Most advice about hiring a web designer boils down to "trust your gut" or "pick whoever's cheapest." Neither one actually tells you anything about the company you're about to pay. Cheap doesn't mean good, and it usually doesn't work out that way, whether that's a recycled template, no real support after launch, or corners cut somewhere you won't notice until it costs you a customer. The good news is you don't have to take anyone's word for it, including ours. Every check below is something you can run yourself, for free, in about fifteen minutes, on any web designer you're considering.
1. Check load speed yourself
Go to Google's PageSpeed Insights, paste in a web address, and hit analyze. You'll get a score out of 100, separately for mobile and desktop. This matters for two reasons: Google factors page speed into search rankings, and mobile visitors abandon slow sites at a much higher rate than desktop ones, since most people won't wait around on a phone.
Don't just test the pitch you're given. Test the designer's own site, and test a couple of the actual client sites they show you in their portfolio. A company that talks a big game about speed but scores poorly on its own work has told you something important.
2. Look at the actual portfolio, not just the pitch
Ask for real, live client sites, then go look at them yourself instead of relying on screenshots in a proposal. Do they look current, or does everything look like the same template with a different logo and color palette dropped in? Pull them up on your phone too. A portfolio that only looks good on a desktop monitor is telling you exactly how much attention mobile actually got.
3. Ask what the site is built on
Ask directly: is this WordPress with plugins, or is it custom coded? This isn't just a technical preference. WordPress sites typically depend on a stack of plugins, each one built and maintained by a different outside company. Every one of those plugins needs updates over time, and outdated plugins are one of the most common ways small business websites get hacked. Those updates, and the security patching that comes with them, are an ongoing cost that shows up after launch, not something you see in the initial pitch.
4. Ask who you'll actually be talking to
Find out whether changes go through an account manager and a support ticket queue, or straight to the person actually doing the work. Ask how fast they typically respond to a request, and ask for a specific example, not a vague "quickly." A designer with nothing to hide should be able to answer that in one sentence.
5. Ask who owns your domain and hosting
This is the one people forget to ask, and it matters more than almost anything else on this list. Is the domain registered in your name, or theirs? If you ever want to leave, can you actually take your site with you, or are you locked into a proprietary builder that only that company can touch? Get a straight answer to this before you sign anything.
6. Ask whether SEO basics are included
A sitemap, basic analytics, and simple schema markup (the behind-the-scenes code that helps Google and AI tools understand what your page is about) are all standard, low-effort additions during a build. Ask directly whether they're included in the base price or billed separately later. If a company treats basic SEO as an upsell, that's useful information too.
The point isn't to scare you off
A website is a real investment, and these six checks take about fifteen minutes total. Run them on anyone you're considering, including us. If you want to see how we hold up, our portfolio is public and our pricing is published, not hidden behind a sales call. If you'd rather just ask us the questions above directly, get in touch and we'll give you a straight answer.