Most advice on this focuses on portfolios. Portfolios show what someone can make look good, which is the easiest part to evaluate and the least likely to go wrong. Here is what actually separates a good outcome from a bad one.
Do I own the site and the domain outright? The answer must be yes, unambiguously. Some arrangements leave you renting your own website, unable to move without rebuilding. Ask what happens if you leave.
Who writes the content? This derails more projects than anything else. Many builds stall for months because nobody agreed who was writing the words. Establish it up front.
Is search setup included? "SEO-friendly" means nothing. Ask specifically: titles and descriptions per page, structured data, sitemap, Search Console. If those are extra, know that before you sign.
What happens after launch? Who patches it, who backs it up, who fixes a broken form. An unmaintained site degrades. If there is no answer, that is your answer.
Can I update it myself? You should be able to change text and images without paying someone. If the answer involves a support ticket for every word, expect the site to go stale.
What does it cost in year two? The build price is not the total. Hosting, domain, maintenance and support all continue.
A guaranteed ranking. Nobody controls Google's results. Anyone promising a position is either misleading you or planning to rank you for a phrase nobody searches.
A price quoted before any questions. If someone can price your site before understanding what it needs, they are selling a fixed product, not solving your problem.
Vagueness about ownership. This should be a one-word answer.
Only one platform for every client. Sometimes that reflects genuine specialism. Often it reflects the limits of what they can build.
No interest in what you sell or who buys it. A website that does not understand your buyer will not convert them, regardless of how it looks.
They ask more questions than you expected, particularly about customers rather than colours.
They tell you something you did not want to hear — that you do not need what you asked for, or that a cheaper option would serve you better. People willing to talk themselves out of work are usually worth hiring.
They can explain the technical parts in plain language. Jargon is often used to obscure rather than inform.
They are still supporting sites they built years ago. Anyone can launch a website; staying responsible for it is the harder commitment.
Ask for a site they built two or three years ago and look at it now. Is it still fast, still current, still maintained? That tells you far more about what you are buying than a portfolio of recent launches ever will.
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