I'm not going to make friends in the web design industry with this one. Good.
The barrier to entry in web design is basically zero. Buy a Squarespace template, learn enough Canva to be dangerous, and suddenly you're a "web designer" charging $5,000 for a site you built in an afternoon. I've seen it happen more times than I can count.
Don't get me wrong — there are incredible web designers out there doing real, valuable work. But there are also a lot of people charging real money for amateur hour. Here's how to tell the difference.
Red Flag #1: They Don't Ask About Your Business Goals
If the first conversation is about colors, fonts, and layout before anyone asks "what do you want this website to do?" — that's a designer, not a strategist.
A website isn't art. It's a business tool. The first question should be: what does success look like? More phone calls? Form submissions? Online purchases? Appointment bookings?
The design should serve the goal. If your designer starts with aesthetics and works backward to functionality, your site will look great and convert terribly. I've seen it a hundred times.
A Brentwood law firm came to us after spending $12,000 on a gorgeous website. Custom photography. Beautiful typography. Zero calls to action. The contact page was four clicks deep. Their "designer" never once asked how the site should generate business. They got a piece of art, not a marketing tool.
Red Flag #2: They Use a Page Builder and Charge Custom Prices
There's nothing wrong with WordPress, Squarespace, or Wix. There's everything wrong with charging $8,000 for a site built with a drag-and-drop page builder using a $59 theme.
Ask your designer: are you writing code or using a page builder? Both are valid approaches — but they're not the same price bracket. A custom-coded site with hand-written HTML, CSS, and JavaScript that's optimized for your specific needs is a fundamentally different product than a theme with your logo swapped in.
Know what you're buying. Ask to see the source code. If they can't explain how the site is built, that tells you everything.
Red Flag #3: They Don't Mention SEO at All
If your web designer builds your entire site without once mentioning search engine optimization, they've built you a house with no address.
The technical foundation of SEO happens during the build — not after. Title tags, meta descriptions, heading structure, image alt text, site speed, mobile responsiveness, structured data, URL structure — all of this should be baked in from day one.
"We can do SEO later" is a red flag. Later means rebuilding. Proper SEO foundations add almost no time during the build. Retrofitting them after is expensive.
Red Flag #4: You Don't Own Your Website
This is the one that makes my blood boil.
Some designers build your site on their hosting account, under their login, using their tools. When you want to leave, you find out you can't take the site with you. You "own" a website you can't access.
Before you sign anything, ask these questions:
- Who owns the domain name?
- Who owns the hosting account?
- Will I have admin access to the CMS?
- Can I take the site files with me if we part ways?
- Who owns the design files and custom graphics?
If the answer to any of these isn't "you do," walk away. You're not hiring a designer — you're entering a hostage situation.
I've worked with businesses that had to rebuild their entire web presence from scratch because their "designer" held everything hostage. One client in Murfreesboro lost two years of blog content, all their product photos, and their domain name in a dispute. Because the designer registered everything in their own name. Don't let this happen to you.
Red Flag #5: There's No Plan After Launch
The site launches. Confetti. High fives. Invoice paid.
Then what?
A website needs ongoing attention — security updates, content updates, performance monitoring, analytics review, conversion optimization. If your designer's engagement ends at launch, you're getting half a product.
This doesn't mean you need an expensive monthly retainer. But there should be a conversation about what happens after launch. Who updates the site? Who monitors for issues? Who's looking at the data to see if the site is actually working?
A website with no post-launch plan is a car with no maintenance schedule. It's going to break down.
What to Look For Instead
A good web partner:
- Asks about your business before your design preferences
- Shows you real results from previous clients — not just pretty screenshots, but traffic numbers, conversion rates, lead generation
- Explains their process clearly, including SEO, performance, and accessibility
- Gives you full ownership of everything they create
- Plans for post-launch — training, maintenance, ongoing optimization
- Is transparent about technology — what platform, what tools, why those choices for your specific needs
The right web designer is an investment. The wrong one is an expensive lesson. Take your time, ask hard questions, and don't let pretty mockups distract you from what matters.
Want to see how your current site is performing? Run a free website score — it'll tell you what your designer got right and what they missed.
Long Drive Marketing builds websites that work — not just websites that look good. Every site we build comes with SEO, performance optimization, and a post-launch plan. [Learn more →](/web-technology)