Hiring a website designer feels like it should be straightforward. You find someone whose portfolio looks good, get a quote, and sign off. Six to twelve weeks later you have a website.
Except it rarely works that cleanly. Most small business owners who have been through the process at least once have a story. The site that looked great but never showed up on Google. The designer who disappeared after launch. The platform that seemed simple until you tried to update it yourself and broke three things. The project that went three months over schedule and twice over budget.
These are not outlier experiences. They are common, because "building a website" covers a wide range of very different work, and most clients do not find out which version they are getting until after the contract is signed.
This guide is about what to look for, what to ask, and what the red flags actually look like before you commit to anything.
What You Are Actually Buying (And What You Might Think You Are Buying)
Most small business owners approach a website project thinking about what it will look like. The designer's job, in the client's mental model, is to make it look good. That is partially true. Design matters. But what you are really buying is a lot more than aesthetics.
You are buying a technical foundation. The platform or code the site is built on determines how fast it loads, how well it performs in search, how easily it can be updated, how it behaves on mobile, and how secure it is over time. Two websites can look identical and have completely different foundations underneath, and the difference in that foundation will determine what the site can do for your business over the next three to five years.
You are buying a content structure. How the pages are organized, what each one is designed to communicate, how the information flows from a visitor's first impression to a clear call to action. A site that looks beautiful but is structured in a way that confuses visitors or does not support your search visibility goals is a beautiful underperformer. If you already have a site and are not sure which one you own, here is how to tell whether it is actually converting.
You are buying a long-term relationship, whether you realize it or not. Your website needs ongoing attention after launch. Updates, maintenance, security, new pages as your business grows. Who is responsible for that, and what it looks like, is a question most clients do not ask until something breaks.
And yes, you are buying design. But design is the last thing on this list, not the first, and it is worth keeping that order in mind as you evaluate your options.
The First Question to Ask: What Are They Actually Building On?
Before you look at a designer's portfolio or discuss pricing, ask what platform or technology they build on and why.
The answer tells you a lot. A designer who builds exclusively on one platform without being able to explain why it is the right choice for your specific situation is a red flag. A designer who can clearly explain the tradeoffs between different approaches, and who recommends a specific option based on your goals, your content needs, and your long-term plans, is showing you something about how they think.
The most common options you will encounter are website builders like Squarespace and Wix, WordPress, and custom-coded sites. Each has genuine use cases. Each also has real limitations.
Website builders are fast to set up and relatively easy to manage yourself. They are appropriate for very simple sites with limited needs. Their limitations show up in performance, search optimization depth, and scalability. When your business grows and your site needs to grow with it, builder platforms often create a ceiling.
WordPress is flexible and widely used. It is also dependent on an ecosystem of plugins and themes that introduce security vulnerabilities, performance issues, and compatibility problems over time. A WordPress site that was well built when it launched can become a maintenance burden as the platform and its dependencies evolve.
Custom-coded sites, built from the ground up on modern frameworks, offer the strongest foundation for performance, search visibility, accessibility, and long-term flexibility. They require more upfront investment and a developer who knows what they are doing. When they are done well, they are the most durable option a small business can have. That is the approach behind Egmer's website design service, and how much a website costs breaks down what each of the three paths tends to run.
Ask the designer to explain why their chosen approach is right for your situation. If the answer is "it is what we use for everyone," that is a different signal than "based on what you have told me about your goals, here is why this is the right choice for you."
Insider Tip from Tyler and Melissa: Ask About Accessibility Before You Ask About Anything Else
Web accessibility is not an optional feature. The ADA has been applied to business websites in court for years, federal website accessibility filings rose 27% in 2025, and the Department of Justice has said web accessibility is expected under the ADA. It is also a quality signal that tells you a great deal about how a designer approaches their craft.
Ask any designer you are considering this question: how do you build for web accessibility, and what standard do your sites meet?
A designer who builds accessibility in from the start, who can tell you specifically that their sites meet WCAG 2.2 AA, and who treats it as a baseline rather than an add-on, is a designer who thinks carefully about the craft of building websites, not just the appearance of them. A designer who says "we can add that if you need it" or looks blank when you mention WCAG is telling you something important about how they work.
Retrofitting accessibility after the fact is expensive and often incomplete. Building it in from the start is both the right thing to do and a sign of a more skilled, more thoughtful approach to web development. That is what accessibility-first web design means in practice, and if you want to see where a current site stands, How Accessible Is My Site runs a free check.
What to Look for in a Portfolio
A portfolio tells you what a designer can produce visually. It does not automatically tell you how those sites perform, how they rank in search, or what the experience of working with that designer was like. Keep that in mind as you evaluate.
