Most of what goes wrong with a small business website goes wrong in the first conversation, before anybody has drawn anything. These are the questions worth asking, and roughly what a good answer sounds like.
Ask them of us too.
1. Whose name is the domain and hosting in?
A good answer: yours, in an account you control, and you can move it whenever you want.
If the answer involves the builder holding the accounts "for convenience", that convenience becomes something they hold over you the day the relationship ends. This is the single most important question on the list and it is the one asked least often.
2. What happens if I want to change the text myself?
A good answer: either you get a way to edit it, or you get a straight explanation of what a change costs and how long it takes.
There is no single right architecture here. Plenty of good small business sites have no editor at all, and that is fine as long as changes are cheap and quick. What you are listening for is whether a one-word fix is a five-minute job or a project.
3. How many pages, and which ones?
A good answer: a specific list, with a page per thing you want to be hired for.
Watch for a quote that says "up to 5 pages" without saying which five. Page count is not the useful unit; what the pages are about is. One page per service is what makes each service findable at all.
4. Who writes the words?
A good answer: a clear one, either way.
This is the most common place a project stalls. Either they write it and you review, or you write it and they lay it out, or you do it together. All three work. What does not work is both sides assuming the other one is doing it, which is why a half-built site sits at 80% for four months.
5. What happens after launch?
A good answer: a named arrangement, whatever it is.
Software needs updating, certificates expire, plugins break, forms stop. Either somebody is looking after that or nobody is, and both are valid answers as long as you know which one you bought. "We'll be here if you need us" is not an answer, it is an ending to a conversation.
6. Can I see something you built that is still live?
A good answer: links, to real sites, that load right now.
Not a portfolio of screenshots. Not a mockup. Open two or three on your phone and see how they feel. If everything in the portfolio is from four years ago, ask what they have shipped this year.
7. What would you tell me not to do?
A good answer: something specific, and slightly unwelcome.
This is the one that tells you most. Somebody who has built a lot of these has opinions about what wastes small business money, and will say so even when the thing you asked about is a thing they could bill for. Somebody who agrees with every idea you float is quoting, not advising.
Two things not to lead with
Price, first. Ask it, obviously, and ask it after you know what you are comparing. Two quotes for "a website" can differ by a factor of five and describe genuinely different work.
Technology. Whether it is built on one platform or another matters far less to you than who owns it, who maintains it, and how quickly it can change. Let them pick the tool. Hold them to the outcomes.
If you are collecting quotes right now and want a second read on one, send it over. We will tell you what we think of it, including when the honest answer is that it looks like a good deal.