What to check before hiring a web designer in Marion County
The questions worth asking, the answers that should worry you, and the contract terms that quietly cost local businesses their websites.
6 minute read. Written by Northfolk in Dunnellon, Florida.
Ask who owns what, first
Before anything about design, ask who the domain is registered to. The only acceptable answer is that it is in your name. A domain held in the designer's account is how businesses lose their web presence, and it is always discovered at the worst possible moment.
Then ask what happens to the site itself if you part ways, and get the answer in writing before you pay anything. Arrangements differ from one shop to the next and there is nothing wrong with that, but you should know which one you are agreeing to rather than assuming.
Ask to see work, then go and use it
Anybody can show you a pretty screenshot. Open the actual sites on your phone. Time how long they take to load. See whether you can work out what the business does within a few seconds.
Then search for a couple of those businesses on Google and see whether they appear. A designer whose clients are invisible is selling decoration.
Ask who writes the words
This is where projects die. If the answer is that you will supply the text, be honest with yourself about whether you will actually sit down and write eight pages about your own business. Most owners never do, and the site sits half finished for months.
If writing is included, ask to read something they have written. It is the part of the job that most affects whether the site works.
Answers that should worry you
- A guaranteed first place ranking. Nobody controls Google's results.
- A refusal to give a price before a long sales call.
- A monthly fee with no specific list of what it covers.
- Hesitation about registering the domain in your name.
- Portfolio sites that all look like the same template.
- Pressure to decide today. Nothing about a website is urgent enough to justify that.
Local or not?
Local helps but it is not everything. Somebody nearby can meet you, knows the towns and understands who your customers are, which shows up in the writing. It also means their reputation is on the line in the same small community you operate in, which is a real form of accountability.
That said, a good designer three states away beats a bad one down the road. Judge the work first and the postcode second.
A reasonable set of expectations
A written price before work starts. A clear list of what is included. The domain registered in your name. A straight answer on how long it will take, and it should be weeks at the outside rather than months. Someone who will tell you when you do not need something.
That is not a high bar, and plenty of people clear it. It is just worth checking rather than assuming.
Questions
- Should I use Wix or Squarespace instead?
- If your budget is genuinely near zero and you enjoy fiddling with things, they are far better than having nothing. The trade offs are that they are slower than a properly built site, harder to get ranking well, and the work of writing and structuring the thing still falls entirely on you, which is the hard part.
- What if I already have a site and it is not working?
- Get somebody to look at it before you commit to a rebuild. Sometimes the site is fine and the search work was simply never done, and that is a much smaller job than starting over.
We are a website and local search shop in Dunnellon, Florida. If you would rather not do any of this yourself, send us a message. Sites start at $997 one time.