How to Choose a Website Designer: 10 Questions for UK SMEs
You need a website that attracts customers and generates leads, not just looks polished in a portfolio. But how do you separate designers who understand commercial results from those who simply create pretty pages? Most SME owners make this decision once every three to five years, and getting it wrong costs you thousands in budget, months of delays, and lost business opportunities while your competitors establish stronger positions online.
This guide gives you 10 essential questions to ask any website designer or agency before you sign anything. You’ll learn how to assess their marketing focus, review portfolios beyond surface appearance, understand different pricing models, evaluate their project process, and judge their approach to SEO, platform technology, and long term support. By the end, you’ll know exactly what to look for, which warning signs indicate problems ahead, and how to find a partner who treats your website as a revenue generating business asset rather than a static digital brochure.
1. Choose a marketing led designer like MR-Marketing
Most website designers prioritise visual aesthetics over business outcomes, which leaves you with a beautiful site that fails to generate enquiries or convert visitors into customers. When you choose a website designer, you need someone who understands marketing fundamentals and treats your site as a revenue tool, not just a digital business card. A marketing led designer starts every project by asking about your customers, your competition, and your conversion goals before touching any design software.
Question to ask about marketing focus
Ask your prospective designer: "How will you structure my website to support my customer acquisition strategy and improve conversion rates?" Their answer reveals whether they think strategically about user journeys, calls to action, and lead generation mechanisms. Strong designers explain how they’ll research your target audience, map out conversion paths, and integrate analytics tracking from day one. Weak designers focus solely on colour schemes, fonts, and layout preferences without connecting these choices to measurable business results.
What a marketing led designer looks like
A marketing led designer combines technical web skills with strategic marketing knowledge, often holding qualifications like the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) alongside development expertise. They ask probing questions about your sales funnel, understand SEO principles beyond basic keyword stuffing, and discuss how your website fits within your broader marketing ecosystem including email campaigns, social media, and advertising. These professionals use data to inform decisions rather than personal design preferences, and they measure success through metrics like enquiry volume, bounce rates, and conversion percentages.
How MR-Marketing fits this brief
MR-Marketing brings over 35 years of marketing experience and CIM qualifications to every website project, ensuring your site drives commercial outcomes rather than simply looking attractive. The consultancy integrates SEO strategy, conversion rate optimisation, and content marketing planning into the design process from the initial brief stage. This approach means your website launches with proper keyword targeting, optimised user journeys, and clear calls to action that reflect how your customers actually make purchasing decisions.
A website built on marketing foundations generates leads from launch day, whilst a purely aesthetic site requires months of expensive retrofitting.
Why this matters more than visuals alone
Visual design attracts attention but marketing strategy converts visitors into paying customers, which makes the difference between a cost centre and a profit generator. Your competitors with average looking websites but strong conversion optimisation will consistently outperform your beautiful site if it lacks strategic thinking. Budget allocated to a marketing led designer returns higher ROI because every design decision serves a commercial purpose rather than purely aesthetic goals.
2. Check their experience with similar SMEs
Designers who regularly work with SME clients understand your budget constraints, decision making timelines, and practical business needs in ways that enterprise agencies never will. You want someone who grasps the reality of running a small business where the website owner often wears multiple hats and needs straightforward guidance rather than corporate bureaucracy. Their experience with similar sized companies means they anticipate common challenges, communicate in plain language, and deliver solutions that match your operational capacity.
Question to ask about sector experience
Ask: "Can you show me three websites you’ve built for businesses similar to mine in size and market?" This question forces designers to demonstrate relevant experience rather than dazzle you with large corporate projects that bear no resemblance to your requirements. Listen for specific examples where they solved problems comparable to yours, whether that’s lead generation for service businesses, ecommerce for retail, or content sites for consultancies. Vague answers about "working with all industries" often indicate shallow experience across the board.
Ways to judge relevance not just size
Focus on whether they understand your business model and customer behaviour rather than counting how many projects they’ve completed in your exact sector. A designer with strong retail experience can often transfer those skills to hospitality or events because the underlying principles of customer journey mapping and conversion optimisation remain consistent. Check if they ask intelligent questions about your typical sales cycle, average transaction value, and customer objections during your initial conversations.
Experience with your specific challenges matters far more than a superficial match to your industry label.
Good and bad signs in their portfolio
Strong portfolios show measurable outcomes like increased enquiry rates or improved conversion percentages alongside the visual designs. Warning signs include exclusively showcasing large budget projects when you’re a small business, displaying only template based sites with minimal customisation, or presenting work where the designer’s contribution remains unclear. Verify that sites in their portfolio still function well months or years after launch, which indicates they build for long term performance rather than quick wins.
