Nine questions worth asking before you sign, and the answers that should make you keep looking. Ownership, hosting, edits, and what actually happens after launch.
The questions that predict a good outcome are about ownership, hosting, edits, and what happens after launch, not about design taste. Taste you can judge from their work. The commercial terms are the part that costs people money a year later, and they are rarely discussed until something goes wrong.
Who owns the site when we are done?
You want to own the site files, the content, and the domain outright, and you want that stated in the agreement rather than implied. The answer to listen for is a plain yes. Anything that involves the site living on a platform you cannot leave is a rental, which may still be fine, but you should know that is what you are buying.
Where is it hosted, and whose account is it in?
Hosting should be in an account you control or one you can be moved into without a rebuild. This matters most on the day you want to change providers, because a site you cannot move is a site you have to pay someone to recreate. Ask what leaving would involve, specifically, and listen for whether they have done it before.
Who can make edits, and what do they cost?
Find out whether you can change your own hours, prices, and photos, or whether every small edit is a support request with a fee attached. Neither model is wrong. A managed arrangement can be the right call if you would rather not touch it. What you do not want is discovering the answer after launch.
What is the plan for being found?
Ask directly how the site will show up in search, because a site nobody finds is an expensive business card. The answer should mention page structure, service pages, your Google Business Profile, and reviews. If search is described as something to worry about later, expect to pay for it separately later.
How does it perform on a phone?
Ask for a mobile performance score on a real page they built. Most local traffic is on a phone, often on a weak connection, and a slow site loses people before it says anything. A weak number is fixable, but you want to know now whether fixing it is included.
What happens to leads?
The form is not the finish line, so ask where a submission goes, who is alerted, and how fast. For most service businesses the speed of the callback matters more than anything visual on the site. If nobody has asked how you currently handle inbound calls, they are not thinking about your revenue.
What is not included?
Ask what is outside the quote, and ask it plainly, because that is where surprises live: copywriting, photography, extra pages, integrations, and ongoing changes. A clear scope with named exclusions is a good sign. A single number with no detail behind it usually moves.
The answer that should end the conversation
If a provider will not confirm in writing that you own the result, keep looking, whatever the price. Everything else on this list is a preference or a trade off you can live with. That one is the difference between an asset and a subscription, and it is the promise we build every engagement around.