Before hiring a web designer, ask who will own the domain and accounts, who writes the content and where the facts come from, which platform they recommend for you and why, how edits work after launch, what happens to your old URLs, and how forms, mobile layouts and accessibility get tested. Good answers name a person, a step and a deliverable. Vague answers are a reason to keep looking.
Most proposals look alike at first glance: a portfolio, a page count, a timeline and a price. The differences that matter a year after launch sit underneath, in who controls the site, how content gets made, and what happens when something needs to change.
These questions are for business owners and marketing leads comparing designers or agencies for a new site or a rebuild, in any industry.
Questions about ownership and access
Start with control, because it is the hardest thing to fix later. Ask whose name and email will be on the domain registration, the hosting or platform account, analytics and Search Console. Ask whether you will hold the owner login and the designer will be added as a user. For a hand-coded site, ask where the source files will live and how you would hand them to someone else. The reasoning behind each of these is laid out in who should own your domain and website accounts.
Google's guidance on hiring an SEO makes two points that apply just as well to a web designer. It suggests granting read access to Search Console at first rather than write access, and it reminds owners that they are responsible for the actions of any companies they hire. Being careful about access is not distrust. It is normal practice.
Questions about content
Ask directly: who writes the words? Some proposals list content as "client to supply," which can mean the business ends up writing every page in the last week before launch. Others offer copywriting without saying where the facts will come from. Ask how the designer will gather your services, your process, your proof and the questions your customers ask, and who approves each page before it goes live.
Listen for how the knowledge gets from your team onto the page. A designer should not have to invent what your business knows, and you should not have to write a website alone. The useful answer describes a process for getting knowledge out of the people who have it, such as interviews, call notes, existing documents and a review step, and then turning it into pages.
Questions about the platform and life after launch
Do some homework before the first meeting. Ask your own team, "What do we need this site to do that the current one does not?" A designer can answer much better questions when they know whether the goal is more quote requests, fewer unqualified calls, recruiting, or simply a site the team is no longer embarrassed to share.
Ask which platform they recommend for your business and why, and listen for a reason tied to how you will work. Hudson South's own guidance runs like this: Netlify suits businesses that want speed, security and low upkeep and are happy to have Hudson South make edits; WordPress suits businesses that want to log in, edit pages, post blogs and use plugins; Squarespace suits businesses that want a simple editor they manage themselves. The full comparison is in Netlify, WordPress or Squarespace.
Then ask what happens after launch. Who makes small text changes? Who applies updates, if the platform needs them? How are requests made, and how quickly are they usually handled? Whatever the answer, it should be written into the proposal rather than left to a handshake.
Questions about search, forms and testing
Ask what happens to your current URLs, whether old addresses will be redirected, and who checks the redirects after launch. Ask whether the build includes an XML sitemap and structured data. Ask how form submissions reach you and how the forms are tested. Ask how they check mobile layouts and accessibility before launch. A portfolio is not a process, and these questions show the process.
Be careful with promises about search results. Google's hiring guidance says no one can promise a number one ranking on Google, and that if a provider promises their changes will put you in first place, you should find someone else. It also suggests asking whether they will share all the changes they make to your site, and it warns against firms and web consultants that email you out of the blue.
| Question | A specific answer sounds like | A vague answer sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns the domain and accounts? | "You do, under your company email. We get user access." | "We take care of all that for you." |
| Who writes the content? | "We interview your team, draft each page, and you approve it." | "Send us your content when it's ready." |
| What happens to old URLs? | "We map each one and redirect it, then test the list." | "Google will figure it out." |
| How do forms reach us? | "Each submission is emailed to the address you choose, and we test it before launch." | "There's a contact form on the template." |
| How do you check accessibility? | "Automated checks plus a manual pass on forms and key pages." | "The theme is accessible." |
A fictional example: two proposals
Consider a fictional tree service company in Colorado comparing two proposals at a similar price. The first has a beautiful portfolio and promises a five-page site, with content supplied by the client. The second has a smaller portfolio and a plan that starts with an interview about services, service area, safety practices and the questions customers ask on estimate visits, followed by a redirect map for the old site.
When the owner asks both about account ownership, the first designer offers to host everything in the designer's own account. The second asks for the registrar login so it can be moved into the company's name first. The owner picks the second, not for the design alone, but because the answers showed who would be doing what.
Hudson South builds websites around the same four steps as its content work: Authority Asset (approved business knowledge and evidence), Hudson Twenty-One (how the business communicates across 21 dimensions), Market Intelligence (buyer questions and the market) and AEO Creation (answer-first content). As a practice, builds include answer-first page structure, structured data, an XML sitemap, redirects from old URLs when a site moves, form submissions emailed to the business, mobile layout checks, automated accessibility checks and a quality gate on copy before launch. Hudson Deed sites start at $5,000, and every build is scoped before it starts. The website builds overview has the details.
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