How much industry experience you really need
You need enough sector familiarity that your designer doesn’t require extensive education about basic market dynamics, but perfect industry alignment rarely proves necessary. Designers who’ve built sites for professional services, trades, retail, or hospitality bring transferable skills that apply across similar business types. Prioritise demonstrated ability to deliver commercial results for SMEs over narrow specialisation in your exact niche, unless you operate in highly regulated sectors like finance or healthcare where specific compliance knowledge becomes essential.
3. Review their portfolio and live websites
A portfolio tells you what a designer prioritises and whether their style matches your business needs, but you need to dig deeper than surface impressions. Click through to live client websites rather than relying on portfolio screenshots, because images can hide slow loading times, broken features, or sites that looked good at launch but now feel neglected. Test each site as if you were a customer trying to find information, make contact, or complete a purchase, which reveals whether the designer builds for real world use or just portfolio photographs.
Questions to guide your portfolio review
Ask yourself whether each portfolio piece demonstrates clear commercial objectives and achieves them through its structure and content. Does the site make you want to enquire, purchase, or engage with the business? Look for evidence of strategic thinking like prominent calls to action, logical information architecture, and content that addresses customer concerns rather than just describing company history. Portfolio sites that feel confusing, force you to hunt for contact details, or bury key information suggest the designer values creativity over functionality.
How to test sites for speed and usability
Visit portfolio sites on your own devices to check loading speed and general responsiveness, because slow sites damage conversion rates regardless of visual appeal. Try navigating to product pages or service descriptions using only the main menu rather than search functions, which tests whether the site structure makes logical sense to new visitors. Fill out contact forms if possible to verify they actually work, and click through to blog posts or case studies to confirm the site handles different content types smoothly.
What to look for on mobile devices
Test every portfolio site on your smartphone because over half your visitors will arrive on mobile devices, yet many designers still prioritise desktop experiences. Check whether buttons remain easy to tap, text stays readable without zooming, and navigation menus collapse sensibly on smaller screens. Sites that require horizontal scrolling, hide essential information on mobile, or force you to pinch and zoom constantly indicate the designer treats mobile as an afterthought rather than a core requirement.
Portfolio sites that work flawlessly on mobile today will continue serving customers as phone usage grows, whilst desktop only designs become obsolete investments.
Signs the work is not as strong as it looks
Watch for portfolios dominated by template based designs with only superficial customisation like colour changes and logo swaps, which suggests limited technical capability. Multiple portfolio sites sharing identical layouts, navigation patterns, or feature sets indicate the designer lacks versatility or relies too heavily on pre-built themes. Portfolio pieces that no longer exist online, redirect to parked domains, or clearly haven’t been updated since launch reveal either poor client relationships or sites that failed to deliver lasting value.
4. Understand their process and communication
A designer’s project process directly impacts your stress levels, timeline accuracy, and final results, yet most SME owners focus exclusively on cost and portfolio when they choose a website designer. Clear communication structures and well defined workflows prevent the frustrating scenarios where projects drag on for months, feedback disappears into black holes, or you suddenly discover unexpected costs and delays. Understanding exactly how a designer operates before you commit means you avoid mismatched expectations and can plan your own time investment realistically.
Question to ask about their end to end process
Ask: "Walk me through your complete website design process from our first meeting to launch and beyond?" Strong designers outline distinct phases like discovery, planning, design, development, testing, and launch with clear deliverables and milestones for each stage. They explain when you’ll see initial concepts, how many revision rounds you receive, what approvals they need from you, and how they handle technical testing before going live. Vague answers like "we’re flexible and adapt to each client" often indicate disorganised workflows that lead to scope creep and missed deadlines.
How they gather requirements and insights
Professional designers start projects with structured discovery sessions that dig into your business goals, target customers, and competitive positioning before discussing colours or layouts. They ask about your current marketing performance, customer objections, sales process, and conversion barriers to inform strategic decisions. These conversations reveal whether the designer treats your website as part of your broader business strategy or simply as a standalone creative project.
How they handle feedback and approvals
Clarify how many revision rounds each project phase includes and what happens if you request changes beyond that scope. Good designers establish clear approval checkpoints where you sign off on strategy, design mockups, and content before moving to the next phase, which prevents backtracking that wastes time and money. They also explain their preferred feedback format, whether through structured forms, video calls, or annotated screenshots, so you know how to communicate effectively throughout the project.
Clear approval processes protect both parties from endless revisions and ensure projects move forward decisively.
