How to Tell If a Web Designer Is Actually Any Good
Most web designers have a portfolio. Most portfolios look pretty good. The problem is that a site that photographs well and a site that earns its keep are two different things, and the gap between them is where small business owners lose money. These are the checks worth doing before you commit.
Ask to See a Site That Is Actually Ranking
A designer who builds good looking sites and a designer who builds sites that get found are not always the same person. Ask directly: can you show me a client site that ranks on the first page of Google for a competitive term? If they can, look at the actual live page, not a screenshot. Check whether the page title matches the topic, whether the heading structure is logical, and whether the mobile version is usable without pinching or zooming. If they cannot point to a single example where a client is ranking for something meaningful, that tells you how much weight they give to search performance when they build. A site that nobody finds is a liability, not an asset.
What Do You Actually Own When the Project Ends?
You should own the domain, the hosting account, and every login. Some designers register your domain in their own account, host your site on a reseller plan they control, and retain the credentials. When you want to move, or when they stop responding, you have very little leverage and no clean way out.
Before signing anything, confirm in writing that the domain will be registered in your name, that the hosting account will be yours, and that every admin credential will be handed over at launch. Ask this early. Designers who do good work have no reason to resist it, and the ones who do resist it are telling you something useful about how the relationship will go.
Check Their Portfolio Sites on a Real Phone
Pull up three or four sites from their portfolio on your own phone, on your own connection, not on a desktop at their office. Look at how long the hero image takes to appear, whether the navigation works without effort, and whether buttons are large enough and spaced well enough to tap without frustration. Google uses mobile performance as a direct ranking input, so a slow or awkward mobile experience will cost you in search regardless of how immaculate the site looks on a widescreen monitor. If the portfolio sites are slow or clumsy on a phone in 2026, assume the one they build for you will be too.
Ask What Happens the Week After Launch
A finished website is not a finished product. On a WordPress site, plugin updates conflict with themes; on any platform, hosting configurations change, contact forms break, and SSL certificates expire. A designer who has thought about this will give you a clear answer on what ongoing support costs, how quickly they respond when something breaks, whether they keep backups, and whether an emergency on a Friday afternoon is covered under the monthly retainer or billed separately at a higher rate. A designer who gives you a vague answer, or no answer, is telling you that the relationship effectively ends at handover. Find out before you sign, not after your booking form goes silent over a long weekend.
Does the Quote Cover Content, or Just the Template?
Many fixed price quotes cover the design shell but not the words, images, or any content strategy. When the project reaches the stage where they need your copy, work stalls, the deadline slips, and if you end up writing everything yourself in a hurry the pages often perform poorly in search because they were never written with that in mind. A clear quote will itemise what is included: copywriting, photography or image sourcing, on page SEO setup, and any integrations like booking systems or contact forms. If the quote does not break these out, ask for it to before you sign.
What Does the Contract Say About Revisions?
Revision clauses are where a lot of small business website projects turn unpleasant. Before you sign, ask the designer to define exactly what counts as a revision under the contract, how many are included in the quoted price, and what the rate is for anything beyond that. Some charge a flat hourly rate for out of scope changes; others move you to the back of the queue for weeks. Ask also whether correcting an error introduced by the designer draws from the same pool as a change you request yourself. Neither billing model is inherently wrong, but discovering the answer mid-project, when a deadline is close and the relationship is already strained, is far worse than knowing it upfront.
Look at Their Own Website With the Same Critical Eye
A designer's own site is a direct sample of their standard. Run it through Google PageSpeed Insights, which is free and takes thirty seconds, and look at the mobile score. Check whether their contact form actually submits. Read the copy and ask whether it explains clearly who they serve and what they do, or whether it relies on phrases like passionate about design and results driven without saying anything specific. If their own site is slow, hard to navigate, or padded with filler language, that is the level of care you can expect on yours. This is not a trick. It is applied observation, and it takes about five minutes.
The Difference Between a Site That Looks Done and One That Actually Works
Plenty of small businesses end up with a website that satisfies the invoice and does almost nothing else: no search visibility, no lead flow, nothing measurable. The checks above are not cynical; they are the professional standard you would apply to any other trade. You would not pay a plumber before the water ran. Asking a designer to show that their previous work performs is exactly the same logic.
If you are at the stage of working out what your site needs to genuinely earn its keep, the small business website service at Veloce is built around measurable outcomes rather than a finished invoice: the first three days of work run on your real site, and every fix made in that time is yours to keep whether you continue or not.