Choosing a designer
How to choose a web designer without buying the wrong website.
The right designer isn't automatically the cheapest, the priciest, the one with the glossiest portfolio, or the biggest agency — it depends on what the site actually needs to achieve for your business.
Start here
What commercial job does the site need to do?
Before comparing designers, be clear on the job. A site built to win larger contracts looks and reads differently to one built to sell products directly.
Generate enquiries
Support referrals with a credible online presence
Sell products directly
Build trust with new visitors
Win larger or more formal contracts
Rank organically in search
Take bookings
Explain complex services clearly
See the evidence
Look at live work, not just mockups.
Ask for links to real, live websites rather than polished screenshots. Visit them yourself, and specifically on a phone — most visitors to any small business site will be on one. Does it load quickly, read clearly, and work without pinching or zooming?
A portfolio page is a curated highlight reel. A live site tells you what actually shipped.
Who's actually doing it
Ask who actually does the work.
None of these is automatically "best" — each suits a different situation.
| Type | What to expect |
|---|---|
| Freelancer | Usually one person handling design, build and often ongoing changes. Can be personal and flexible; capacity is limited to that one person. |
| Small studio | A small team, often with separate design and development skills. More resilience than a sole freelancer, still fairly hands-on. |
| Agency | Larger team with defined roles — account management, design, development, sometimes SEO. More process, often higher overheads. |
| Outsourced production | A UK-facing contact with build work carried out elsewhere. Worth knowing about upfront — not necessarily a problem, but worth asking who you'll actually deal with. |
Before the build starts
Ask about SEO before the build, not after.
How a site is structured — its page hierarchy, URLs, internal links — affects how easily it can be found later. Retrofitting good SEO onto a poorly structured site is possible but harder and slower than building it in from the start.
After launch
Ask what happens after launch.
Hosting, support, future changes, ownership, ongoing SEO and maintenance rarely stop at the launch date. Get clarity on each before you sign, not once a problem appears.
Total cost
Understand the total first-year cost.
Compare total first-year cost, not just the headline build price.
| Cost line | What it covers |
|---|---|
| The build itself | The one-off design and development cost. |
| Hosting | Ongoing, whether billed by the designer or a separate host. |
| Maintenance | Updates, security patches, backups — sometimes bundled, sometimes not. |
| SEO | Ongoing visibility work, if you want it, is usually separate from the build. |
| Third-party software | Booking systems, e-commerce platforms or plugins can carry their own licence fees. |
| Domain | A small annual renewal, wherever it's registered. |
| Extra work | Anything outside the agreed scope — additional pages, revisions beyond what's included. |
Our own packages — Launch, Growth and Scale, plus Managed Hosting & Care at £49/month — are set out in full on the pricing page.
Watch out for
Red flags worth taking seriously.
A low price on its own is not a red flag — plenty of good, fairly-priced work exists. These are the things worth being wary of instead.
- Guaranteed rankings or guaranteed page-one positions
- Unclear ownership of the domain, code or design
- Vague pricing with no written breakdown
- No written scope of what's included
- A portfolio piece they didn't actually build
- No plan for protecting existing rankings during a redesign
- Recurring charges that were never explained upfront
How we approach it
Where Vision & Venture fits in.
We publish transparent packages, work founder-led, and think about web design and SEO together rather than as separate afterthoughts. Ongoing costs — hosting, maintenance, any SEO work — are set out clearly rather than left vague.
See our work and who we are if that's useful context, whoever you end up choosing.
Next, see our 20 questions to ask, what to check in a web design contract, and who ends up owning what — see who owns your website. If you're briefing several designers, our web design brief guide may help too.
Next step
Know what you need?
Let's talk about whether we're the right fit.
We're happy to be one of the designers you compare — and just as happy to point you towards the right questions if we're not the right fit.