Tools and meeting rhythms that work for SMEs
Find out what project management tools the designer uses to track progress and share updates, because good systems keep everyone aligned without constant email chains. Ask about their typical meeting cadence, whether weekly check-ins, biweekly reviews, or milestone based calls, and confirm this rhythm suits your availability. Designers who rely solely on email communication without regular touchpoints often leave clients feeling disconnected and uncertain about project status.
5. Align on content strategy and SEO
Your website content determines whether you rank in search results and convert visitors into customers, yet many designers treat copywriting as an afterthought or expect you to provide finished text. Understanding how your designer approaches content strategy and SEO from the start prevents you ending up with a beautiful site that nobody finds or reads. Strong designers integrate content planning into their process, whilst weak ones build pages first and ask "what do you want to say here?" at the last minute.
Question to ask about content ownership
Ask: "Who creates and optimises the website content, and what SEO research informs that process?" This question reveals whether the designer includes professional copywriting and keyword research in their service or expects you to write everything yourself. Designers who respond "just send us your brochure text" typically lack content expertise, which leaves you with poor quality copy that fails to rank or persuade. Professional approaches include keyword analysis, competitor content audits, and either writing services or detailed content briefs that guide your writing.
How they plan SEO for structure and pages
Effective designers conduct keyword research before creating your site structure to ensure pages target relevant search terms your customers actually use. They build logical information architecture around search intent, grouping related services or products in ways that match how people search. This planning phase should identify primary keywords for main pages, secondary terms for supporting content, and opportunities for blog posts or resources that attract organic traffic.
Who writes and optimises your copy
Clarify whether the designer provides copywriting services or simply inputs text you supply, because this dramatically affects your workload and final quality. Professional copywriters understand how to balance persuasive messaging with SEO requirements, craft compelling calls to action, and structure content for readability. If you’re writing your own content, ask what guidance and templates the designer provides to ensure your copy meets technical SEO standards.
Content written with search intent and conversion goals from the start outperforms text retrofitted with keywords as an afterthought.
Balancing brand voice with search traffic
Your website needs to rank well without sounding robotic or keyword stuffed, which requires designers who understand modern SEO practices. Good designers create content that serves your human readers first whilst incorporating keywords naturally, because search engines now prioritise user experience over keyword density. They write in your brand voice and address customer concerns authentically, which satisfies both search algorithms and the real people who visit your site.
6. Clarify platform tech and integrations
The technology platform underpinning your website affects everything from update ease to long term costs, security risks, and your ability to integrate essential business tools. When you choose a website designer, you need absolute clarity about which content management system (CMS) they recommend and why, because this decision locks you into specific capabilities and limitations for years. Designers who push proprietary systems or obscure platforms often create dependence that makes switching providers difficult and expensive later.
Question to ask about recommended platforms
Ask: "Which website platform do you recommend for my business, and what alternatives did you consider?" Strong designers explain their platform choice based on your specific requirements like ecommerce needs, content volume, technical skill level, and budget rather than simply defaulting to their preferred system. They discuss trade-offs between different options and help you understand how each platform affects your ongoing costs, update flexibility, and ability to scale as your business grows.
Choosing between WordPress and other options
WordPress powers over 40% of all websites globally because it offers excellent flexibility, thousands of plugins, and a large support community that keeps costs reasonable. Alternatives like Squarespace or Wix provide simpler interfaces for basic sites but limit customisation and can become restrictive as your needs evolve. Your designer should match the platform complexity to your technical comfort level whilst ensuring you can achieve your commercial objectives without artificial constraints.
Platform choice impacts your website costs and capabilities for years, so prioritise long term flexibility over short term simplicity.
Key integrations for sales and marketing
Your website needs to connect seamlessly with your CRM system, email marketing platform, payment processors, booking systems, and analytics tools to create efficient workflows. Designers should identify required integrations during planning and confirm the platform supports them without expensive custom development. Strong API connections between your website and business tools eliminate manual data entry, reduce errors, and provide the automated customer journeys that drive revenue growth.
Ownership hosting and data protection basics
Confirm you will own your website outright and can move it to different hosting or transfer it to another designer without restrictions. Ask where your site will be hosted, whether that hosting meets UK GDPR requirements, and what backup systems protect your data from loss. Designers who insist on proprietary hosting with no export options essentially hold your business hostage, whilst professional approaches give you complete ownership and portability.
