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The questions to ask when hiring a web designer are the ones that decide whether the new site brings in calls: who owns the domain and hosting, how enquiries get tracked, how fast the pages load on a phone, what happens to your old pages and Google rankings, and what you pay after launch. Ask them on the first call, before you see a design. Then check the answers yourself, because most of them can be tested in ten minutes with free tools.
Most question lists online are written for anyone building any website. If you run a plumbing firm, a clinic or a law practice, the site has one job: turn a visitor into a phone call or a form enquiry. The questions below are grouped around that job, with what a good answer sounds like and how to check it. For the short version, jump to the checklist table.
Who will own the domain, hosting and website files?
You should, and the designer should say so without hesitating. The domain should be registered in your business name with your email as the owner contact, and you should have your own login to the hosting and to the website’s admin area.
This is the question that saves the most grief later. When a designer registers the domain in their own account, you are renting your web address from them, and a falling out or a retired freelancer can leave you locked out. ICANN’s page on registrant benefits and responsibilities says the registrant assumes sole responsibility for the registration and use of the domain name and must keep their registrar account data current. That person needs to be you.
How to check: before you sign, ask which registrar they use and confirm the domain will sit in an account you control. For a domain you already have, look it up on ICANN Lookup, which shows its current registration data, then log in at the registrar it lists and confirm the account is yours. If you are already stuck, our guide on what to do when your web designer won’t give you access walks through getting it back.
Red flag: “We handle all of that for you” with no mention of your own logins.
How will I know how many calls and enquiries the site brings in?
A good designer will describe how they track form submissions and phone taps, and where you will see those numbers each month. If they only talk about page views or “traffic”, they are measuring the wrong thing for a service business.
Ask these follow-ups:
- Where do form enquiries go, and who gets the email? Will they test it on launch day?
- Is the phone number a tap-to-call link on mobile, and is that tap counted as a conversion?
- If I run Google Ads, will form submissions and calls be set up as conversions in my ad account?
- Will I get a monthly figure for enquiries, as well as visits?
How to check: on one of their portfolio sites, open the contact page on your phone, tap the phone number and see if it dials. Then check the form loads properly and is easy to fill in on a small screen (don’t submit it, it’s someone else’s inbox). A form that is fiddly or broken on a phone loses jobs.
Red flag: no answer beyond “you’ll get Google Analytics.”
If you already have a site that gets visitors and no enquiries, the usual causes are in why a website gets traffic but no leads, and a good designer should be able to talk about most of them.
How fast will the site load on a phone, and can you show me?
The designer should be able to name Google’s Core Web Vitals and show you real scores on sites they have built. web.dev’s Core Web Vitals guide sets the targets: the main content should load within 2.5 seconds (Largest Contentful Paint), the page should respond to a tap within 200 milliseconds (Interaction to Next Paint), and layout shift should stay at 0.1 or less, measured at the 75th percentile of page loads.
Speed matters more on mobile for two reasons. Most people searching for an emergency plumber or a dentist are on their phone. And Google says it uses the mobile version of a site’s content for indexing and ranking, so a slow or stripped-down mobile version is a ranking problem as well as a lead problem.
How to check: paste two or three of their portfolio URLs into PageSpeed Insights and look at the mobile results. Google’s PageSpeed Insights documentation explains that it reports on both mobile and desktop, and shows real-user data from the Chrome User Experience Report when a page or site has enough visits.
Red flag: “It’s fast on my computer.”
Will I lose my Google rankings when the new site goes live?
You shouldn’t, if the designer maps every old page address to its new one and sets up permanent (301) redirects before launch. Ask them to explain that process in plain words. If they can’t, assume it won’t happen.
Google’s guidance on site moves says to map your old site’s URLs to the URLs for the new site, use permanent server-side redirects, avoid sending lots of old pages to one unrelated page such as the home page, and keep the redirects for at least a year. A redesign that changes your service page addresses without redirects can wipe out pages that were bringing in work, and you may not notice until the phone goes quiet. If that has already happened, why your website is not showing on Google covers how to find out what Google can see.
How to check: ask for the redirect map as a deliverable, a simple spreadsheet with the old address in one column and the new address in the other. After launch, type a few old addresses into your browser and confirm each lands on the matching new page.
Red flag: “Google will figure it out.”
If I run Google Ads, will the pages work as landing pages?
Ask whether each service you advertise will get its own page that matches what people search for, with the phone number and a short form near the top. Google Ads counts landing page experience as one part of Quality Score and describes it as how relevant and useful your landing page is to people who click your ad.
A designer who builds for paid traffic will ask which services make you the most money and which areas you cover. A designer who only builds brochure sites will show you a nice home page. In our Owner Built Design case study, the ads pointed to a dedicated start page where enquiries came through a short online form and a 15-minute call, and the account recorded 216 conversions from 76,000 clicks. For the trade-offs, see whether ads should go to a landing page or your website.
