How to choose a web design agency (without getting burned)

Ask who owns the site

This is the most important question and the one most often skipped. You should own the domain, the hosting account and the code, in your name, from day one. If the agency holds the domain or the cloud account, you are renting your own shopfront. A good provider will be relaxed about handover; a bad one will resist it.

Ask how you will edit it

If changing a phone number or a price means emailing the agency and waiting for a quote, the site will go stale. Ask to see how you will make simple changes yourself, and whether training is included. Content that is easy to update is content that actually gets updated.

Ask what happens after launch

A launch is not the end. Ask about speed, security updates, backups and what a support plan costs. Beware of a model where the build is cheap and every future change is expensive; the real cost of ownership lives after launch.

Warning signs

Some patterns should make you pause or walk away.

• They insist on owning your domain or hosting account.
• They will not agree a fixed scope and price in writing.
• They want full payment before you have seen anything working.
• They cannot show sites they built that are live and fast.
• They promise a specific Google ranking in a specific timeframe.

What good looks like

A reliable agency fixes scope and price, stages payments against progress, hands over everything, and shows you how to run your own site. They fix the price because they are confident in the scope, and they hand over the keys because they expect to earn the next job on the work, not on locking you in.