What to Look for When Choosing a Web Designer (and the Red Flags to Avoid)

Most small business owners can't tell a good website from a bad one until it's already live and something's gone wrong. You're not a web developer — that's the whole reason you're hiring one. But you don't need to know how to code to ask the right questions before you sign a contract, and a few of those questions will save you months of frustration (and sometimes thousands of dollars) down the road.

We've inherited more than a few sites from business owners who got burned the first time around — locked out of their own domain, stuck with a site that looks fine on a laptop and falls apart on a phone, or ghosted the moment the invoice cleared. Here's what actually separates a good hire from a bad one.

1. Ask to see real, live examples of their work

Anyone can show you polished screenshots or a slide of mockups. What you want is a list of real websites, currently online, that they built — and then go look at those sites yourself. Pull them up on your phone. Click around. Does the navigation make sense? Does it load quickly? Does it look like it was built for a business like yours, or does every project look like the same template with a new logo dropped in?

If a designer is reluctant to share live links, or everything they show you is a mockup that "will go live soon," that's worth noticing.

2. Find out exactly who will own the site when it's done

This is the single most important question, and the one most owners never think to ask. Some web companies build your site on their own platform, keep the domain registered in their name, or keep the only login to the hosting account and content management system. The moment you want to make a change they don't like — or switch providers — you find out you don't actually own your own website. You're renting it.

Before you sign anything, ask directly: Will the domain be registered in my business's name? Will I have my own login to the hosting and the site's backend? If we part ways down the road, can I take this site with me? A designer with nothing to hide will answer all three without hesitation.

3. Make sure mobile and speed are part of the plan, not an afterthought

Most of your visitors will land on your site from a phone, not a desktop. If a designer talks about the desktop version first and treats "mobile" as something they'll check at the end, that's backwards. Ask to see how a page looks and loads on a phone before you commit — not after launch.

This isn't a small detail. A recent survey of 500 consumers found that 75% had skipped a purchase because a business's website looked outdated or unprofessional, and 72% said small business websites are often hard to navigate.^[1] A site that's slow or clumsy on a phone doesn't just look bad — it actively sends customers away before they ever read what you offer.

4. Ask what happens after the site goes live

A website isn't a one-time purchase — it needs small updates over time: new hours, new services, a typo fix, a security patch. Before you hire anyone, ask what happens after launch. Is ongoing support included, or billed separately? How fast do they typically respond to a request? What happens if the site goes down at 9 p.m. on a Saturday? A vague answer here usually means you're on your own the moment the project wraps.

5. Hire someone who understands your actual market

A designer who's never worked with a business in your area, or your industry, will build you a generic site — technically fine, but not written or structured to show up when a nearby customer searches for what you do. For a business in Frederick County, that means someone who understands local search, knows how Google treats "near me" searches, and writes copy that sounds like it's actually for a Frederick customer, not a national audience.

Trust matters here too. Consumers notice the difference between a site that feels solid and one that doesn't: 92% of people in that same survey said they feel more confident in a business when its website runs smoothly.^[1] That confidence is exactly what a designer who knows your market and builds with care can give you — and what a rushed, generic job can quietly cost you.

The bottom line

Price matters, but it's not the first thing to screen for. Before you hire a web designer, confirm you'll own what they build, see real proof of their work on an actual phone, understand what support looks like after launch, and make sure they actually know the market you're trying to reach. Get those four right, and the price conversation gets a lot easier — because you're comparing real value, not just hoping it works out.