January 24, 2026
It's possible you're a business owner or marketing representative who's recognized it's time to address your outdated, broken, misaligned or poorly performing website. Or worse yet, your company has no website at all. In either case, hiring a web designer or developer is your next move.
A web design agency will ask you a number of questions to give you a proposal, covering your budget, your content, and what you're actually looking for in a design partner. Your level of preparation to answer those questions accurately affects what you get, when you get it, and how much you're going to pay for it.
Here's what to look for, and prepare, before you hire: the 15 things that decide the quality, speed, and cost of your next website.
Define what your desired outcome is with your new website before anything else. Every business uses its website differently.
Some of the more common goals of a high-performing website:
Identifying who your website is for is as important as having one in the first place. From targeting your SEO efforts to aligning your user experience, your website should be tailored to who you’re intending to attract and ultimately sell to.
For instance, for a B2B service business, your web designer may focus on creating a professional design with a specific focus on a clear navigation to highlight services, case studies, and testimonials (aka, social proofing). They might include detailed service descriptions, lead capture forms, and calls to action like “Schedule a Consultation” to drive inquiries.
On the other hand, a B2C e-commerce business should focus on a design that highlights visuals, ease of use, and a convenient purchasing process to eliminate purchase barriers and target better conversion rates. Features like customer reviews (focusing on specific wording and abundance), promotions, and personalized recommendations are also essential for converting casual visitors into loyal customers.
One of the most common missteps before hiring a web designer or developer is not preparing your content ahead of time.
In order to build a truly brand-driven website, it’s imperative that your freelancer or web design agency has the necessary client-provided assets including text, media (photos and videos), and branding materials (more on this one below) readily available come design time.
Though it’s not uncommon that a client doesn’t have these items prepared, this often leaves the designer to assemble "dummy” assets as a placeholder until you’ve prepared the content yourself, or hired a content writer, photographer, etc., to give you and your designer the required items. Design should follow your content, not the reverse.
For a premium level, high-converting and brand-first website (which is what you should be receiving if you’re seeking the help of a web developer), the order of operations should be that the designer establishes a design around your messaging, rather than copy and pasting your information into a theme or template.
Similar to text and images, the other major client-provided assets you should have prepared ahead of your website’s design are your branding materials. This refers to:
Without the proper branding assets, even the best web designers will struggle to put together a site that doesn’t look inherently generic.
For businesses that have a website that’s ready for a makeover (or complete overhaul), it’s important to identify what went wrong with what you have; and in the world of web design, the reasons for a rebuild are endless:
Understanding which of these (or more) apply to you will help bring to light what areas need fixing on your new website along with measures you can put in place to get the most out of your website for the long haul.
During this auditing process, you’ll more than likely discover more areas you’d like addressed in your conversation with your web developers.
It typically starts with design:
“Hey, my website looks old, doesn’t look great on mobile and still has our old logo, etc.”
You may discover that your website doesn’t rank for any of the search terms it should for your industry, location, etc, putting an emphasis on the need for better SEO. Or further digging may help you find that certain links to important resources have been broken for some time now.
Auditing your current website is arguably the most beneficial, yet most forgotten part of starting fresh. If your mentality is simply, “Yeah, I know the one I have is bad.”, you’re missing opportunities to achieve an even better glow-up.
Business owners unsure what to check during a website audit don't need special expertise to get started. Fairway, an Edmonton-based web design agency, offers free website and SEO audits to prospective clients as part of its discovery process.
If you'd prefer to perform a site audit yourself, check out free auditing tools from Ahrefs to find out what areas you can improve!
“I don’t know what this stuff costs.”
The web design industry is one of the most confusing and radically priced industries out there. You can get quotes for web design work that range dramatically (talking thousands of dollars) for virtually the exact same project.
We hear the quotes that some clients receive for their projects, it’s laughable.
Sometimes designers charge on an hourly basis, others choose a tiered pricing model. In either case, your end quote will rely on a number of factors. Check out what goes into determining the price of a website for a better idea.
When deciding on a budget, coming in too small will leave you with deliverables that aren’t worth the investment. Whereas setting the bar too high will attract quotes that have more zeroes on them than it’s realistically worth.