7. Agree scope pricing and contracts
Vague agreements about project scope and pricing create the perfect conditions for disputes, budget overruns, and relationships that sour halfway through your website build. When you choose a website designer, you need every deliverable, cost, and contractual obligation spelled out explicitly before signing anything, because assumptions about "what’s included" cause more project failures than technical problems ever will. Clear documentation protects both parties and ensures everyone starts with aligned expectations about timelines, responsibilities, and financial commitments.
Questions to ask about what is included
Ask your designer: "What exactly does your quoted price cover, and which common requirements cost extra?" This forces them to detail whether the price includes content writing, stock photography, SEO setup, form integrations, mobile optimisation, training, and post-launch support or treats these as optional add-ons. Strong designers provide itemised proposals that list every deliverable, whilst weak ones quote a single number and surprise you with extra charges later. Request clarification on revision limits, the number of page templates, custom functionality, and whether ongoing maintenance sits inside or outside the initial contract.
Understanding common pricing models
Designers typically charge through fixed project fees, hourly rates, or monthly retainers, each with distinct advantages depending on your situation. Fixed fees suit well-defined projects where requirements rarely change, giving you budget certainty but less flexibility for adjustments. Hourly billing works for ongoing relationships or evolving requirements but requires trust that your designer tracks time honestly and efficiently. Retainer arrangements spread costs across months whilst providing continuous support, though you pay regardless of workload fluctuations.
Fixed pricing protects your budget when scope stays firm, whilst hourly rates accommodate evolving requirements without renegotiating entire contracts.
How to avoid scope creep and surprise fees
Define your project boundaries explicitly in writing, including what counts as a revision versus new work that triggers additional charges. Establish a formal change request process where any scope modifications require written approval with updated costs and timelines before work proceeds. Designers should flag potential scope issues immediately rather than building features you haven’t approved and billing you afterwards.
Contract points UK SMEs should check
Verify contracts specify intellectual property ownership, confirming you receive full rights to all website code, content, and design elements upon final payment. Check cancellation clauses, payment schedules, confidentiality provisions, and liability limits to understand your protections if problems arise. Ensure contracts define acceptance criteria for deliverables and dispute resolution procedures under UK law to avoid ambiguity later.
8. Confirm timelines capacity and team
Unrealistic delivery promises and overstretched designers account for more project failures than technical incompetence, yet most SME owners forget to verify who actually builds their website and whether that team can deliver on schedule. When you choose a website designer, you need transparency about team composition, current workload, and genuine capacity to complete your project within agreed timelines. Designers who juggle too many simultaneous projects inevitably delay yours, whilst those who rely heavily on contractors or freelancers introduce coordination challenges that extend timelines and complicate communication.
Question to ask about who does the work
Ask: "Who specifically will work on my project, and can I meet them before we start?" This question reveals whether your designer operates as a solo practitioner, leads a dedicated in-house team, or coordinates external contractors for various specialities. Strong designers introduce you to the actual people handling design, development, content, and SEO rather than keeping them hidden behind account managers. Watch for evasive answers about "our network of specialists" or "we’ll assign the best available resources", which often means the designer doesn’t know who’ll work on your project until they check availability later.
How to judge their capacity and workload
Request information about their current project load and how many active clients they manage simultaneously, because overcommitted designers cannot maintain quality or meet deadlines regardless of their skills. Solo designers handling more than three or four concurrent projects typically struggle to provide responsive communication and timely deliverables. Agencies should explain their capacity planning process and confirm they won’t pull your assigned team members onto other projects mid-stream.
Realistic timelines for different site sizes
Basic brochure websites with five to ten pages typically require six to eight weeks from kickoff to launch when scoped properly, whilst complex ecommerce or custom functionality projects need three to six months. Designers promising delivery in two weeks either use basic templates with minimal customisation or set unrealistic expectations that lead to rushed, poor quality work. Factor additional time for your own review cycles and content provision, because even the fastest designer cannot progress whilst waiting for your feedback or materials.
Projects delivered on aggressive timelines almost always sacrifice strategic depth, testing thoroughness, or content quality that determines commercial success.
Contingency plans if someone drops out
Ask what happens if a key team member becomes unavailable due to illness, departure, or competing priorities during your project. Professional designers maintain backup resources for critical roles and document work thoroughly so replacement team members integrate smoothly. Designers without contingency plans expose your project to serious delays whenever personal circumstances change unexpectedly.
9. Ask about support and maintenance
Your website launch represents the beginning of its working life rather than the finish line, yet many designers disappear after handover and leave you struggling with technical issues or update requirements. When you choose a website designer, you need clarity about what happens when plugins need updating, forms stop working, or you want to add new pages and features months after launch. Designers who offer structured post-launch support save you countless headaches and ensure your site remains secure, functional, and effective as your business evolves.
