Choosing a web design company is harder than it probably should be.
Almost every agency website says the same things. They build beautiful websites, care about results, create custom solutions, understand SEO, and have a proven process. If you do not work in the industry, it can be difficult to tell who actually knows what they are doing and who simply has a good sales process.
I have been building websites for businesses since starting YEG Digital in 2017, and one thing I have learned is that the most expensive web design company is not necessarily the best one. The cheapest one is not necessarily a bad choice either. What matters is whether the company you hire understands your business, can explain what it is building, and is capable of creating a website that actually supports what you are trying to accomplish.
For most service businesses, that usually means more than making the site look nice. The website needs to work properly on mobile, load quickly, explain the services clearly, rank in search, build trust, and make it easy for someone to call, book, or request a quote.
Here is what I would look at before choosing a web design company.
Start With What You Actually Need From the Website
Before comparing web design companies, figure out what the website needs to do.
A five-page website for a new consulting company is a completely different project from a 75-page website for a multi-location contractor. An ecommerce site, municipality website, medical clinic, industrial company, and local plumber can all need very different technology, content, structure, and functionality.
For most service businesses, I would start with a few basic questions. Do you need the website to generate leads? Are people going to find it through Google? Do you serve one city or several? Do you need online booking, payments, CRM integrations, forms, or other functionality? Who will update the website after it launches?
The clearer you are about the goal, the easier it becomes to evaluate agencies. A company may build beautiful brand websites but have very little experience with SEO or lead generation. Another agency may be excellent at high-converting local service websites but not be the right fit for a large ecommerce project.
Neither is necessarily better. They are just different.
Look at Websites They Have Actually Built
The portfolio is one of the first places I would look, but I would go deeper than whether you like the colours and design.
Open some of the websites and actually use them.
Look at them on your phone. Click through the navigation. Read a service page. Try the contact form. See how quickly you can figure out what the company does, where it operates, and what you are supposed to do next.
You should also look for projects that are somewhat similar to your business. The agency does not necessarily need to have built a website for another company in your exact industry, but it helps if they understand the general type of project.
At YEG Digital, we work primarily with service businesses. That means we spend a lot of time thinking about services, locations, local SEO, lead forms, phone calls, Google Ads landing pages, and how people research companies before contacting them.
That experience matters because the structure of the website is often just as important as the visual design.
Ask Who Is Actually Building Your Website
This is one of the questions I think businesses should ask more often.
Who will actually do the work after the sales call?
There is nothing inherently wrong with distributed or outsourced teams. We use a distributed team ourselves, including people outside Canada. Some of the best designers and developers I have worked with are located in other countries.
The problem is when the company selling the website has very little connection to the people building it.
If the salesperson disappears after the deposit and your project gets handed to someone who knows nothing about your company, customers, market, or original conversations, things can get frustrating quickly.
I would ask who is responsible for the project, who is designing it, who is developing it, who writes the content, and who you will speak with when you have questions. There should be someone who owns the outcome and understands why decisions are being made.
Make Sure They Understand SEO Before the Website Is Built
SEO should not be something that gets added after the website launches.
The structure of the website affects SEO from the beginning. Page URLs, navigation, headings, service pages, location pages, internal links, redirects, content, page speed, schema, and technical setup can all affect how the site performs in search.
This becomes especially important during a website redesign.
If your existing website already ranks in Google, the new website needs to protect that value. Existing URLs may need redirects. High-performing content needs to be identified before pages are deleted. Internal links need to be preserved or improved, and someone should monitor what happens in Google Search Console after launch.
I have seen businesses lose years of search visibility because a new website looked better but nobody considered SEO during the rebuild.
If organic search matters to your business, ask the web design company what its SEO process looks like before signing anything. If the answer is simply that they “install an SEO plugin,” that would concern me.
Understand the Difference Between Custom Design and a Template
The word custom gets used very loosely in web design.
A company may tell you that it builds custom websites when it is really installing a pre-built WordPress theme, changing the colours, replacing the photos, and putting your logo at the top.
That does not automatically make the website bad.
There are businesses where a template is completely appropriate. If you are starting a side business, testing an idea, or simply need an online presence, spending $10,000 on a website may make absolutely no sense.
The problem is paying custom-web-design pricing without getting custom-web-design work.
At the lower end of the market, I still see a lot of pre-built ThemeForest and Envato themes. Themes like Avada became extremely popular because they include almost every feature imaginable. The downside is that the same flexibility can make them heavy, complicated, and difficult to optimize.
Modern page builders such as Elementor can be used very well when the website is built properly. Older builders and shortcode-heavy systems can be harder to maintain, especially as the site ages.
The tool itself matters less than whether the company understands how to use it well. I would still ask what your site will be built with and why they chose that approach.
