Questions to ask before you hire a web designer.

The short answer

Most problems with a web designer surface months later: a domain registered in someone else's name, a site you cannot edit, a bill for changes you thought were included, a designer who no longer answers. The questions below catch them before you sign.

Ask them on a call, listen to how the designer answers, and then ask for the important answers in writing. A designer who is vague about ownership, or about what happens after launch, is telling you something.

Leave price until the scope is clear. Once it is, our guide to what decides the price of a website shows how to get quotes you can compare line by line.

What a good designer asks you first

The first call tells you as much through the designer's questions as through their answers. A good one wants to understand the business before talking about design. Expect questions like these:

• Who are your best customers, and what do they ask before they book or buy?
• What should a visitor do on the site: call, book, request a quote or buy?
• What happens to an enquiry today, who reads it and how quickly do they reply?
• Which pages of your current site bring visitors from Google?
• Who will write the text, and who approves each page?
• Which tools do you already use for bookings, payments or customer records?

Prepare short answers before the call. For a two-van plumbing firm, that might be: emergency calls and quote requests for bathroom refits, enquiries read by the office manager each morning, and a current site whose boiler repair page brings most of the calls.

If a designer asks nothing about your business and goes straight to templates and colours, the site will show it.

Questions about ownership

"Whose name will the domain be registered in?" The right answer is your business's name, in an account you control, with the designer added as a user. Be careful if they offer to register it in their own name to make things easier. Whoever holds the domain controls your website and your email.

"Who will own the site when it is finished?" A good answer is that you own the design, the content and the code written for you once you have paid, and that the contract says so. Themes, plugins and fonts are licensed rather than owned, and the licences should be in your name where possible.

"What do I keep if I leave?" A good answer lists the domain, a copy of the site, the content, the design files and every login, with a notice period. Be careful if the site can only exist on the designer's own platform and cannot be moved.

"Which accounts will be in my name?" The hosting, the website builder or content management system, analytics, Search Console, your Google Business Profile and any booking or chat tool. The right answer is all of them.

Questions about the work itself

"Who will actually build it?" Some designers pass work to subcontractors. That can be fine, as long as you know who is doing what and who is responsible for the result.

"What will I see before anything is built?" Look for a written plan of the pages and their purpose, then designs to review, then a working preview you can open on your own phone before launch.

"Which platform will you use, and why?" The answer should follow from what you need: who edits the site, whether it sells online and what it has to connect to. A designer who uses one platform for every client may be right for you or may not. Our guide to WordPress or a custom website sets out the trade-offs.

"Can I edit it myself, and will you show me how?" Ask which parts you can change without breaking the design, such as opening hours, prices and photos, and which need the designer.

"Can I see two or three live sites you built, and speak to one of those clients?" Ask for live sites rather than mock-ups. Open them on your phone, check that they load quickly, tap the phone number and send the contact form.

Questions about the words and photos

"Who writes the text?" If you are writing it, ask when it is needed and in what form. If they are, ask how they will learn your business: an interview, a questionnaire or a recorded call. Ask whether you approve every page before it goes live.

"Where do the photos come from?" Stock photos are cheap and look like every other site in your trade. Ask whether they can work with your own photos, or recommend a photographer.

"Will you add anything I have not approved?" A designer should never invent reviews, statistics, awards or claims you cannot back up. Ask it directly. The answer tells you how they work.

The words shape the layout, so a designer who starts with the design and leaves the text until the end is planning a delay.

Questions about Google and your current site

"How will you keep the visitors my current site gets from Google?" For a website redesign, a good answer mentions a list of the current pages, redirects from every old address that changes and a check in Search Console after launch.

"What do you set up for Google at launch?" Page titles and descriptions, a sitemap sent to Search Console in your account, and your Google Business Profile checked against the new site.

"Can you get me to the top of Google?" Be careful with a yes. Google's own advice on hiring help with search says nobody can promise a first-place ranking, and warns about anyone who claims they can.

