Question-Driven Website Design Consultation That Improves Lead Fit

What Should a Web Designer Ask You Before Building Your Website?

Hiring someone to redesign your website can be difficult because most business owners do not hire web designers very often.

You might talk to three different companies, look through their work, compare proposals, and hear three completely different approaches to the project.

So how do you know who actually understands what your business needs?

Pay attention to the questions they ask.

The questions that come up during a website design consultation can tell you a lot about the website you are eventually going to get.

If the entire conversation revolves around how many pages you want, what colors you like, and which websites you think look cool, I would be concerned.

Those questions have their place. But they should not be the starting point.

Before someone can recommend what your new website should look like, how it should be structured, or even what pages it needs, they should understand the business behind it.

Here are some of the questions I think a web designer should be asking before your project ever gets started.

1. Why are you considering a new website now?

This is one of the most important questions because something usually triggered the project.

Businesses rarely wake up one morning and randomly decide it would be fun to spend thousands of dollars rebuilding their website.

Something changed.

Maybe the company has grown significantly since the current site was built.

Maybe you are attracting the wrong kinds of leads.

Maybe you have added services or locations that the website barely mentions.

Maybe the site has become difficult for your team to update.

Maybe you’re pursuing larger clients and the current website no longer reflects the quality of the company.

Or maybe your team simply hates sending people to it.

Understanding why the project is happening provides context for almost every decision that follows.

If your business has grown beyond what the current site represents, for example, the solution is not simply a newer-looking version of the same website.

The new site needs to reflect the company you have become.

We cover that situation more deeply in our guide onwhen it is time to redesign your website.

2. What isn’t working about your current website?

Notice that this question is not:

"What don’t you like about your website?"

Those are two different things.

You might not like the color of a button. That does not necessarily mean the button is causing a business problem.

Instead, think about where the current website creates friction.

Are people struggling to find certain services?

Are you getting inquiries for work you do not want?

Does the site generate very few inquiries at all?

Is important information constantly out of date?

Does your sales team have to send prospects additional information because the website does not explain enough?

Is the mobile experience frustrating?

Can your team actually make the updates they need to make?

Those answers start identifying problems the redesign should solve.

A good web designer should be trying to understand those problems before prescribing a solution.

3. Who are you trying to reach?

Your website is not really for you.

It is for the people you want to reach.

That means your web designer needs to understand who those people are.

You do not necessarily need a 30-page buyer persona document describing someone’s favorite coffee order and what they do on Saturday mornings.

You do need to understand the kinds of customers you want more of.

For an established service business, that might mean larger commercial clients instead of small residential jobs. Another company might want to reach facilities managers, homeowners in a particular service area, healthcare organizations, or businesses with multiple locations.

Those differences affect everything from messaging and imagery to site structure and calls to action.

If your website is currently attracting the wrong audience, clearer positioning can also help improve the quality of the inquiries you receive. We talk more about that inHow to Attract Better Leads Through Your Website.

4. What do you want someone to do on the website?

Every website should have a purpose beyond existing.

For one business, the primary goal might be getting someone to request a quote.

For another, it might be scheduling an appointment.

It could be calling the office, submitting a project inquiry, visiting a physical location, applying for a job, making a purchase, or registering for something.

There may be several actions across the website, but some are going to matter more than others.

Your web designer should understand those priorities.

That affects how pages are structured, where calls to action appear, what information comes before them, and how someone moves through the site.

A website built without knowing what visitors are supposed to do is essentially hoping people figure it out themselves.

5. How do customers actually choose your business?

This is where a website conversation starts becoming much more useful.

Think about what happens before someone becomes a customer.

Do most people find you through Google?

Are they referred by someone else and using the website to make sure your company looks legitimate?

Do they typically compare three or four providers?

Does someone call almost immediately because the service is urgent?

Are you selling something that takes several weeks or months to evaluate?

Does one person make the decision, or are several people involved?

The website should support the way people actually make that decision.

Someone looking for emergency restoration services has a very different mindset from a company evaluating a new commercial service provider for a multi-year contract.

Their websites should not guide people through identical experiences.

6. What questions do customers ask before hiring you?

This is one of the easiest ways to uncover useful website content.