Question to ask about life after launch
Ask: "What support options do you provide after my website goes live, and how quickly do you respond to issues?" This question separates designers who view websites as ongoing client relationships from those who chase the next project and treat yours as finished business. Strong designers outline specific support channels, guaranteed response times for urgent versus routine requests, and clear processes for reporting problems. Vague promises about being "available if you need anything" typically translate to ignored emails and frustrating delays when problems arise.
Options for support and maintenance packages
Professional designers offer monthly retainers or pay-as-you-go hourly rates for ongoing maintenance, plugin updates, security monitoring, and content changes. Monthly packages provide predictable costs and priority response times, whilst hourly billing suits businesses with minimal update needs. Clarify what each support tier includes, whether routine updates happen proactively or require your request, and how emergency issues like site crashes or security breaches get prioritised.
Proactive maintenance prevents problems before they impact customers, whilst reactive support forces you to notice and report issues yourself.
Training and documentation you should expect
Reputable designers provide comprehensive training that shows you how to add pages, update content, manage images, and perform routine tasks without contacting them for every small change. They should supply written documentation or video tutorials tailored to your specific site structure and features rather than generic CMS guides. This training investment pays dividends by giving you independence for everyday updates whilst reserving paid support for complex technical work.
Planning for future improvements and CRO
Discuss how the designer approaches ongoing optimisation based on real user behaviour and performance data after launch. Strong designers treat your website as a living asset that requires continuous refinement through conversion rate testing, content updates, and feature additions that respond to business growth. They should explain how they measure results, identify improvement opportunities, and implement changes that increase your return on investment over time.
10. Explore their use of data and AI
Designers who embrace analytics tools and strategic AI applications deliver websites that improve continuously based on real performance data rather than guesswork and subjective opinions. When you choose a website designer, you need someone who measures what matters, interprets visitor behaviour intelligently, and uses modern AI capabilities to enhance rather than replace human expertise. Avoid both extremes: designers who ignore data entirely and those who overhype AI as a magic solution that eliminates the need for strategic thinking.
Question to ask about analytics and reporting
Ask: "How will you track website performance, and what reporting dashboard will I receive?" Strong designers implement Google Analytics properly from launch, configure goal tracking for your specific conversion actions, and provide monthly reports that highlight trends in traffic sources, user behaviour, and conversion rates. They translate raw data into actionable insights that inform content updates, design refinements, and marketing decisions rather than overwhelming you with meaningless metrics.
Smart ways agencies can use AI for websites
Professional designers use AI tools strategically for tasks like drafting content outlines, generating alt text for images, analysing competitor sites, and suggesting SEO improvements based on search trends. They apply AI to accelerate research and first-draft creation whilst maintaining human oversight for strategy, accuracy, and brand alignment. These applications improve efficiency and quality without sacrificing the custom thinking your business requires.
Warning signs of overhyped AI promises
Watch for designers who claim AI eliminates the need for strategic planning, content expertise, or ongoing optimisation work. Promises that "AI builds your entire website automatically" or "AI-generated content ranks instantly" reveal either dishonesty or dangerous naivety about how search engines evaluate content quality. Legitimate AI applications augment human expertise rather than replace it entirely.
Data-informed decisions consistently outperform assumptions, whilst AI hysteria wastes budget on solutions searching for problems.
How a data driven approach benefits your SME
Designers who prioritise performance measurement help you allocate marketing budget efficiently by identifying which traffic sources convert best and which pages underperform. They spot patterns in visitor behaviour that reveal opportunities for improved conversion rates, content additions, or technical fixes that directly impact your revenue generation. This ongoing analytical approach transforms your website from a static expense into a continuously improving business asset.
Bringing it all together
You now know how to choose a website designer by asking ten strategic questions that expose whether they prioritise marketing results over visual aesthetics alone. These questions help you evaluate their SME experience, review their portfolio critically, understand their project process, align on content and SEO strategy, clarify platform technology, agree concrete pricing, confirm team capacity, secure post-launch support, and assess their data-driven approach. Armed with this knowledge, you avoid the expensive mistakes that leave SME owners with beautiful websites that generate no enquiries and require constant expensive fixes.
Take time to interview multiple designers using these questions, because the right partner transforms your website from a static brochure into a revenue generating business asset. Compare their answers against the good and bad signs outlined in each section, trust your instincts about communication styles, and prioritise demonstrated commercial results over impressive portfolios.
Ready to work with a marketing led designer who combines 35 years of experience with modern AI capabilities? Contact MR-Marketing to discuss how a strategically designed website can drive measurable growth for your SME.
