How to choose a web design agency

There is an obvious conflict of interest in a web studio publishing this guide, so here is the disclosure up front: AntCrow is a web design studio and would like your business. The questions below are ones we have to answer honestly to win work, which is precisely why they are useful to you. A studio that becomes evasive under these questions is telling you something.

Ask who actually does the work

The most common gap between expectation and reality in this industry is not price or timeline, it is who does the work. In many agencies the senior person who wins the project is not the person who designs or builds it, and the handover happens quietly after the contract is signed. Ask directly: who will design this, who will build it, are they employees or subcontractors, and will I speak to them. There is nothing wrong with a studio using specialist contractors, and plenty of excellent work is delivered that way. There is something wrong with not being told. The answer you want is a specific one with names in it.

Ask what happens to your rankings

This question separates studios that understand websites from studios that make pictures. If you have an existing site with any search presence, a redesign puts it at risk. URLs change, pages get cut, content gets shortened for visual reasons, and organic traffic falls off a cliff a few weeks after a launch everyone was pleased with. The answer you want mentions a redirect map covering every existing URL, a review of which pages currently earn traffic before deciding what to cut, and monitoring after launch. If the answer is a vague reassurance that the new site will be better for SEO, you are talking to someone who has not done this carefully before.

Ask who owns what at the end

Get this in writing before you sign anything, because it is the thing that hurts most when it goes wrong. Who owns the design files, the code, the domain, and the hosting account. Can you leave and take the site with you. Is there a proprietary platform involved that only this studio can maintain. Some agencies deliberately register clients' domains in their own name, which turns a routine parting of ways into a hostage situation. The correct answers are that you own everything, the domain is registered to you, and you can leave whenever you like. Any answer that requires explaining is a warning.

The questions worth asking, in order

1. 01Who specifically will design and build this, and will I be dealing with them directly?
2. 02What happens to my current search rankings, and how do you protect them during migration?
3. 03Who owns the design files, the code, the domain, and the hosting account when we finish?
4. 04What is not included in this price, and what typically triggers additional cost?
5. 05What happens after launch, what does support cost, and what response time does that buy?
6. 06Can I update content myself, and which parts specifically?
7. 07Can you show me a site you built that is at least two years old and still performing?
8. 08What would make you tell a prospective client not to hire you?

That last question is the most revealing one on the list. Every honest studio has a category of work it is wrong for. A studio that claims to be the right answer for every business and every budget is either inexperienced or not being straight with you.

What the market actually charges

Price alone tells you little, but a quote far outside the market range should prompt a question in either direction. The figures below are published New Zealand market ranges, not any single studio's pricing, and they vary considerably with scope.

A quote well below the bottom of these ranges usually means a template, offshore production, or a scope that will grow once work starts. A quote well above the top should come with a clear explanation of what justifies it. Neither is automatically wrong, but both deserve a direct question.

The warning signs that matter

• Guaranteed first-page Google rankings. Nobody controls Google's ranking systems, and this promise is either meaningless or targeting searches with no competition.
• A portfolio with no live links. Real projects have URLs. Screenshots of work that never launched, or launched and was replaced, prove nothing.
• Pressure to sign before a discovery conversation has happened.
• Vagueness about who does the work, or a portfolio that clearly spans wildly different hands.
• Ownership terms that are not in writing, especially around the domain.
• Monthly fees whose termination terms are unclear, or that quietly include hosting you cannot move.
• No written scope. If what is included lives only in a conversation, disputes are guaranteed.

Check the company itself

For a New Zealand studio, the Companies Register at companiesoffice.govt.nz is public, free, and takes two minutes. It tells you when the company was incorporated, who the directors are, and whether it is in good standing. A studio presenting itself as long-established while its company was registered eight months ago is worth a second look. This is the same public-record vetting customers increasingly apply to trades and building companies, and it applies just as well to the people building your website.