What to ask before you hire anyone to build your website

Buying a website is uncomfortable because you are being asked to judge work you cannot evaluate. Every proposal looks similar. Every portfolio looks nice. The prices vary by a factor of ten and nobody explains why.

So here are the questions that actually sort it out. None require you to understand code, and all of them have answers you can judge.

1. “Who owns everything when we are finished?”

Start here, because it is the one that can cost you the most and the one people forget to ask.

Ask specifically about four things: the domain name, the hosting account, the code, and the logins to whatever system runs the content. Ask whether you can take the site somewhere else, and what that would involve.

A good answer is boring and specific. You own the domain, it is registered in your name, here is the account. The site can be exported and moved. Here are your logins.

A bad answer is vague, or cheerfully explains that they host everything on their own platform and it is all included. Sometimes that is a genuinely good deal. It also means leaving costs you the entire site. If the domain is registered in the builder’s name, fix that before anything else happens, whoever builds it.

2. “What will it score on a speed test, and will you show me after launch?”

Speed is one of the few things about a website that is objectively measurable, which makes it a useful proxy for whether someone knows what they are doing.

A good answer names a target, mentions testing on a mid-range phone rather than a fast laptop, and offers to show you the numbers after launch. A bad answer is “it’ll be fast” or “we use the latest technology”.

Worth asking because slow sites cost real money, which we have put numbers on before, and because a builder who has never measured it has never had to care.

3. “What happens to an enquiry after someone hits send?”

This is the question that separates people who build websites from people who build businesses a website.

Most builds stop at the form. The form works, the email arrives, everyone shakes hands. Nobody asks where that email lands, whether it gets logged anywhere, who follows it up, or what happens if it arrives at 9pm on a Saturday.

A good answer asks you questions back. Who handles enquiries, how fast, what happens on weekends, do you want them in a CRM. A bad answer treats the form as the finish line.

The gap matters because the first five minutes decide most of these, and a form that emails one inbox nobody watches on a Saturday is not a lead capture system. It is a suggestion box.

4. “Can you show me something you built two or three years ago?”

Anyone can show you a launch. Portfolios are full of them, photographed on the day.

Asking for older work tells you three things a new build cannot: whether it still works, whether it is still online, and whether that client stuck around. A good answer produces two or three without much hesitation. A bad answer is a lot of very recent work and no history, which either means they are new, or that clients do not stay.

You can check this yourself in about a minute per site. Load one on your phone, see how fast it is, see whether anything is visibly broken.

5. “What do you need from me, and when?”

Website projects rarely stall on the building. They stall on content: the copy nobody has written, the photos nobody has taken, the price list that needs a decision from someone on leave.

A good answer is specific and slightly uncomfortable, because it names what you owe them and when. A bad answer is “just send through whatever you have”, which usually means a project that drifts for four months and then gets blamed on you, not unfairly.

6. “What happens when something breaks on a Friday evening?”

Not if. Something will break, usually a plugin update or a certificate expiring or a form silently failing.

A good answer describes an actual arrangement: what is covered, roughly how quickly they respond, and what it costs. A bad answer is “just email us” with nothing behind it.

Be a bit sceptical of anyone promising instant round-the-clock support, too. Small shops cannot genuinely staff that, and a promise nobody can keep is worse than an honest one about Monday morning.

7. “How will an AI assistant describe my business?”

The newest question on this list, and the one most builders have no answer to yet.

A growing share of people asking for a recommendation get one from an AI rather than from a search results page. What that AI says about you depends on structured data, consistent details across your site and listings, and content clear enough to be read by a machine. It is also, increasingly, how a customer decides you are a real business.

A good answer talks about structured data and consistency across your listings. A bad answer is a confident pivot to SEO packages and keyword rankings, which is a different thing sold by people who have not updated their pitch.

The answers that should genuinely worry you

• “We guarantee you’ll rank number one on Google.” Nobody can promise this. It is the clearest single signal you are talking to the wrong shop.
• A refusal to give any price range at all before a long discovery process. Scopes vary, so ranges are fair and specifics are hard. But a shop that will not say whether you are looking at $3,000 or $30,000 is managing you.
• A proprietary system you cannot leave. Sometimes fine, but you need to know before you sign, not after.
• No mention of what happens after launch. A website is not a thing you finish. It is a thing you run.

The questions we would not answer well

It would be dishonest to publish a test we designed and then imply we ace it, so here are the ones where we come off worse than a bigger agency.

“Can you do it for $2,000?” No. Our work starts meaningfully above that, and we published our numbers so you can check before you call. If your budget is genuinely $2,000, a good template and a weekend of your own time will serve you better than a cheap custom build, and we will tell you that on the phone.

“Do you have a designer, a developer, a copywriter and an SEO specialist?” Not as four separate people. We are small. That means you deal directly with whoever is doing the work rather than an account manager, which most clients prefer, but if you want a large team with deep specialists on every discipline, a bigger agency is a legitimate choice and we would rather say so than pretend.

“Can you start on Monday?” Usually not. Small shops book out. If you need something live in ten days, ask us honestly and we will tell you whether it is possible.

The func.digital take

The reason to ask any of this is not to catch anyone out. It is that the difference between a website that earns its money and one that just exists is mostly invisible at the proposal stage, and these questions make some of it visible.

If a builder answers all seven well, they are probably worth their price even if it is higher than the alternative. If they get stuck on ownership, on what happens to an enquiry, or on what happens after launch, that is worth knowing before you pay a deposit rather than eighteen months later.

Ask us the same seven. If you would like the answers alongside a look at what you are currently running, that is what a free digital systems audit is. No obligation to hire anyone, including us. Get in touch, and ask the hard ones.