15 Questions to Ask a Long Island Web Designer Before You Sign

If you’re hiring a web designer or developer on Long Island, the worst time to find out you picked wrong is six months in. By then your site is half-built, your money’s spent, and switching costs are brutal.

These are the 15 questions I’d ask any web designer — including me — before signing a contract. Most of them will filter out the people you don’t want to work with in the first five minutes of a phone call.

Setup and ownership

1. Will I own the website outright when this is done?

The single most important question. Some designers — especially ones offering low monthly subscriptions — keep the code, the domain, the hosting, or all three. If you stop paying, your site disappears.

You want a clean answer: yes, I’ll own the code, the domain, and the hosting account. No exceptions, no asterisks.

2. Where is the site hosted, and is the hosting account in my name?

If the answer is “I’ll set you up on my hosting” — that’s a red flag. You want the hosting account registered to your business email, your payment method, with your name on the bill. Otherwise leaving the relationship requires the designer’s cooperation.

Modern best practice: Cloudflare Pages, Vercel, or Netlify. All three offer free hobby tiers that comfortably handle a small-business site, with the account in your name and full export at any time.

3. What platform is the site built on, and why that one?

If the answer is “WordPress” — fine, but ask why. WordPress is fine if you need a plugin ecosystem. It’s overkill (and a security/maintenance burden) for most small business sites.

If the answer is “Wix” or “Squarespace” — that’s a template platform. Make sure you understand the trade-offs (cheaper to build, slower to load, harder to rank, monthly subscription forever). I’ve written a full comparison here.

If the answer is something custom (Astro, Next.js, plain HTML/CSS) — ask what specifically they’ll use and what the implications are for editing later. Some custom platforms require a developer to make changes; others let you edit content yourself.

4. Can I edit the content myself after launch, or do I need to come back to you?

Some sites are wired up so you can edit text, swap photos, and add blog posts yourself through a CMS. Others require a developer for any change.

Neither is wrong — but you need to know which you’re getting. If you’ll edit weekly, you want a CMS. If you only update once a year, paying a developer for those updates is fine.

5. What happens if I want to leave?

Will the designer hand over the code? The DNS settings? The hosting login? In a clean, organized way?

The good answer: “I’ll give you everything. Here’s an offboarding checklist.” The bad answer is vagueness or “we don’t typically do that.”

Technical and SEO

6. What will my Google PageSpeed score be on launch day?

A real developer will tell you a number. Custom-built sites should score 90+ on mobile. Template sites typically score 50–75. If your designer dodges this question, they don’t measure it.

You can check any site at pagespeed.web.dev. Run the designer’s own portfolio sites through it. If their portfolio scores under 80, your site won’t either.

7. Will the site rank for “[my service] [my town]” queries?

Honest answer: probably not on day one. SEO is a multi-month process that depends on content depth, page-level signals (titles, schema, internal linking), and off-page signals (Google Business Profile, citations, reviews).

The right answer is something like: “I’ll handle the on-page side — titles, schema, structure, content depth — and walk you through the off-page side. Most small business sites start ranking within 2–4 months of launch.”

8. Will I be able to track who visits my site and where they come from?

You want Google Analytics 4 set up properly — not just installed but configured with conversion tracking for phone clicks, form submissions, and email clicks. Without that you’re flying blind on whether the site is working.

Bonus: Google Search Console set up too. Free, takes 5 minutes, tells you what queries you rank for.

9. What schema markup will the site have?

Schema is the structured data that lets Google show your business info in rich search results — hours, reviews, services, address. Every business site should have at minimum LocalBusiness schema; service businesses should have ProfessionalService or industry-specific (RoofingContractor, MedicalBusiness, etc.).

If the designer doesn’t know what schema is, walk away.

Content and design

10. Who writes the content?

The single biggest source of project delays in small-business sites is the client doesn’t have content ready and the designer assumed they did. Pin this down explicitly:

If the designer is writing it: how many revision rounds, and what’s the cost?
If you’re writing it: when does it need to be done by? What format do they need it in?
If you’re collaborating: who owns the first draft?

11. Whose photos are these going to be?

Stock photos kill small-business websites. Visitors can spot them instantly and they make every business look the same. The best small-business sites use real photos of the actual business, owners, and work.

Ask: “Can you do a photo day, or do I need to hire a photographer separately?” The honest answer is usually “you’ll need a photographer” — for a small business that’s typically $500–$1,500 for half a day with a local photographer.

If a designer’s portfolio is full of stock photos, that’s the look you’ll get.

12. Will the site work on iPhones, Androids, tablets, and smart fridges?

Mobile is 60–80% of small-business website traffic depending on industry. The site has to load fast and look good on a 5-inch screen. Get the designer to show you their existing portfolio sites on a phone — not screenshots, the actual sites.

If anything looks broken, scroll oddly, or has tiny tap targets, that’s what you’ll get too.

Legal and contract

13. What’s the deposit, and what’s the cancellation policy?

Standard for a small Long Island web project: 50% upfront, 50% on launch. Some developers do thirds (1/3 upfront, 1/3 at design approval, 1/3 at launch).

What you want to avoid:

100% upfront (no incentive to finish)
A monthly subscription with a long cancellation period (locks you in)
Vague language about “additional revisions” that opens the door to scope creep charges

14. What’s covered after launch — and for how long?

Most developers include 30 days of free post-launch fixes (typos, small layout adjustments, browser quirks). Beyond that, ongoing maintenance is usually $50–$200/month or hourly billing.

Get this in writing. The most common post-launch friction is “I thought you’d fix that for free” vs “that’s outside the warranty period.”

15. Can I see proof of three live client sites and contact two of them?

This is the closer. A real developer will name three clients and let you call two. Watch how they answer.

Slow answer or vague portfolio = freelance side hustle, not their main thing. Fast answer with names and direct numbers = real business.

My answers

For the record, here’s how I’d answer all 15:

Yes, you own everything. Code, domain, hosting account, all of it.
Hosting is in your name — typically Cloudflare Pages on your account.
I build in Astro for content sites, Next.js for app-style projects. Reason: fastest possible static output, real custom code, full ownership.
You can edit content through a markdown-based system or via me — your choice up front.
Clean offboarding — I’ll give you a complete handover doc with every credential.
Most of my client sites score 95–100 on PageSpeed mobile. Check the case studies.
On-page SEO is included. I help you set up GBP, citations, and review flow off-page.
GA4 + Search Console + conversion events are standard.
LocalBusiness schema minimum, plus industry-specific as appropriate.
You write or I write. I have copywriter recommendations if you want a third option.
Real photos always. I’ll connect you with a Long Island photographer if you don’t have one.
Mobile-first development. Run my portfolio sites through PageSpeed — every one tests over 90 on mobile.
50/50 on small projects, thirds on larger ones. Cancellation is straightforward — I bill for work completed.
30 days post-launch is free. After that it’s $75/hour or a small monthly retainer.
Three sites, two phone calls — happy to set those up.

If you want to actually hear those answers in conversation, drop me a line and we’ll set up a call. Most small-business projects on Long Island land in the $2,000–$7,000 range — full pricing breakdown here.