"What happens to my current site while you build?" It should stay live and unchanged until the new one has been checked and you have approved it.

Questions about testing before launch

"How do you test the site before it goes live?" A good answer is specific: every page on real phones and a desktop, each form sent through to the inbox it should reach, the booking or payment step tried from start to finish, and the speed checked on a phone connection.

"Which phones and browsers do you test on?" At least an iPhone and an Android phone, and the browsers your customers use. A designer who only checks on a large office screen will miss what phone visitors see.

"Do you check accessibility, and against which standard?" If the site has to meet one, such as WCAG 2.1 AA, ask how it is tested. An automated checker alone is not enough: someone should try the site with a keyboard and a screen reader. Our guide to ADA website accessibility lists the checks.

"Can I try the site before launch?" You should get a private preview address that works on your own phone, with time to send real test enquiries before anything goes live.

Questions about data and privacy

"Where will form submissions and chat messages be stored, and who can read them?" You should know whether enquiries only arrive by email or are also kept in the website or a form tool, and for how long.

"Will you be able to see my customers' enquiries?" If the designer hosts the site or the forms, they may. In Europe that makes them a processor under the GDPR, and you need a data processing agreement with them.

"What tracking will the site use?" Ask which analytics and advertising tools will be installed, whether they need a cookie banner where your customers are, and whether the tracking waits for the visitor's answer.

"Who writes the privacy notice?" Someone has to write it from what the site really collects. A generated policy that lists tools the site does not use is a shortcut to avoid. See what a privacy policy needs.

Questions about after launch

"Who fixes things if something breaks after launch, and how fast?" Ask for the response time in writing, and whether defects from the build are fixed free for a period.

"How do enquiries from the site reach me?" You should know which inbox each form sends to, and the designer should send test enquiries from a phone before launch.

"Who checks that the site keeps working?" A form can stop sending after an update without anyone noticing. Ask who tests the forms, how often, and whether you are told when the site goes down.

"How do I stop the support plan, and what do I take with me?" The answer should name a notice period and the same list as the ownership question: domain, site, content and logins.

Answers that should worry you

• "We'll register the domain for you", with no mention of your name on it.
• "You don't need a contract, we work on trust."
• "Unlimited revisions", with no definition of a revision.
• A price before they have asked what the site is for.
• Promises of first place on Google, or of a set number of new customers.
• No live sites to show, or sites that no longer work.
• Reluctance to put any of the answers in writing.

One of these alone is a question to dig into. Several together are a reason to keep looking.

How to compare designers after the calls

After two or three calls, the answers blur together. Write them down the same day, in one table with a row for each question and a column for each designer. Then look for:

• Answers that were specific, such as a named notice period or a list of accounts, against answers that stayed vague.
• Questions they asked you that the others did not.
• What their past clients said, and whether the live sites still work.
• Which answers they were willing to put in writing.

Price comes last, once you know you are comparing the same work.

How GGSites answers these questions

So you have something to compare against, these are our answers, taken from what our prices, websites and questions and answers pages commit to:

• The domain, hosting and accounts are set up in your name or handed over at launch, and they stay yours if you stop a monthly plan.
• Monthly plans run month to month and stop with 30 days' notice.
• Before work starts you get a written plan: each page and its purpose, the platform and why, the connections to your tools, who writes the words and what is not included.
• We can draft the pages from a call with you. Nothing is published until you approve it, and we never invent reviews, numbers or claims you cannot back up.
• Your current site stays live and unchanged until launch day.
• After launch we stay on for the first 30 days to fix and adjust, and after that hosting and support run as the plan says.
• The setup is paid half when we start and half when the site is live and you are happy with it.

Ask every designer you talk to for the same list in writing, then compare the lists side by side.

Then check the contract

The answers belong in the contract, or in a plan attached to it. A promise made on a call is hard to rely on later. Our web design contract checklist goes through each clause from the client's side, from revisions to what happens if either side stops.

If you already have a designer who will not hand over your domain or logins, how to get your website back explains the order to do it in.