How to Choose a Web Designer

Choosing a web designer means finding someone who understands your business, your customers and what your website needs to achieve. A strong portfolio matters, but so does the thinking behind it: how visitors find the website, how easily they understand your services and what encourages them to get in touch.

For an established business, a redesign is also an opportunity to address problems with an existing website. Perhaps it looks dated, no longer reflects the quality of your work or attracts very few enquiries. The right web designer should help you understand what needs improving and explain how their approach will support your goals.

Here’s what to look for before deciding who to work with.

Start With What Your Business Needs

Before approaching a web designer, identify why you want to change your website. You don’t need a detailed technical brief, but it helps to have a few clear priorities.

These might include:

• Updating the design to reflect your business today.
• Making your services easier to understand.
• Improving your visibility on Google.
• Generating more relevant enquiries.
• Making the website easier to use on mobile.
• Moving away from an unreliable provider.
• Getting dependable ongoing support.

Explain what currently frustrates you and what a successful new website would help you achieve. A good designer will ask questions about your customers, services and business priorities before recommending a solution.

Look Beyond the Portfolio’s Appearance

A portfolio gives you a useful sense of a designer’s style and capabilities. Look for websites that feel appropriate to the businesses they represent, with clear information and an obvious next step for visitors.

Where possible, visit the live websites as well as looking at screenshots. Try using them on your phone, finding a particular service and navigating to the contact page. Consider whether the design makes those tasks straightforward.

Experience in your industry can be helpful, particularly when your business has specific requirements. A garden designer may need a strong project portfolio, while a training provider needs to present courses clearly. However, relevant experience can also come from solving similar problems for businesses in other sectors.

Ask what the designer actually delivered on each project. Their involvement might have included a complete rebuild, design alone, SEO improvements or ongoing maintenance. Understanding their contribution makes it easier to assess the work.

Choose Someone Who Understands SEO

Design influences what happens when someone reaches your website. Search engine optimisation helps people discover it in the first place. Both deserve attention when you commission a new site.

Ask how SEO fits into the designer’s process. Will they consider what your potential customers search for? How will the pages be organised? Will your main services have suitable content and clear routes through the website?

A website with strong SEO foundations should be planned around its audience and the information they need. That involves more than installing an SEO plugin or adding a few keywords shortly before launch.

It is also useful to distinguish between SEO included in the website build and ongoing SEO work. Initial setup might cover page structure, keyword targeting, metadata and technical checks. Continued growth may require further content, improvements and monitoring after launch. Your proposal should explain what is included.

Be cautious about guaranteed rankings. A designer should be able to explain their approach and what they will deliver without promising a particular position on Google.

Ask How They Will Handle Your Existing Website

If your business already has a website, the designer should review it before deciding what to replace.

Some pages may already attract useful visitors. Existing content, photographs, customer reviews and project examples could still have value. A redesign should take account of those assets alongside the changes your business needs.

Ask how the designer will handle existing page addresses, content and search visibility. If URLs change, there should be a plan for directing visitors and search engines to the relevant replacement pages.

You should also discuss practical connections such as contact forms, booking systems and business email. Understanding what depends on the current setup helps make the handover more straightforward.

Understand What the Proposal Includes

Website proposals can vary considerably in scope. Two providers may both offer a “new website” while including very different amounts of planning, content work and support.

Look for clarity on:

• The pages and functionality being delivered.
• Whether existing content will be reused, edited or rewritten.
• What SEO work is included.
• How the website will work across different screen sizes.
• The feedback and revision process.
• Hosting, maintenance and ongoing costs.
• What happens before, during and after launch.

It should also be clear what you need to supply. Photographs, service details, account access and feedback can all affect the project timeline.

A detailed proposal helps you compare the actual work involved and reduces the likelihood of unexpected costs or misunderstandings later.

Check Website Ownership and Access

Before committing, establish who will control your domain, website and associated accounts.

Ask what access you will receive, which services depend on the provider’s licences and what would happen if you wanted to move to someone else in future. These arrangements should be explained clearly.

You may prefer to leave day-to-day management to your designer. Even so, understanding how everything is organised gives you confidence in the relationship and helps avoid unnecessary complications later.

Find Out What Happens After Launch

A website needs attention after it goes live. Software updates, backups, security checks and occasional changes all form part of keeping it useful and reliable.

Ask whether the designer provides ongoing support and what that support includes. Can you request content changes? Is there an allowance of time each month? How are larger additions handled?

Website maintenance and ongoing marketing serve different purposes, so check whether activities such as SEO monitoring, new content or advertising are included or offered separately.

The right arrangement depends on how much you want to manage yourself and how much support your business needs.

Look for Clear Communication and Client Feedback

You should feel comfortable asking questions and discussing your ideas. A good web designer will explain recommendations in plain language, listen to your priorities and be honest about what is achievable.

Testimonials and case studies can help you assess the working relationship as well as the finished website. Look for comments about communication, reliability, problem-solving and support.

Where a case study reports results, consider what those figures actually demonstrate. More website visitors, more enquiries and more sales are different outcomes. Clear explanations are more useful than impressive numbers without context.

Questions to Ask a Web Designer

Before making your decision, ask:

1. How would you approach the main problems with my current website?
2. Can you show me relevant projects and explain your role in them?
3. How do you combine website design with SEO?
4. What existing content and search visibility should we preserve?
5. What is included in the proposal, and what would cost extra?
6. What will you need from me during the project?
7. Who will own and control the website, domain and related accounts?
8. What support will be available after launch?

You don’t need to become a website expert to choose well. You need a provider who gives clear answers, understands your business and can show how their work addresses your priorities.

Web Design and SEO Working Together

At Sunscape Digital, we combine bespoke web design with SEO from the outset, bringing visual design, content and search visibility into the same process. We help established businesses turn outdated or underperforming websites into modern, professional sites that showcase their work, explain their services and make it easier for potential customers to enquire. With experience across sectors including garden design, performing arts and beauty, we create websites around the needs of each business and provide ongoing support after launch. Explore our web design and SEO services, or get in touch to discuss how we could improve your website.