What to Ask Before Hiring a Web Designer in New Hampshire

This is the first question. The answer tells you almost everything about what you're buying.

Page builders -- Wix, Squarespace, WordPress with Elementor -- are templates with a visual editor layered on top. They're fast to set up, which is why a lot of low-cost designers use them. The problem is they ship extra code your site doesn't need, load slower because of it, and lock you into a platform you can't easily leave.

A hand-coded site is built from scratch: clean HTML, CSS, and minimal JavaScript. Nothing loaded that isn't necessary. The result loads faster, has cleaner markup for Google to read, and lives in files you actually own. We wrote a direct comparison of hand-coded and WordPress sites for NH businesses if you want the specifics. Short version: templates are faster to build and slower to run.

Ask for a Lighthouse score on a recent project. Lighthouse is a free Google tool that grades sites on performance, SEO, and accessibility. A score of 90 or above on performance is achievable. Template-built sites commonly score in the 40s to 60s.

Speed matters for two reasons. Google uses page load time as a direct ranking factor -- a slow site ranks lower. And Google's own data shows that 53% of mobile users leave a page that takes more than three seconds to load. A site that loses half its visitors before they read a word isn't saving you money. It's costing you jobs.

Some designers build on platforms they control. Some use proprietary systems where you pay a monthly fee indefinitely -- stop paying, the site is gone.

Ask directly: will I get the actual HTML and CSS files? Can I move this to a different host without rebuilding from scratch?

A hand-coded site is yours like a document is yours. You can move it to any host, hand it to any developer, and nothing needs to be rebuilt. If they can't say yes to this clearly, you're renting.

"We include SEO" means different things depending on who says it. For a local New Hampshire business, it means specific technical things: title tags that include your city and service, LocalBusiness schema markup so Google understands what you are and where you operate, and a page structure built around local keywords.

If you serve Concord, Bow, Henniker, or a combination of towns, ask how they handle that. A plumber covering Concord, Bow, and Pembroke needs three distinct location pages targeting each area -- not one page listing all three towns in a footer. Each location page should target the search terms people actually type in that specific town.

If they can't explain this specifically, they're calling it SEO. They're not doing it.

Ask for a live URL from a recent project. Then open a private browser and search for that client's service and city. See if they show up on page one.

Not every designer can pass this test. But it's the only one that matters. Anyone can build a site that looks good in a screenshot. The question is whether it generates calls.

For contractors and trades businesses in New Hampshire, local search competition is thin. A properly built site targeting the right keywords can reach page one in 30 to 60 days in most NH markets. Properly built means fast, locally targeted, and structured with the right schema markup -- not just a nice-looking template.

Hourly pricing for a standard business website is a warning sign. A designer quoting by the hour for a five-page site is either inexperienced or setting the table to expand scope later. "We ran into some complications" is how a $1,500 job becomes a $4,000 bill.

Ask for a flat-rate quote with a written scope that spells out: which pages are included, whether copy writing is included or you're providing it, mobile design, contact form, basic SEO setup, and what post-launch changes cost. Get it in writing before any money moves.

At Feltworks, the numbers are flat: $1,000 for a Starter site up to 5 pages, $1,500 for Growth with location pages and a gallery, $2,000 for Pro with up to 20 pages and full local SEO coverage. That's the price. No hourly surprises.

Traditional agencies have queues, project managers, and revision cycles. Six to twelve weeks is standard. That's two or three months of paying for ads to cover the fact that you don't have a site. Two or three months of leads going to whoever does show up in search.

A focused operator building hand-coded sites should be able to launch in five to seven business days. There's no theme to configure, no plugins to reconcile, no platform review queue. It's just writing the code to spec. We go live in five business days from kickoff. That's not a sales pitch -- it's the math of building something without the overhead.

This is where a lot of designers go quiet. You need to update your hours, add a service, change a phone number -- and the person who built your site doesn't return calls anymore.

Before you hire anyone, ask: who makes changes after launch? Is there a maintenance arrangement? What does it cost?

A hand-coded site with clean code can be edited by any developer. You're not stuck with one person. If your designer built on their own platform or a system only they understand, you're dependent on them indefinitely. Know this before the project starts, not after you need a change and can't reach anyone.