Picking someone to build your website is one of those decisions that feels simple until you are three quotes deep and every proposal says roughly the same thing. Modern, responsive, mobile-friendly, SEO-ready. Lovely. So does everyone else’s. The words on the proposal rarely tell you who will actually do a good job for your business.
We do web design in Chichester and across West Sussex, so we sit on the other side of these conversations most weeks. What follows is the list of questions we would ask if we were the ones hiring, plus the answers that should reassure you and the ones that should make you pause.
Start with your goal, not their portfolio
A pretty website is easy to admire and hard to judge. The real question is whether it does a job. More enquiries, more bookings, more calls, more sales. Before you speak to anyone, write down in one sentence what the site needs to achieve. “We want to book more consultations from people in West Sussex” is a goal. “We want a fresh look” is a decoration.
When you talk to a designer, notice what they ask you first. If they open with questions about your customers, your best-selling service, and how enquiries reach you today, that is a good sign. If they open with a mood board and a chat about colours, the site might look great and still fail to bring in work. Good design starts with the outcome and works backwards.
The website that looks best in the meeting is not always the one that performs best six months later. Ask how they will know it worked.
The questions worth asking every designer
Who owns the website, the domain, and the files?
This is the one people forget, and it causes the most pain later. You should own your domain name, your hosting account, and the site itself. Some designers keep everything under their own accounts, which is fine until you want to move on and suddenly cannot. Ask directly: if we part ways in two years, do I walk away with a working website and full access? The answer should be an easy yes.
What platform will you build on, and can I move it later?
Plenty of local businesses end up on a closed system they cannot export from. It works, right up until you outgrow it or the monthly fee climbs. WordPress remains the sensible default for most small and medium businesses because it is open, widely supported, and you are never stuck with one supplier. If a designer proposes their own private platform, ask what happens to your site if you stop paying them. If the honest answer is “it disappears”, think hard.
How do you build for search from the start?
Search visibility is not a bolt-on you add at the end. It lives in the site structure, the page speed, the way headings are written, and whether each page targets what people actually type. A designer who understands this will talk about it before you ask. If you want to sanity-check their thinking, our guide to how to choose the right digital agency covers the deeper questions on strategy and reporting.
What happens after launch?
A website is not a painting you hang and forget. WordPress needs updates, plugins need patching, and things break. Ask what support looks like once the site is live. Is there a maintenance plan? How quickly do they respond if the site goes down on a Saturday? Who fixes it if a form stops sending? Vague answers here tend to become expensive silences later.
Can you show me results, not just screenshots?
Anyone can show you a good-looking homepage. Fewer can tell you what it did. Ask for an example where the work moved a number. More enquiries, a lower bounce rate, better rankings for a local search term. It does not need to be a glossy case study. A straight answer about a real client is worth more than a wall of thumbnails.
Red flags to watch for
Some warning signs show up early if you know to look. None of these are automatically dealbreakers, but each one deserves a follow-up question.
- Pricing that will not sit still. A designer who cannot give you a clear scope and a clear number is either guessing or hoping to bill the gaps later. You do not need every penny nailed down on day one, but you should understand what you are paying for.
- All style, no substance. If every conversation is about aesthetics and none is about how the site earns its keep, the site may photograph well and convert badly.
- The cheapest quote by a mile. Very low prices usually mean a template filled in quickly, no strategy, and no support. We wrote about the hidden cost of cheap web design because the saving rarely survives contact with reality.
- No questions about your customers. A designer who never asks who buys from you is building a site for you to like, not for your customers to act on.
- They own everything. If your domain, hosting, and content all sit under their accounts, you are renting your own business presence.
What good actually looks like
Set against those red flags, here is what a strong working relationship tends to include. The designer treats your goal as the brief. They are comfortable talking about search and conversions, not only layout. They explain trade-offs in plain English rather than hiding behind jargon. And they are honest when something is not worth doing, even when saying so costs them a line on the invoice.
Local matters more than people expect too. A designer who knows the Chichester and wider West Sussex market can write pages that speak to the people searching nearby, rather than generic copy that could belong to any town. It also means you can meet, talk things through properly, and get a straight answer without a support ticket queue in between. That is the kind of personal, hands-on service we aim to give every client, and it is why we work the way we do on web design for Chichester businesses.
Practical steps before you commit
Once you have a shortlist, a little homework saves a lot of regret. Try these before you sign anything.
- Ask to speak to a past client, or at least read genuine reviews with names attached.
- Get the ownership and support terms in writing, not just in a friendly chat.
- Check that the proposal ties back to your goal. If it does not mention outcomes, ask why.
- Understand what happens if you want to redesign later. Planning ahead protects your search rankings, which we cover in our guide on how to plan a website redesign without losing your SEO.
None of this needs to be adversarial. A good designer welcomes these questions because the answers are already sorted. The ones who bristle are usually the ones you are glad you asked.
Choosing a web designer comes down to trust and evidence. Trust that they understand your business, and evidence that their work does more than look nice. Ask the questions above, listen for straight answers, and you will spot the right fit quickly. If you want to talk through your own project, feel free to get in touch and we will give you an honest view either way.
Frequently asked questions
Prices vary widely depending on the size of the site, whether it needs custom design, and what features you want. A simple brochure site sits at the lower end, while a larger site with booking, ecommerce, or ongoing strategy costs more. The key is a clear scope so you know exactly what is included before you commit, rather than a headline number that grows once work begins.
Both can do good work, but a local designer often understands the West Sussex market and can meet you in person to talk things through. Local knowledge helps with copy that speaks to nearby customers and with local search visibility. What matters most is that they answer your questions clearly and can show real results, wherever they are based.
Ask who owns the domain, hosting, and site files, what platform they build on and whether you can move away from it, how they build for search from the start, and what support looks like after launch. Also ask for an example where their work improved a real business metric, not just a screenshot of a nice homepage.
You should own your domain name, your hosting account, and the website itself, and you should have full access to all of it. Some designers keep everything under their own accounts, which becomes a problem if you ever want to move on. Get ownership terms in writing before you start, and confirm you can walk away with a working site.
WordPress is open and widely supported, so you are never locked in with a single supplier. It scales from a simple brochure site to a large site with ecommerce, and it is easy to find help if you need it later. That flexibility makes it a sensible default for most small and medium businesses in Chichester and beyond.