A good starting point is the Business Development Bank of Canada's guideline: 2-5% of revenue for B2B businesses, 5-10% for consumer-facing ones. Most trades and industrial businesses fall into the B2B camp. So if your business makes $500,000 a year, that's roughly $10,000-$25,000 for marketing, with your website being one piece of that.
This is just a simple guideline though, because your actual budget will depend on your website goals, your site’s complexity, and how important your website is to your business.
Factors That Affect Your Website Budget
A lot of website budgets go wrong because people don’t think about the long-term plan. It’s possible you can get a cheap website for $500, but if it looks outdated, doesn’t rank on Google, or doesn’t have the functionality your customers need, you may as well stick with what you have or rely on referral business.
As a rough guide:
$500-$2,000: DIY or template-based websites (great for small startups or hobby sites).
$2,500-$10,000: Professionally designed websites with some custom features (ideal for small businesses).
$10,000-$50,000+: Fully custom websites with advanced functionality (best for mid-size to large businesses or those with complex site requirements).
Not including the proper feature set, and simply “having a website to have a website” is the quickest way to flush thousands of dollars away. For many businesses, however, this is where they stand.
A quick list of potential website features and some businesses that may take advantage of them:
Researching other websites in your industry shows you what's working and what isn't.
A good start would be to think about what your customers might search to find you and take a look at what some of the top listed guys are doing. Companies ranking organically, not through ads, are doing something right, whether that's brand recognition or a strong SEO strategy. These websites can help give you an idea of what kind of content succeeds in your niche, along with the look and format that supports it.
If you're simply looking for design inspo to help you communicate with your designer what you do or don't like, check out awwwards.com for some of the latest award winning web design trends!
SEO isn't optional.
When it comes to website design, a qualified and forward-thinking web design agency should be helping you discover, plan and in many cases, build-out your web design and SEO strategy.
What makes a site rank comes down to the platform, the content, the structure, speed, and accessibility.
When clients are in a rush to get started, or they value cost above all, they say things like “I just need something simple to start”, or they take a general estimate and say, “my site will probably need like 5-6 pages”.
Phrases like these cost you money and likely your time as well.
In many circumstances, for a “simple website”, a client will generally request the same 4 pages: Home, About, Services, Contact. However, in about 80% of cases like these, the client chooses to add more pages either before or immediately after development as they realize they have more to say than they originally anticipated.
Most businesses offer more than one service. Or perhaps variations of the same service. The best website practices both in terms of user-engagement as well as SEO, have you featuring a page for each of those services or variations to properly define what that service is, who it’s for, what pricing for that service may look like, etc.
Beyond service pages, perhaps your business works in several different sectors or industries. To target industry-specific visitors, many conversion-targeting websites will feature a page discussing each industry they serve.
Blogs, news sections, and galleries keep visitors coming back after the first visit.
Don’t forget case studies, testimonials and even FAQs. These reputation building pages help show your credibility and can often be the make or break of whether a client chooses you over a competitor!
Now this doesn’t necessarily mean you need to start with all of this info (as the more pages you include come with a larger bill in most cases). But it does mean you should be putting together a site structure (or sitemap) ahead of time to properly communicate to your web development team your site needs; this saves you from surprise quote changes at the end of the project!
Once your website is live to the world, it won’t be long before you notice something you might want to change. Or perhaps you’ve had a great idea for a new blog article to write... but how are you going to edit your website?
The CMS or web platform your website is built with will define how and what you can access within your website.
Platforms like Wix and Squarespace are powerful website builders that allow “tech-adjacent" business owners the ability to edit many areas of their site including colours, navigation and typography, but may be limiting when it comes to growing outside of the template your website was built through.
Alternatively, platforms like WordPress have a more customizable back-end, allowing you to change virtually anything. In this case, you may require a more a tech-friendly mind to navigate them.
Hybrid options like Webflow, Framer or Elementor serve as convenient in-between solutions where less tech-friendly clients can edit content without worrying they’ll ruin their site but also give you the optional tools to develop more deeply should you have the knowhow to do so. These platforms, however, typically come at a higher cost.
Figuring out what web platform will serve you best requires some research. If you ask a web designer, chances are they’ll pitch you the one they like most. For instance, Fairway, an Edmonton-based web design agency, builds exclusively on Webflow, meaning every site the company delivers uses that platform rather than WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace. Webflow works well for many businesses, though Fairway acknowledges it isn't the right fit for every client.