Find Out Who Owns the Website
You should know exactly what you own after the project is finished.
That includes the website itself, domain name, hosting account, content, photos, analytics, Google Search Console, Google Business Profile, and any other major accounts associated with the project.
I strongly prefer clients to own important marketing accounts whenever possible.
You do not want to discover three years later that your domain is registered under an old agency employee’s account or that your Google Analytics property belongs to someone you can no longer reach.
There are legitimate situations where software licences or proprietary technology remain owned by the provider, but that should be explained before you sign the agreement.
Ask what happens if you decide to leave.
A good web company should be able to answer that question without making things uncomfortable.
Look Carefully at the Content Process
One of the biggest differences between website projects is how the content gets created.
Some companies expect you to provide every word. Others send a questionnaire. Some interview you and write the content themselves. Others outsource the writing or use AI.
None of those approaches is automatically wrong, but you should understand what you are buying.
We use AI extensively in our own content process because it would be foolish not to use the tools available today. The difference is that we do not simply type “write a plumbing page” into an AI tool and publish whatever comes back.
We build context around the business. That includes calls, notes, services, locations, customer questions, competitive research, SEO data, existing website content, and information we have learned throughout the project. AI helps us organize and draft that information, but the business and strategy still have to come first.
Your website should sound like your company, not like every other website generated from the same prompt.
Ask How They Approach Mobile Design
Your website cannot just technically work on a phone. It needs to be easy to use on one.
For many service businesses, the majority of visitors may reach the site from a mobile device. They may be standing beside a broken furnace, sitting in their vehicle looking for a contractor, or comparing companies while watching TV at night.
They want answers quickly.
Phone numbers should be easy to tap. Forms should not be painful to complete. Text should be readable without zooming, buttons should be easy to press, and important information should not be buried underneath unnecessary design elements.
I would check the agency’s portfolio on your phone before hiring them. It takes about five minutes and tells you a lot.
Do Not Judge a Website Only by How It Looks
Design matters. I am not suggesting otherwise.
A professional-looking website creates trust, supports the brand, and affects how customers perceive the business. But there is a point where businesses start confusing impressive design with effective design.
The website’s job is not to impress other designers.
Its job is to help the customer.
For a service company, that often means clearly explaining what you do, showing where you work, establishing credibility, answering common questions, and making it incredibly obvious how to contact you.
Some beautiful websites make that unnecessarily difficult. They have elaborate animations, vague headlines, unusual navigation, and large visual elements that look impressive in an awards gallery but make it harder for an actual customer to find anything.
I would take a clean, fast, easy-to-understand website that generates leads over an award-winning website that confuses customers every time.
Understand What a Professional Website Should Cost
Website pricing varies enormously, and we have written a full breakdown of what a website costs today if you want more detail.
At the very low end, DIY and AI website builders can cost somewhere around $20 to $100 per month. For a new business or simple project, that may genuinely be all you need.
The $1,000 to $3,000 range is commonly where you start seeing freelancers and template-based builds. There are good people working in this range, but you need to understand how much strategy, content, SEO, and customization is actually included.
Professional service-business websites commonly move into the $4,500 to $10,000 range. This is where I would expect more involvement in planning, design, content, development, SEO, testing, and the overall structure of the website.
At YEG Digital, our website projects generally fall between $4,500 and $15,000, with many landing somewhere around $7,500.
Larger websites can easily reach $10,000 to $25,000 or more when there are dozens of pages, multiple locations, ecommerce, complicated integrations, custom functionality, large content migrations, or significant custom design requirements.
The important thing is understanding what you are getting for that price.
The expensive mistake is not paying $15,000 for a website that genuinely requires $15,000 worth of work. The expensive mistake is paying $15,000 for something that was really a $2,500 website with a better sales process.
Ask What Happens After the Website Launches
Websites are not finished forever the day they launch.
WordPress needs updates. Plugins change. PHP versions change. Forms occasionally stop working. Content needs updating. New employees join the company. Services change. Google changes. Browsers change.
Someone needs to look after the website.
Before hiring a web design company, ask what happens after launch. Do they provide hosting? Is maintenance included? Who installs updates? Are backups taken? What happens if the website goes offline? How are small changes handled?
You should also understand what support costs.
Some agencies include a period of support after launch and then charge hourly. Others offer monthly care plans. Some provide hosting and maintenance together.
There is no single correct model, but you should know how it works before you need help.
Pay Attention to the Questions They Ask You
A good web design company should ask a lot of questions.
Not because it wants to make the sales process unnecessarily long, but because it cannot build the right website without understanding the business.
I want to know what services make the company money, which types of projects it wants more of, where customers come from, which locations matter, who the competitors are, what makes the company different, what has worked before, and what is frustrating about the current website.
