You’re sitting across from a web company — or on a call, or in a Zoom room — and you’ve got an existing website. You want to know what they think. So you ask.
The answer you get in the next thirty seconds tells you almost everything.
Not because it reveals technical genius. Not because any competent company can’t quickly assess a website. But because the response tells you what mode they’re in — the mode of helping, or the mode of closing a deal and moving to the next one.
“Oh, I think it’s good.” That might be a red flag because how can the web designer understand your business at this point? Hopefully they’re being nice and don’t want to hurt your feelings.
That answer costs them nothing. It requires no thought, no engagement with your actual business, no opinion they’d have to defend. It’s the answer of someone waiting for you to stop talking so they can present their proposal. When you hear it, you’ve already learned what you need to know about how to vet a web design company — by watching one fail the test in real time.
The first question that tells you everything
When we think about how we’d vet a web company if we couldn’t pick ourselves, the move is simple: if you have an existing website, ask them what they think of it. Don’t prompt. Don’t say “be honest.” Just ask and watch what happens.
If they say “I think it’s good” — that’s suspect. Maybe your site is, but maybe it can use some umph.
If they go into a deep dive and give suggestions, that’s awesome. That’s engagement. That’s a company looking at your business rather than performing interest in it. But if they go into a deep dive, give suggestions, and further the conversation — if it’s clear they’re in the mode of improving rather than just “let’s sign you up and move you on” — that’s even better. That’s someone who is doing the work to solve your problem before they’ve been paid to.
If you don’t have a website yet, the question shifts: how would you approach this? That’s still part of how to vet a web design company — watch whether they ask questions first or start pitching immediately. What’s most important to show here? A company that knows what they’re doing will start asking about your business immediately — not to fill out a form, but because they can’t answer the design question without understanding the business first.
And if the answers are one-word answers? If you’re leading everything and you’re the one initiating all the communication? That’s not good either. At some point in any real consultation, the roles should shift. They need to become the leader — the one asking questions, driving the conversation, pulling information out of you rather than responding to whatever you think to offer. If that shift never happens, you’re not talking to someone who knows how to build for your business. You’re talking to someone running a script.
The mechanical tell — checkbox vs. conversation
There are two modes an intake conversation can run in. Most business owners can feel the difference, but it helps to name it.
Mode one: you answer a question, they move to the next question. Every time. The call has a rhythm, and the rhythm is theirs, not yours. You give an answer, they nod, they check a box, they advance. The conversation progresses but doesn’t deepen.
Mode two: each question leads to more questions — more and more until they fully understand. You say something, they follow the thread. They get curious, they get, dare I say: YEETISH! They ask the thing you didn’t know anyone would ask. They find the nuance you’d never thought to volunteer. And they keep going until they have the full picture, not just the surface version of it.
The difference between those two modes produces completely different websites. One produces a site built around the answers you happened to give. The other produces a site built around your actual business.
There’s a caveat: sometimes a business is simple enough that deep follow-up isn’t warranted. If the business is clear and the answers are complete, a competent company doesn’t need to manufacture complexity by asking irrelevant questions just to seem thorough. That would be its own red flag. The goal isn’t volume of questions — it’s depth calibrated to the business.
How to vet a web design company: the tailored question test
Here’s where the vetting gets specific and some directions on how to write a website brief for a designer if you were so inclined.
When a company asks you questions, are those questions clearly built for your business? Or do they feel like they were written before you walked into the room — a list they’d run through with the last ten clients and will run through with the next ten?
The septic pumping example makes it concrete. A septic pumping company doesn’t need its web designer asking: how has your life changed and evolved throughout the business since you’ve been doing it? That’s a stupid question for that business. Not because the company’s history doesn’t matter — but because it’s not what the intake should be finding out, and the framing reveals that the question wasn’t written for them.
The better question: how has your business evolved through customer feedback over the years? That’s operational. It connects directly to what the website needs to do. The framing is relevant to any service business and the answer informs the build.
Wrong: “How has your life changed and evolved throughout the business since you’ve been doing it?”
Right: “How has your business evolved through customer feedback over the years?”
The difference is subtle but important. One is a life-story question dressed up as business intake. The other extracts real, usable information. A company that asks the first version has a template. A company that asks the second version has a process calibrated to you.
That’s the important thing: are the questions clearly templated, or are they tailored to the business? You can usually feel it within the first three or four questions. The templated ones feel like a survey. The tailored ones feel like a conversation that’s going somewhere. A builder who asks the right questions upfront understands why templates fail businesses — and designs accordingly.
The silence they don’t know they’re supposed to leave
This one is subtle enough that most people never notice it — but once you know what to look for, you’ll see it on every call.
When someone asks you a question and you answer it, what happens next? Do they move immediately to the next question? Or do they wait? When you’re starting a project with a web designer it’s important to work with someone that knows your business deeply and cares enough to ask.
The waiting matters. When someone waits after you answer, you will fill in the gap. Every time. You’ll add something you wouldn’t have added if they’d moved on. Sometimes that something is the most important thing in the conversation — the detail they couldn’t have known to ask for, the concern you hadn’t thought to raise, the context that reframes everything. You give it because the silence felt like an invitation to keep going.
