they built, only images of them.
• The domain or the profile goes in their name “to keep things simple”.
• A large payment is due before anyone has described the project back to you.
• “Unlimited revisions” with no definition of a revision.
• A promised ranking, a promised number of calls, or a percentage they cannot source.
• No answer to what happens if you leave.
• Pressure to sign today because the price changes tomorrow.

None of these mean somebody is dishonest. Plenty of good builders are simply disorganised about the business half. But every one of them is a thing you will have to sort out eventually, and it is far cheaper to sort out before the money moves.

What to bring to the first call

You do not need a brief, a moodboard or a sitemap. You need to be able to answer four things, and the fourth is the one that changes what anyone should recommend:

What is not working now

Not “the site looks dated”. Closer to “people call to ask things the site already answers” or “nobody finds us for the thing we mostly do”.

Who you want more of

The job you would take ten more of this year. A site aimed at everyone reads as a site for nobody.

What you already have

Domain, logins, logo files, photos, reviews, and who currently controls each one. Half of a first call is usually spent working this out.

What a customer is worth

Roughly what one new job brings in. That single number decides whether a build pays for itself in one job or in thirty, and it is the only honest way to size the spend.

Bring two or three sites you like as well, but say what you like about each one. “I like this” is hard to design from. “I like that you can tell what they do in five seconds” is a brief.

Listen to the questions, not just the answers

The strongest signal in a first meeting is what the other person asks you. Somebody who wants to know about your customers, your best-selling service, what happens when the phone rings and who your competition actually is, is thinking about whether the site will work. Somebody who only asks about colours and page count is quoting a job, not solving a problem.

It is also fair to ask what they think you are overlooking. A straight answer to that is worth more than a portfolio.