What should I look for when choosing someone to build my website?

Choosing someone to build your website depends on what you are trying to accomplish with your website.

If you want something optimised for a better user experience and make contacting you effortless, look for someone who can explain why they made a choice. Website design has a lot of research and theory on why something works, a good designer should know those.

Be aware of artists. A lot of design decisions are made based on different research, theory, performance constraints and a lot more. Many designers learn a cool style and force the style on a website, they learn borders with gradients so now every border needs to have a gradient even when it doesn’t match the tone of the rest of the site. Being artistic is fine as long as the website does its job. If a designer forces their style on your website when it doesn’t suit your business, they might just be trying to impress other designers and not your customers.

Hire someone with a spine. When you hire someone you are likely to ask for something that shouldn’t be done, a lot of non-professionals in a lot of professions ask for things that a professional knows not to do. It’s a developer’s job to let you know what is and isn’t good for the website, there are technical limitations, legal limitations, or just bad choices.

Ask them about what happens after the website is made, how do they hand over, how do they ensure the quality after they are done building the website, who owns what, do they dump the website and leave or do they guide you through the setup too. Have things well documented and ask for a detailed written contract.