This is not a trick. It’s one of the more advanced listening skills in any client-facing work, and it’s advanced only because we’re always waiting for our turn to speak. We fill silence by talking. A company that practices restraint — that holds the space and lets the gap fill up — consistently gets more usable information from the same conversation than one that doesn’t.
Steve Portigal, a user research consultant and the author of Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights, described this practice in an article on the role of silence in research:
“More tactically, we learn to remain silent for a beat or two after someone has answered a question. People work in ‘chunks’ and often there are several chunks required to deliver a response. Simply remaining silent (and this does take some practice) and allowing the respondent to answer in their own time is remarkably effective.”
— Steve Portigal, Founder of Portigal Consulting, Author of Interviewing Users. Source: portigal.com
And then if the thread is leading somewhere interesting? You follow it. You continue on. If it’s leading somewhere that won’t inform the build? You make a note and shift.
The honest version: even we catch ourselves breaking this rule. No one’s perfect. But this is what you aspire to be — a company that listens more than it talks, especially when the silence is doing the work.
The question you should ask all three companies
Suppose you’re talking to three web companies this week. You want a single test you can run on all three that tells you who is built to serve your business.
Here’s the thing: they’re probably all serious. “Who’s the most legitimate” isn’t usually the question. The question is who’s the best fit for you — and fit requires knowing you first.
So ask each of them: how can you best help me?
Watch what they do with it. If they answer with credentials — “we’re number one in customer satisfaction,” “our websites have higher conversion rates,” “we’ve been in business since 2010” — you’ve learned something. They have their answer prepared. It’s probably the same answer they gave the last person who asked. It’s about them, not you.
If they answer by starting to ask questions about you — about your business, your customers, your current situation, what you need — you’ve learned something different. They understand that they can’t answer the question yet because they don’t know enough. And if they don’t know you, they can’t serve you. Period.
That’s the whole test. One question, two types of response, and the gap between them predicts almost everything about what the next six months will look like. The company that reaches for their credentials is telling you they’re ready to close. The company that reaches for more questions is telling you they’re ready to build. How a web design team communicates throughout the project is just as telling — the signs your web design team communicates poorly are worth knowing before you sign anything.
What this means for the intake call
The intake is where the website starts. Not the mockup. Not the design session. The conversation that happens before either of those — the one where a company learns your business well enough to represent it on a page. If the intake call goes well, then the first call with the web designer after paying should go swimmingly.
That conversation should feel different from a standard sales call. It’s the foundation of a good small business website design — and if it’s skipped or performed, the site won’t reflect your business no matter how good the design looks. The questions should be tailored. The follow-ups should be real. The silences should be held. The leadership should shift to the builder at some point, because a builder who needs the client to lead the intake hasn’t done enough of these to build for the client confidently.
When that conversation is done right, you walk away from it thinking: they get it. You don’t know yet what the site will look like, but you know the person who’s building it understands your business. That’s a specific, distinct feeling — and it comes from how well they listened, not from how good their portfolio looked.
When it’s done wrong — when the call is a checklist, the questions are templated, the silence always gets broken by the company — the site will reflect that. The site will be built around what you remembered to say, not what they were skilled enough to find. That’s a problem you can’t fix in revision rounds, because revision rounds fix design. They can’t fix a weak foundation.
If you want to see what the intake looks like when it’s done right, here’s how we start a project — and what that first real conversation looks like after you sign.
FAQ: How to vet a web design company
What’s the fastest way to know if a web company understands my business?
Show them your current website and ask what they think. If the answer is “I think it’s good” or something equally uncommitted, you have your answer — they are not looking at your business. If they go deep and give specific suggestions, they’re engaged. If they go deep, give suggestions, and turn it into a conversation about what could be better, you’ve found someone worth talking to further.
How many questions should a web company ask before designing anything?
Enough to fully understand your business — not so many that they’re filling time. The right measure isn’t volume of questions, it’s depth. A company that asks five sharp, tailored questions and listens hard will build a better site than one that runs through a twenty-question intake form. What you’re watching for is whether each answer leads to a follow-up. That’s the sign of a real process.
What questions should I ask a web company before I hire them?
Ask them what they know about your business before you tell them. Ask what they’d do differently with your current site. Ask how they handle it if you’re not happy with the initial design. And ask them how they can best help you — then watch whether they answer with credentials or ask you more questions. The last one tells you more than the rest combined. A company that knows their stuff will immediately want to know more about you before making any claims. That same instinct is what separates a custom build from a template — the builder who asked the right questions knows why templates fail businesses.
Is it a red flag if a web company sends a proposal before asking any questions?
Yes. A proposal built before a real conversation is a template with your name on it. It’s built around what they assumed about you, not what they know. Companies that lead with proposals are optimizing for speed of close, not quality of build. The intake quality predicts the build quality — if they skipped the intake, they skipped the foundation.
Does it matter if a web company has built sites in my industry before?
Less than most people think. A company that knows how to run a real intake process can build for any industry. What matters more is whether they ask the right questions for your specific business — not whether they’ve worked with similar businesses before. Industry experience matters. The ability to listen and build from what they hear matters more. We’ve built for dozens of industries we’d never touched before, and the sites performed because the intake was done right, not because we had a playbook already.