You are about to spend a meaningful amount of money on a website. For most small businesses it is thousands of pounds, and the site you end up with will decide whether you get found, whether people trust you, and whether the phone rings. It is worth getting right.

The trouble is that web design is easy to sell and hard to judge. Two quotes can look similar on paper while one is a custom build and the other is a fifty-pound template with your logo dropped in. The difference only shows up later, in your page speed, your search rankings, and your enquiry count.

These ten questions are how you tell them apart before you pay. Ask them out loud. The answers, and how readily they come, tell you almost everything.

1. Is this a custom build or a template?

This is the question that matters most, because it changes everything else.

A template is a ready-made design sold to thousands of businesses. The agency buys it cheaply, changes the colours and the logo, and drops your content in. A custom build is designed and coded for your business from scratch.

A good answer explains, plainly, which one you are getting and why. If it is custom, they can show you the difference. The red flag is vague language: “bespoke”, “tailored”, “fully customised” used to describe what is actually a theme. Ask directly: “Is this built on a pre-made template, yes or no?“

2. What does “SEO included” actually mean?

Almost every agency says SEO is included. Very few mean the same thing by it.

Real SEO is built into how the site is structured: the page architecture, the headings, the internal links, the structured data, the load speed. It is the foundation, not a feature.

A good answer describes specific, structural work. The red flag is “we install an SEO plugin” or “we tick the SEO boxes”. Switching on a plugin is not search optimisation. If that is all they do, you are paying for a setting, not a strategy.

3. Who owns the website, the code and the domain?

When the project ends, you should own everything: the domain, the hosting account, and the code.

A good answer is “you do, and we will make sure it is all in your name.” The red flag is any arrangement where the agency holds the domain, hosts on their own server with no export, or keeps the files. That is not a service. It is a way of making sure you cannot leave. Get ownership confirmed in writing before you sign.

4. Can you show me three sites you built that are still live and ranking?

Every agency has a portfolio. Screenshots prove nothing. Live, working sites prove a lot.

A good answer is three URLs you can open, test on your phone, and search for. The red flag is a portfolio of pretty pictures with no links, or “we cannot share client details.” Open the sites they show you. Check how fast they load. Search for the business and see if it appears. A site that looks good but ranks for nothing is a liability, not a reference.

5. What is the all-in price, and what triggers an extra charge?

The headline price is rarely the final price. The gap between them is where surprises live.

A good answer is a fixed, written price with the extras named up front: more pages, copywriting, photography, revisions. The red flag is a low quote that grows once the work starts, or a refusal to put a number in writing until you commit. Clear pricing is a sign of a clear process.

6. Will AI engines be able to find and recommend me, not just Google?

Your customers no longer only search Google. They ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews to recommend a business, and three or four names come back. You want to be one of them.

A good answer shows they understand how AI engines read and recommend businesses and build for it. The red flag is a blank look, or treating it as a buzzword. A site built only for Google in 2026 is already half blind to how people choose.

7. After launch, do you measure anything, or do you walk away?

A website is not finished when it goes live. That is when the actual job, getting found and getting enquiries, begins.

A good answer describes how they measure what the site earns: rankings, AI citations, page speed, real enquiries, on a regular cadence. The red flag is “we hand it over and you are all set.” Handing over a site and disappearing is the easiest way to never have to prove it worked.

8. Are you marking up my ad spend or my hosting?

This one catches people out. Some agencies quietly add a margin to the things you pay for monthly.

A good answer is a flat management fee with your ad budget and hosting paid at cost, directly by you. The red flag is reluctance to separate their fee from your spend, or hosting priced well above the market. You should always know which pounds are paying for work and which are paying for a markup.

9. Can I edit the site myself, or am I locked into paying for every change?

You will want to change a price, swap a photo, or add a page. How much that costs depends on how the site is built and who controls it.

A good answer gives you a sensible way to make simple edits, or a fair, predictable rate for changes. The red flag is a setup where every small change has to go through the agency at a premium, with no option to do it yourself. Convenience for them should not become a toll on you.

10. Will you put exactly what I am getting in writing, at a fixed price?

Everything above comes down to this. If an agency is confident in what they are selling, they will write it down.

A good answer is a clear document: the scope, the deliverables, the timeline, the price, and what happens after launch. The red flag is “we will sort the details as we go.” Ambiguity is not flexibility. It is room to charge more later.

What a fair answer looks like

You do not need an agency that scores ten out of ten on jargon. You need one that gives you straight answers, shows you real work, owns nothing that should be yours, and charges a fair price for work that was actually done.

That is the whole test. A website is the thing your business depends on to be found, understood and chosen. It deserves to be built for you, not stamped out from a template and sold at a markup.

If you want a second opinion before you commit to anyone, ask us for an honest look at where your current site stands across Google and the AI engines, with no obligation to go further. And if you are weighing a redesign specifically, our guide on how to choose a web design agency in London goes deeper on the build itself.

Ask the ten questions first. The answers will save you a great deal of money.