What will I pay after launch, and what does it cover?
Get the ongoing costs in writing: hosting, domain renewal, software or plugin licences, security updates, backups and the price of small edits. The build price is only part of the bill.
Ask what happens if you stop paying a monthly plan. Some “free website” deals keep the site, the design or the domain when you leave, so you want a plain answer to “If I cancel, what do I walk away with?” The answer you are looking for is the domain, a full copy of the site and your content. Our breakdown of how much a website costs for a small business shows how to work out a fair total without guessing.
Red flag: a low monthly fee with a long contract and nothing about what you keep at the end.
Can I update the site myself?
You should be able to change your phone number, opening hours, prices and team photos, and add a new service page, without paying for every edit. Ask which platform they use, whether you get an editor login and whether they include a short training session or written notes.
Any mainstream platform can work, as long as a five-minute change doesn’t depend on one person and another developer could pick the site up if this one disappears.
Have you built sites for businesses like mine, and can I call one?
Ask for two or three live sites for local service businesses and permission to contact one owner. A screenshot portfolio shows you the design. A five-minute call with a past client tells you whether the site brought in work and whether the designer answered the phone after launch.
When you call, ask the owner: did the site launch on time, do you get enquiries from it, and how quickly does the designer respond when something breaks?
Do you guarantee rankings or a number of leads?
A trustworthy designer will say no. Google’s own advice on hiring help says no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google, and it warns against anyone claiming a special relationship with Google. The same page suggests asking for examples of previous work, experience in your industry and your city, and whether they will share every change they make to your site. Those questions work just as well for a web designer.
A designer can reasonably promise the things they control: launch date, page speed targets, tracking set up and tested, redirects in place. Rankings and lead volume depend on your market, your reviews, your prices and your competitors.
Checklist: questions to ask when hiring a web designer
Print this or keep it open on the call. Each row has the answer you want and a way to check it.
| Question | Good answer | Red flag | How to check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who owns the domain, hosting and files? | You do, with your own logins | “We look after all that” | ICANN Lookup, then log in to the registrar yourself |
| How will calls and enquiries be tracked? | Form and tap-to-call conversions, a monthly enquiry count | Only traffic or page views | Tap the phone number on a portfolio site on your phone |
| How fast will it load on mobile? | Talks about Core Web Vitals and shows scores | “It’s fast on my computer” | Run portfolio sites through PageSpeed Insights, mobile results |
| What happens to my old pages? | A redirect map with 301 redirects before launch | “Google will sort it out” | Ask for the spreadsheet; test old addresses after launch |
| Will service pages work for Google Ads? | One page per main service, phone and form near the top | Only a home page design | Ask to see a service page they built for another client |
| What do I pay after launch? | Itemised hosting, renewals, updates, edits | Long contract, nothing kept on exit | Get it in writing, including what you keep if you cancel |
| Can I edit it myself? | Editor login plus a short handover | Every change goes through them | Ask for a demo of changing a phone number |
| Can I speak to a past client? | Yes, a local service business | Only screenshots | Call and ask about enquiries and response times |
| Do you guarantee rankings? | No, but they commit to speed, tracking and launch date | Guaranteed #1 or a fixed lead count | Compare with Google’s advice on hiring help |
Frequently asked questions
How do I choose between two web designers who both answer well?
Pick the one who asked you more questions about your business: which services pay best, which areas you cover, how you handle enquiries now. Those questions shape the pages, the calls to action and the tracking, so they are a good sign the site will be built around getting you work.
What should be included in a website design proposal?
The pages being built, who writes the content, the launch date, what tracking is included, the redirect plan if you have an existing site, the ongoing costs and what you own at the end. If any of those are missing, ask for them in writing before you pay a deposit.
How long does it take to build a website for a small business?
It depends mostly on how quickly you supply content and approve designs, which is where most projects stall. Ask the designer for a timeline with dates for each stage and what they need from you at each one, so you know what holds it up.
Should I hire a freelancer or an agency?
Either can work if the answers above are good. A freelancer is often more direct to deal with, and an agency is less likely to vanish if one person leaves. Whoever you choose, settle the ownership question first. If you are still deciding whether to hire anyone, do you need a website if you have a Google Business Profile covers what a site does that a listing can’t.
If you would rather have one team build the pages and run the ads that send people to them, that is what our website and landing page service does: pages built around calls and enquiries, with tracking set up so you can see what each one brings in.
Sources: 1. Registrant benefits and responsibilities (ICANN). 2. Registration data lookup tool (ICANN Lookup). 3. Web Vitals (web.dev). 4. Mobile site and mobile-first indexing best practices (Google Search Central). 5. About PageSpeed Insights (Google for Developers). 6. Site moves with URL changes (Google Search Central). 7. About Quality Score for Search campaigns (Google Ads Help). 8. Do you need an SEO? (Google Search Central).