If the entire discovery process is basically “What colours do you like?” and “Can you send us your logo?”, there is probably not much strategy going into the project.
The website should be built around the business, not simply around the owner’s design preferences.
Look at Reviews, But Read Them Properly
Reviews are useful, but do not just look at the star rating.
Read what customers actually say.
I pay attention to comments about communication, deadlines, support, responsiveness, results, and what happened when something went wrong. Those details tell you far more than a generic five-star review saying the website looks great.
You can also look at how long clients have stayed with the company.
An agency with long-term hosting, SEO, support, or marketing clients is usually doing something right. Keeping a client for five years tells me more than completing one attractive website and never speaking to the customer again.
Red Flags I Would Watch For
There are a few things that would make me slow down before hiring a web design company.
They Cannot Explain What They Are Building
You do not need to understand every technical detail, but the company should be able to explain its recommendations in normal language.
They Promise Guaranteed Google Rankings
Nobody can guarantee a number-one organic ranking on Google.
They Want to Own Everything
Be careful if the domain, analytics, Google accounts, website, and other important assets all have to remain under the agency’s control.
They Have No Process for SEO During a Redesign
If your existing website ranks, this can become expensive very quickly.
Their Own Website Is Slow or Difficult to Use
A web design company’s website does not need to be perfect, but it should demonstrate the basic things they are selling.
They Cannot Show Relevant Work
An agency does not need hundreds of projects, but it should be able to show you websites it has actually built.
The Price Seems Too Good to Be True
A $500 website may be exactly what you need. Just do not expect it to include $7,500 worth of strategy, writing, design, development, SEO, and support.
The same applies in the opposite direction. A huge price does not automatically mean the work is better.
Questions to Ask a Web Design Company Before Hiring Them
You do not need to interrogate an agency with fifty questions, but these will tell you a lot:
- Who will actually work on my website?
- What platform will you build it on?
- Why do you recommend that platform?
- Will I own the website when it is finished?
- Who owns my domain and other accounts?
- Is the design custom or based on a template?
- Who writes the website content?
- How do you handle SEO during the build?
- What happens to my existing rankings?
- Are redirects included during a redesign?
- How long will the project take?
- How many revision rounds are included?
- What happens after launch?
- Do you provide hosting and maintenance?
- What does ongoing support cost?
- Can I see websites you have built for similar businesses?
- What happens if I decide to move the website somewhere else?
A good agency should be comfortable answering all of these.
Should You Hire a Freelancer or a Web Design Agency?
Both can be good options.
A freelancer may be less expensive and can be a great fit for a smaller project. You may also get the benefit of working directly with the person doing all of the work.
The downside is that one person cannot be an expert at everything. Web strategy, design, development, SEO, copywriting, analytics, hosting, accessibility, and ongoing support are all different skills.
An agency generally costs more because more people and systems are involved. That can make sense for larger or more important projects where you want specialists involved in different parts of the website.
There is also a middle ground. Small agencies can provide many of the benefits of a larger team without the overhead of a large traditional agency.
That is essentially how we have structured YEG Digital.
Local Web Design Company vs Remote Agency
I do not think your web design company has to be located down the street.
We work with businesses throughout Alberta and Canada, and our own team is distributed. Most website projects can be handled extremely well through calls, email, Basecamp, Slack, video meetings, and other online tools.
What does matter is understanding the market.
If you are an Edmonton contractor, the company should understand how people search for contractors in Edmonton, how local SEO works, what your customers care about, and how the website fits into the rest of your marketing.
I would choose market understanding over physical proximity every time.
What I Would Choose for a Service Business
If I owned a service company and were hiring a web design company today, I would look for a team that understands web design, SEO, and conversion together.
I would want someone who can build a clean website, but I would care just as much about the service-page structure, Google visibility, mobile experience, calls to action, website speed, tracking, content, and what happens after launch.
I would also want transparency.
Tell me what the website costs. Tell me what platform you are using. Tell me who is building it. Tell me what I own. Tell me how long it will take. Tell me what happens when the site launches.
There should not be much mystery involved.
The Best Web Design Company Is the One That Fits Your Business
There is no single best web design company for everyone.
A startup needing a simple three-page website probably should not hire the same company as a municipality rebuilding a 500-page website. A national ecommerce company has different needs than an Edmonton plumber trying to generate more calls.
The right company is the one that understands your goals, has experience with the type of website you need, communicates clearly, and can explain why it is recommending what it is recommending.
Look past the sales pitch and the portfolio screenshots. Ask who is doing the work, how SEO is handled, what happens after launch, what you actually own, and where your money is going.
A website can be one of the most valuable marketing assets your business owns. It is worth spending a little more time choosing who builds it.
