Hiring a web designer in Norwich: what to ask before you sign

Search for a web designer in Norwich and you’ll get freelancers, small studios, larger agencies and national firms with a Norfolk landing page. Their portfolios all look fine. Their prices vary widely, and it’s hard to tell what the difference buys you.

The portfolio won’t tell you much. What matters is who controls the site once it’s finished and what it costs you in year two. That only comes out if you ask.

These are the questions worth asking in the first conversation, with what a good answer sounds like.

Does local matter?

It helps, a little. Meeting in person makes the first conversation easier, and it’s harder to disappear on someone who can knock on your door. A designer who knows the area won’t need it explained that customers in Dereham search differently from people in the Golden Triangle, or which villages you cover.

But local is a tiebreaker, not the reason to hire someone. A designer twenty minutes away who builds a slow site you can’t leave is worse than one in Leeds who gets the rest right. Start with the questions below and let distance decide between two good answers.

Who will own the site, the code and the domain?

Ask this first. The answer you want is plain: the domain is registered in your name, the hosting and other accounts are in your name or handed to you, and you get the code if you ever leave.

Watch for vague answers. “We look after all that for you” can mean your domain sits in the designer’s account and leaving means asking them nicely for it back. Some builders also only run on one platform, so there’s no code to take anywhere. We wrote more about this in own your website.

What does the price include, and what’s the monthly cost after launch?

A build price on its own tells you half the story. Ask for both numbers in writing:

• the fixed price to build, and what’s in it (number of pages, copywriting, photos, contact forms);
• the monthly cost once the site is live, and exactly what that covers;
• what a change costs after launch, say a new page or updated prices;
• whether there’s a minimum term, and what you take with you if you cancel.

Hosting, security updates, backups and the SSL certificate have to be paid for somewhere. If a quote leaves them out, they’ll turn up later. A clear monthly plan is easier to budget for than surprise invoices.

Is it a template, or built for you?

Plenty of good sites start from a template, and that can be the right call on a small budget. You should still know which you’re getting. Ask whether the design is a theme bought off the shelf and restyled, or drawn up and coded for your business.

The difference shows. Templates come with a fixed set of layouts, extra code for features you’ll never use, and a look visitors may have seen on other sites. If you want to know what to look for, read stop looking like a template.

How fast will it load, and how do they test it?

Most of your visitors will be on a phone, often on patchy signal outside the city. A slow site loses them before the page appears.

Ask what speed they aim for and how they check it. A good answer names a tool, such as Google’s free PageSpeed Insights, and tests on a mid-range phone over mobile data as well as on a fast office connection. Ask to see the scores for a site they’ve already built, and run one yourself while you’re talking.

Who does the work, and who do you talk to?

With some firms, the person who sells you the site isn’t the person who builds it, and parts of the work go to subcontractors you never meet. That’s not wrong in itself, but you should know. Find out whether the designer and the developer are the same person, and whose number you ring when something breaks in eighteen months.

Then ask what happens if they go quiet. People get ill, businesses close. If you hold the domain, the hosting login and a copy of the code, another developer can pick it up within days. If you don’t, you could be starting again.

Before you sign, make sure you have in writing:

1. a fixed price and a list of what it covers;
2. the monthly cost after launch and what it pays for;
3. confirmation the domain and accounts will be in your name;
4. who builds it and who you contact afterwards.

We’re a Norwich studio, and this is how we price and build our small business websites: a fixed price agreed before any work starts, then a monthly care plan covering hosting, security, backups and small changes. You own the code, the content and the domain from day one.

If you’d like to put these questions to us, send us a message.