When you look at portfolio work, ask whether you can visit the live sites. A portfolio screenshot can look polished even if the live site loads slowly or breaks on mobile. Visiting the actual site lets you experience it the way a real visitor would. Does it load quickly? Does it work on your phone? Is the navigation intuitive? Does the content clearly communicate what the business does?
Look for specificity in the portfolio. A designer whose work spans every industry and aesthetic in no particular direction may be a generalist who produces competent but generic sites. A designer whose portfolio shows a clear point of view, a consistent level of craft, and sites that feel like they were built for their specific clients rather than produced from a template, is showing you a different level of engagement with the work.
Ask about results where you can. Did any of those businesses see improvements in search visibility after launch? Did the site contribute to more leads or better conversion rates? A designer who thinks about those outcomes and can speak to them is a designer who understands that a website's job is to perform, not just to exist.
Did You Know?
According to Portent's 2022 site speed research, which analyzed over 100 million pageviews across 20 B2B and B2C websites, a lead-generation site that loads in one second has a conversion rate three times higher than one that loads in five seconds. E-commerce sites in the same study converted 2.5 times better at one second than at five. Page speed is also a confirmed ranking signal in Google Search, for desktop since 2010 and for mobile since the 2018 Speed Update, so a slow website does not just lose visitors once they arrive; it can lose visibility before they get there. The technical foundation of your website has a direct and measurable effect on both your search rankings and your ability to turn visitors into leads.
The Questions Most People Do Not Ask
Beyond the portfolio and the platform conversation, here are the questions that reveal the most about whether a designer is the right fit.
What does the launch process look like, and what happens after? A designer who can walk you through the post-launch process clearly, who has a defined handoff, who explains what ongoing support looks like and what it costs, is a designer who has thought past the finish line. One who is vague about what happens after delivery is one whose relationship with you ends at launch.
Who will I be working with day to day? At larger agencies, the person who sells you the project is often not the person who builds it. You may end up working with a junior designer or an outsourced developer you have never met. At smaller shops, you are often working directly with the person doing the work, which changes the quality of the communication and the accountability for the outcome. Know who you are actually hiring.
What do you need from me to do this well? A thoughtful designer asks questions about your business before they start talking about solutions. They want to understand your clients, your goals, your competitive landscape, and what you want the site to accomplish. If the first conversation is mostly about their process and their packages with minimal curiosity about your specific situation, that dynamic tends to continue throughout the project.
What happens if I want to make changes after launch? Websites are living things. Your business evolves, your services change, you add team members, you want to publish new content. Understand upfront what the process and cost of ongoing updates look like. Some designers hand you the keys and walk away. Others build an ongoing relationship that grows with your business. Neither is wrong, but you should know which one you are signing up for.
The Red Flags Worth Walking Away From
A few things worth treating as deal-breakers, regardless of how good the portfolio looks or how competitive the price is.
Vague timelines with no clear milestones. "Usually takes about six to eight weeks" is not a project plan. A designer who cannot give you a clear timeline with defined phases and checkpoints is a designer whose projects tend to drift.
No conversation about search visibility. A website that cannot be found in search is a liability, not an asset. If the designer does not bring up SEO, local search, page structure, or technical performance unprompted, ask directly. If the response is vague or dismissive, take note. "I built a website" and "I have a website that works" are different sentences.
Pressure to decide quickly. Legitimate designers are confident enough in their work that they do not need to manufacture urgency. "We only have one spot left this month" or "this price is only available this week" is a sales tactic, not a reflection of the demand for a quality designer's time.
Long contracts with unclear exit terms. A designer who requires a 12-month commitment before you have seen any work product is not designing around your interests. Confident work speaks for itself and does not need to be locked in contractually before it is proven.
No clear process for what happens when things go wrong. Something always comes up in a website project. How a designer handles scope changes, missed deadlines, or feedback they disagree with tells you more about working with them than their portfolio ever will. Ask directly what happens when things do not go as planned.
What Good Actually Looks Like
A good website designer for a small business is someone who understands that the website is a business tool, not a piece of art. They think about how it performs, not just how it looks. They build on a foundation that serves your goals five years from now, not just the day it launches. They are reachable when you have questions, honest about what is realistic, and clear about what they need from you to do their best work.
They do not lock you into commitments you cannot get out of. They build with accessibility as a baseline, not an afterthought. They have a clear answer when you ask what happens after launch. And they ask more questions about your business before they start talking about solutions.
That combination of technical craft, business thinking, clear communication, and genuine accountability is rarer than it should be. But it exists, and it is worth taking the time to find it. If your search is local, the same standards apply with a few market-specific notes in the guides for the Denver area and Cave Creek.
If you want a second set of eyes on a proposal you have received, or you are not sure what questions to ask as you start this process, that is a conversation Egmer is glad to have. The Goggles On Visibility Call is a good place to start.
Goggles On, Let's Ride!