How to Choose a Web Designer in Dorset

Most Business Owners Get This Wrong

Choosing a web designer feels like a gamble. You see a portfolio that looks decent, the price seems reasonable, and you commit. Three months later, your site loads in five seconds, your contact form breaks on mobile, and the designer has stopped answering emails.

This happens constantly. It does not have to happen to you.

Red Flags

1. They sell templates as custom work. An agency buys a WordPress theme for £50, changes the colours and fonts, adds your content, and charges £2,000 for a "custom" website.

2. No live portfolio with real URLs. Screenshots can be faked or outdated. A legitimate designer will give you live links to websites they have built.

3. No performance data. If a designer cannot tell you the page speed or Core Web Vitals of the sites they build, they are not measuring what matters.

4. You never speak to the person building your site. Many agencies use account managers as intermediaries. This wastes time and money.

5. No clear pricing or timeline. If you cannot get a straight answer on cost and delivery, that is a warning sign.

What to Look For

A real portfolio you can test. Visit their live sites. A well-built site loads in under two seconds. Check their case studies for measurable outcomes.

Direct communication with the builder. The person you talk to should be the person building your site.

A modern tech stack. For performance-focused business sites, modern frameworks like Next.js deliver measurably faster results than WordPress templates.

Structured data and search visibility. In 2026, a website needs to work for humans, search engine crawlers, and AI models. Ask your designer whether they implement schema markup.

Clear contracts and payment structure. Two-payment structures are standard — a deposit to begin and the balance at launch.

Questions to Ask Before You Hire

1. Can you show me live URLs of sites you have built in the last twelve months? 2. What is the average mobile PageSpeed score of your recent builds? 3. Do you use a template or theme, or is the site built from scratch? 4. Will I be speaking directly to the developer throughout the project? 5. Do you implement structured data and schema markup? 6. What is included in the price, and what costs extra?

How Stocks Local Approaches Web Design

At Stocks Local, every site is a custom build. No templates. No WordPress themes. Tyler Stocks builds every site personally. The person you talk to is the person writing the code. Pricing starts at £1,000 and most sites are live within one to two weeks.

If you want a straight conversation about what your business needs, get in touch.