Ask the people who answer your phones or handle sales:

What do prospects ask us over and over again?

Maybe it is:

How much does this typically cost?

How long does it take?

Do you serve my area?

What happens after I contact you?

Can you handle a project this size?

Do you work with businesses like ours?

What is included?

Those questions are telling you what information prospects need before they feel comfortable moving forward.

Some answers may belong on a service page. Others could become FAQs, process sections, project examples, or even entire pages.

Your website should make sales conversations easier by answering some of the predictable questions before the conversation starts.

7. What kind of work do you want more of?

This is different from asking what services you offer.

An established business may technically provide ten different services while only three of them are important to its next stage of growth.

Maybe one service is significantly more profitable.

Maybe you want larger commercial projects.

Maybe you are trying to grow a particular division.

Maybe you want to stop attracting a certain type of work altogether.

Your website should not give everything equal weight just because it exists.

The services, projects, and messages you emphasize influence what people associate with your company.

Even the work you choose to feature matters. Yourproject examples should not only show what you have done. Ideally, they should help demonstrate the kind of work you are capable of doing more of.

8. Where is the business going next?

A new website should not only solve today’s problems.

It should give the business room to grow.

That means your web designer should understand what might be coming over the next few years.

Are you planning to add locations?

Expand your service area?

Launch new services?

Hire significantly?

Move into larger projects?

Target a different kind of customer?

Add online functionality that does not exist today?

Not every future possibility needs to be built on day one.

But understanding where the company is headed can influence how the site is structured now.

Otherwise, you may end up rebuilding the website again because the new one was designed too narrowly around the business as it existed on launch day.

9. Who is actually involved in the project?

This question is not particularly exciting, but it can make or break a website project.

Someone needs to provide information.

Someone needs to review designs.

Someone needs to gather photography, team information, service details, or other content.

And ultimately, someone needs to make decisions.

If five people are providing conflicting feedback and nobody knows who has final approval, projects can stall quickly.

A good website consultation should establish:

• who will be the primary point of contact

• who needs to review major decisions

• who has final approval

• who will provide information or assets

• how feedback will be collected

The clearer this is at the beginning, the easier it is to keep the project moving.

What should you ask the web designer?

The consultation should not be one-sided.

You’re evaluating them too.

Before choosing a web partner, I would want clear answers to questions like:

• How do you determine what pages our website actually needs?

• How will you learn about our business and customers?

• Who handles the website copy?

• How do you approach SEO during the project?

• What does the design and revision process look like?

• How will we review the website before launch?

• Who owns the website, domain, hosting account, and other assets?

• Will our team be able to make updates?

• What happens after the website launches?

• Do you provide ongoing maintenance and support?

• How do you measure whether the new website is doing its job?

You do not need every web company to have the same answers.

Different agencies have different processes.

What matters is that there is a process and that they can clearly explain why they work that way.

Be cautious if the conversation starts with the solution

One thing I would pay attention to during a website design consultation is how quickly someone starts prescribing.

If they know you need exactly eight pages, a particular layout, a specific platform, and a certain set of features before they have learned much about your business, what are those recommendations based on?

Probably assumptions.

The same goes for design.

There is nothing wrong with talking about websites you like or visual directions that appeal to you. Those conversations are useful.

But design should follow understanding.

A great-looking website that solves the wrong problems is still the wrong website.

The discovery process exists to make sure everyone understands what is being built and why before a lot of time and money are invested in building it.

A good website consultation should give both sides clarity

The purpose of the first conversation is not for a web designer to convince every potential client to hire them.

Sometimes the project is not a fit.

Maybe the budget does not match the scope. Maybe the timeline is unrealistic. Maybe the business needs something the web company does not specialize in. Maybe the current website does not actually need to be rebuilt at all.

That is useful information too.

A good consultation should leave both sides with a clearer understanding of the problem, what a potential solution looks like, and whether working together makes sense.

AtLEPP, that’s the reason I spend so much of the early conversation asking questions.

Before I can tell you what your website should be, I need to understand what your business is trying to become.

The colors, layouts, pages, and features come later.

If you’re considering a website redesign and want to talk through what is working, what isn’t, and where your business is headed,get in touch.

We’ll start there.