For an article comparing Webflow to some of the other major platforms, check out Is Webflow Right for Your Business? Comparing Webflow vs Wix Vs Wordpress.
Having a fancy, easy to navigate website used to be enough for website visitors to choose you over your competitors, particularly when your competitors' websites were either outdated or perhaps didn’t even exist.
With most competitors running modern, well-designed sites now, testimonials and case studies are what separate you.
Social proofing has become a major part of a businesses' ability to build trust before someone's willing to buy from you
Outside of extremely niche circumstances, customers are searching the web from their phone increasingly more than desktop, year after year.
Any web designer in 2026 should be thinking about mobile from the start, since a mobile-friendly version isn't optional anymore. That said, its relevance next to how it looks and performs on desktop is still overlooked by most freelancers and agencies.
Landing pages, media, text, and call-to-actions should be edited, designed and targeted specifically for a mobile audience.
Because the average online consumer has a very short window of patience sitting there waiting for your website to load before they move on to the next guy. If your web designers don’t build, test and launch a high-performing mobile experience, your room for error is significantly smaller for customers on the go.
Curious how your current website holds up on mobile devices? Check out Google’s PageSpeed Insights, type in your websites' domain name and select the mobile tab to view your performance scores.
A domain if this is your first time building a website, is the title and address of your website that a person would visit to find you, aka, www.yourdomain.com.
If you haven’t purchased a domain already, your web designer may offer help deciding what your name should be and where to buy it from. For those looking to be ahead of the curve, domain resellers like GoDaddy and Squarespace allow you to purchase and prepare your domain. This will be a yearly charge from whichever provider you choose.
Once your chosen web design agency has built your website for you, they can simply “point” your pre-purchased domain to your website, allowing the public to access your new site!
Website hosting is the process of “hosting” all your website’s files on the internet so that people all over the world can access your website. Hosting is typically a monthly or yearly charge that can vary heavily depending on the provider.
Website hosting comes in many shapes and sizes so it’s important to understand the difference.
All-In-One Hosting and DIY Hosting
This category includes platforms like Wix, Webflow, and Squarespace, where hosting is built into the web design service. Users don't need technical knowledge, as everything is managed for them, including updates, security, and server configurations. These platforms are ideal for people who care less about having complete control.
This includes platforms like GoDaddy, Bluehost, or SiteGround, where you set up and manage hosting separately from the website. Users have the flexibility to choose shared or private servers, customize settings, and scale resources as needed. These options provide more hands-on control but often require technical know-how. For those looking for a cheaper monthly cost with the experience to manage a server, this is the way to go.
It’s easy to forget what your relationship with your web design team will look like once your site is live!
Many web development agencies will offer some degree of post-launch support, offering things like troubleshooting, content-updates, SEO services and more.
Edmonton has no shortage of web design shops, and the quality gap between them is wide. A few questions that cut through the pitch:
Ask when you'll see real, working pages, not a locked mockup. Some agencies design and build at the same time and show you actual pages as they go instead of a separate approval step up front. Either way, you should be looking at real pages early enough to still change them.
Some agencies keep the site locked to their own hosting account, which makes leaving later expensive or slow. Ask who holds the domain and hosting login.
Hosting, edits, and support terms should be spelled out before you sign, not discovered on your first invoice.
Worth asking directly. An agency that outsources development to a different country or a different contractor each time can't guarantee consistency on a redesign three years from now. Fairway builds every site in-house on Webflow, no contractors, for a client base concentrated in Alberta trades, oil and gas, and industrial services. If you want a second opinion on a quote you've already received, we'll look at it for free.
An informed client will see a significant return on investment compared to those that go in blind.
Your website plays a major role in your business’s marketing, reputation, and growth. These are the 15 things that matter most before you hire.
If you’re looking for an experienced web design team, or perhaps you’d just like to talk to someone who can provide you more information to make an informed decision, our company, Fairway, is a web design agency in Edmonton with over a decade of experience helping clients build their dream website.
Contact us today if you’d like to discuss the things you need to do before hiring a web designer in greater detail! Good luck!
