Twelve questions to ask before you hire a web designer

You do not need to understand the technology. You need to know what you will own, what it will cost in total, when it will be done, and what happens when something goes wrong. Every question below is aimed at one of those four, and none of them requires you to know what a CMS is.

Ask them by email if you would rather have the answers in writing. A provider who is uncomfortable putting these in writing has told you something useful.

About what you will own

• Will the domain be registered in my name, on an account I can log in to? The single most important question on this list.
• If I leave in a year, what exactly do I take with me - and is there a fee to leave?
• Who holds the hosting and any other logins, and how do I get them?

About the money

• What is the total cost, including anything billed separately? Ask specifically about hosting, domain, plugins, licences, stock images and email.
• What are the ongoing costs after launch, and are any of them compulsory?
• What does a change cost once the site is live - and how many are included first?

About the work itself

• What exactly is included - how many pages, and what happens on them? A quote that says "a website" is not a quote.
• When will it be live, and what would delay it? A good answer names what they need from you and when.
• Will I be able to update text and prices myself? If yes, ask to be shown how it looks. If no, ask what a change costs - both answers are workable, but you need to know which you are buying.

About afterwards

• What happens if something breaks the week after launch? Ask whether that is included and for how long.
• How do I reach you, and what is a normal response time?
• Can I speak to a client you built for a year ago? Not last month - a year ago. The gap between those two answers is where you learn what happens after the invoice is paid.

Answers that should worry you

• "Do not worry about the technical side" in response to an ownership question. That is the one part you should worry about.
• A guaranteed Google ranking. Nobody can promise a position, and everyone reputable will tell you so.
• A quote with no written scope. Almost every dispute in this trade comes from a scope that lived only in a conversation.
• Pressure to decide today, or a discount that expires this week.
• No examples of live sites you can visit. Screenshots are not evidence - a URL is.
• Vagueness about who does the work. If it is being subcontracted, that is fine; not saying so is not.

And one question for yourself

What is this website for? Not "we need one" - what specifically should be different afterwards. More enquiries, fewer phone calls, better-quality leads, being findable at all. A designer can hit a target you name and can only guess at one you do not, and the answer changes what should be built more than any other single thing.