Most small business owners hire a web designer once every few years. They don't know which questions matter, so they compare quotes by price and by how nice the homepage mockup looks. Then, six months later, they find out the site is slow, they can't edit it, and nobody set up Search Console.
I'm a WordPress and Flutter developer in Famagusta, North Cyprus. When I talk to a new client, I try to answer the questions they should be asking, even if they don't ask them. Here are the ten I think matter most, written from the developer's side of the table. If you freelance or run a small studio, having a clear answer to each one is also a good way to stand out from cheaper quotes.
1. "Can I see live sites you built and still maintain?"
Screenshots in a portfolio prove very little. A live site proves you can ship, and a site you still maintain proves it held up.
How I answer: I send live links and suggest the client opens them on their own phone, on mobile data. If a site is slow or the contact button is hard to find, they'll notice in ten seconds, and that's fair.
2. "How will you learn about my business?"
If the first meeting is about colours and fonts, something is wrong. The first meeting should be about customers: who they are, what language they search in, and what you want them to do on the site (call, send a WhatsApp message, book, buy).
How I answer: I start with a short list of questions about customers and goals, and I only talk about design after that.
3. "Which platform will you use, and will I own everything?"
This is the question that protects the client most. Who owns the domain? Who has the hosting login? Can they move the site to another provider without you?
How I answer: I build on WordPress, the domain and hosting are registered in the client's name, and they get admin access from day one. If we ever stop working together, they can take the site anywhere.
4. "Will it be designed for phones first?"
Most visitors arrive on a phone, so the mobile layout should be planned first, not patched at the end.
How I answer: I show the mobile version during the design phase and ask the client to test it on their own device before launch, not only in a desktop browser with DevTools.
5. "How fast will it load?"
Speed affects both visitors and rankings, but it's rarely in the brief. A good developer brings it up without being asked: image sizes and formats, caching, render-blocking scripts, and Core Web Vitals.
How I answer: I explain what we'll measure and use real numbers from my own work. On a four-language real estate site I work on, a colleague and I raised the median mobile PageSpeed score from 51 to 75 and the desktop score from 81 to 97. I always say that the score is a median of several runs, because a single run varies a lot.
6. "What do you do for SEO?"
"SEO" in a quote can mean anything. Clients should ask what exactly is included on launch day.
How I answer: titles and meta descriptions per page, one H1 per page, clean headings, structured data (Person or Organization, Breadcrumbs, FAQ where it fits), an XML sitemap, robots.txt, and the site verified in Google Search Console with the sitemap submitted. That's the foundation. Rankings still depend on content, links and time, and I say that too.
7. "Can the site speak my customers' languages?"
In a place like North Cyprus, one small business can get messages in English, Turkish, German, Russian and Persian in the same week. Multilingual is normal here, not a luxury.
How I answer: each language gets its own URL and its own SEO, with proper hreflang tags. If the client needs Persian or Arabic, I make sure the right-to-left layout is designed and tested, not just mirrored. I use WPML for this on WordPress.
8. "Can I update it myself?"
If the client has to email you to change a price, both sides lose.
How I answer: at handover I run a short training session and leave a simple written guide for the most common edits: text, photos, prices, new blog posts.
9. "How does the project run, step by step?"
A clear process protects both the client and the developer.
How I answer: a written proposal with pages and features, a design the client approves before building starts, preview links during development, a launch checklist, and payments split into stages that follow those steps.
10. "What happens after launch?"
Websites need updates, backups and security fixes. Somebody has to own that.
How I answer: I say clearly who handles updates and backups, how fast I respond, and what ongoing care costs, before the project starts, not after the first plugin conflict.
Bonus: "Can you also build the app later?"
Many businesses start with a website and add a mobile app later for repeat customers. If the same developer can plan both, the app can read its content straight from the WordPress REST API, so there's one place to manage listings, menus or prices.
How I answer: that's exactly why I work with both WordPress and Flutter. The website and the app share content and design instead of becoming two separate projects.
Why this matters for developers
If you're competing with cheaper quotes, these answers are your advantage. Clients rarely know to ask about ownership, speed or Search Console, but once you explain them in plain language, the conversation stops being about price.
I wrote a client-facing version of this checklist, with a short FAQ, here: How to Choose a Web Designer: 10 Questions to Ask Before You Hire. If you're a business looking for help, you can see my web design services in North Cyprus.
What would you add to this list? I'm curious which question your clients ask most often.
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