How to choose a web developer for your business: 7 questions to ask before you sign

Short answer: Do not ask about price first. Ask what you own when the contract ends, who actually does the work, how search optimization is built in (not bolted on after), and how much you can update yourself without a developer. Price is only the seventh question, and even there the more expensive quote is often the cheaper one two years later.

300+ website projects and a 5-person team taught us one thing: businesses do not usually end up with a bad site on a bad budget, they end up there on the right budget with the wrong questions. Below are the 7 questions worth asking before you sign a contract with a web agency, whether you choose us or someone else.

1. Who owns the site when the partnership ends?

This is the most important question, and it is rarely asked. Concretely:

• Whose name is the domain registered under? It should be yours, not the developer's.
• What platform is the site built on? Open source (WordPress), a commercial platform (Webflow, Shopify), or the developer's own system?
• What happens if you switch suppliers? Do you get the site as an export (HTML/CSS, a database dump, a CMS export), or are you locked in?

A red flag: the developer builds the site on their own proprietary system that you cannot export. When the partnership ends, you have to rebuild the site from scratch.

2. Who actually does the work, and do you get the names in advance?

There are agencies where the sales meeting has two senior people in the room and the build is done offshore by a freelancer at 8 €/hour. That is not automatically bad, but you need to know.

Ask:

• Who writes the copy?
• Who does the design?
• Who codes or builds in the CMS?
• Who is the contact when the site is live and a bug appears?

If the answer is vague ("we have a team that..."), ask for names. If they are not given, that is data.

3. How is search optimization built in, not bolted on after?

SEO is not a separate service you can glue onto a site afterward. It is a structural decision: URL structure, semantic HTML, site speed, schema.org markup, hreflang language tags, internal linking.

Ask concretely:

• Are page meta titles and descriptions written as part of the build, or as a separate add-on service?
• Is page load speed (Core Web Vitals) defined in the contract? A good benchmark: LCP under 2.5 s, INP under 200 ms.
• Is keyword research done before the content is written, or is the business assumed to know already?
• Is schema.org markup (Organization, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList) included in the delivery?

If the answer is "as an add-on service later", you effectively pay twice: first for the site, then for tearing the SEO structure apart and rebuilding it.

4. How does the site show up in AI search (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews)?

In 2026, roughly 12–15% of global searches are done with AI, and the 2027 forecast is over 28%. If your site is built in 2026 without accounting for AI visibility (GEO, generative engine optimization), you are designing it for a disappearing channel only.

In practice, GEO means:

• Answer capsules at the start of a page: pages with a clear summary paragraph get a 40% higher citation share from AI systems.
• H2 headings in question form: they get cited 38% more often than free prose.
• Numbers and concrete examples: a generic sentence like "GEO improves visibility" does not compete with "a GEO build raised the share of AI mentions from 4% to 14% in 45 days".
• Author markup with schema.org Person data: Google and LLMs use E-E-A-T signals to decide whose text to believe.

Ask: is FAQPage schema added to the pages, do author pages have LinkedIn sameAs links, is llms.txt included in the delivery?

If the answer is "what is llms.txt?", there is your answer.

5. How much can you update yourself without a developer?

The most expensive hidden cost of a business website is not building it, it is maintaining it. Ask:

• Can you swap an image, update text, add a blog post yourself, without coding?
• Is the CMS clear enough that an office assistant can make an update?
• Is every small change an hour of billable work from the developer, or is editability built in?

Webflow, for example, allows visual editing so a non-technical person can change content without help from the development team. WordPress often needs a plugin (Elementor, Divi) to achieve the same, and their updates break the page regularly. This is not a platform debate, it is a practical question of who on your team can and will keep the site alive.

6. What do you measure, and how do you show the site produces results?

A website with no measurement is just an expensive brochure. Ask:

• Are Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Search Console installed as part of the delivery?
• Are leads, purchases and contacts defined as conversion events?
• Do you get a monthly report (organic traffic, rankings, conversions) automatically, or do you have to ask?
• Does the quote mention how the site's results are tracked at 6 and 12 months?

One reference case: Equestrain, an equestrian-industry retailer, grew revenue by 20% in the first week of the new site and a campaign. You can only state a number like that if measurement is built in from day one. If an agency does not promise numbers, they are not measured.

7. What is the price, and what is the real two-year TCO?

Price is the last question, not the first. A website's total cost of ownership (TCO) comes from three layers.

One-time costs

• The build: 3,000–25,000 € (depending on scope)

Ongoing costs

• Hosting plus domain: 0–600 € / year
• Maintenance (security updates, backups): 0–2,400 € / year
• Content updates (when you cannot do them yourself): 100–250 € / hour, 2–10 hours / month
• SEO and GEO upkeep: 500–2,500 € / month

The two-year TCO is often 2–3 times the build investment. The cheapest quote rarely wins, unless you have a team that can take maintenance in-house. So always ask for a 24-month total, not just a project price.

Summary: a checklist before you sign

1. The domain is registered in my company's name
2. The platform is a standard one (for example Webflow, WordPress), not the developer's own system
3. I know the names of everyone who touches the work
4. SEO and GEO are part of the build, not an add-on service
5. I can make ordinary content updates myself
6. Measurement (GA4 plus Search Console plus conversions) is part of the delivery
7. I have seen a 24-month TCO calculation, not just a project price

If any of these stays unclear, ask again. A good agency answers clearly. Evasion is an answer.

Need a sounding board for the selection process? Request a free 30-minute review of your site, we go through together what is worth changing in your current situation, and what to leave alone.