How do I choose a web designer?
Every web designer sounds good in the first conversation. The portfolios are pretty, the promises are big, and the prices are somehow both firm and impossible to compare. The difference between a website that brings you customers and a website that brings you headaches is almost never visible in that first talk — it shows up in the answers to a handful of plain questions. Ask these before you sign anything, and a vague designer exposes himself. Ask none of them, and you find out the answers the expensive way, after the money is gone.
The questions that protect you
These are the questions every serious hiring guide repeats, because they are the ones owners wish they had asked:
- Can I see live websites you have built? Not screenshots — real sites. Open them on your phone, because that is how your customers will see them.
- What exactly is included in the price, in writing? Pages, features, revisions — if it is not written down, it is not included.
- Who will own the website, the domain, and the accounts? The answer you need is: you will. Anything else is a leash.
- What is the process, from first contact to launch? A real process has steps you can follow, not a fog you wait in.
- How many rounds of changes are included? And what do extra changes cost?
- Who provides the text and the photos? You, them, or shared — know before the clock starts.
- What happens after launch? Updates, fixes, support: who do you contact, and what does it cost?
- What will the site cost to run each year? Domain, hosting, care — the price after the price.
- Can the site be moved to another provider later? If the answer is no, you are not buying a website. You are renting one.
The red flags are just as consistent: answers that stay vague when money is on the table, no written price, and ownership treated like a silly question. A designer who is clear before you sign is clear during the project. One who is slippery before you sign is slippery with your deposit in his pocket.
How we answer those questions
Plainly, and in the open:
- Our prices are published. One-page website $500 · Business website $800 · Premium from $1,200. You can compare us before you ever speak to us.
- Our payment terms are simple. 50% to start, and the balance when your finished site is ready and approved by you, before go-live on your own domain. You see it working and approve it before the rest is due.
- You deal with the owner. We are founder-led: every project is handled directly by the owner, from our first contact to launch. Nothing is handed off.
- The site is yours. Everything is set up on your own accounts, and the finished site and domain are handed over to you at final payment.
- Where we are. West Palm Beach, Florida, serving small businesses across the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean — in English, French, Spanish, and Haitian Creole.
Choosing between designers right now? Text or email us — we answer fast. Text: (774) 666-1728 · Email: design@goddessisacrownsecrets.com Tell us what kind of business you run and what the website has to do, and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right fit.