How to Choose a Web Designer in Orillia (And Red Flags to Watch For)
Hiring a web designer is one of those things where the wrong choice can cost you a lot of money and months of your time. There's no shortage of people who'll take your money and hand you something that looks fine but does nothing for your business.
Here’s how to find the right person — and what to watch out for:
Start With the Portfolio
Before anything else, look at their work. Not the screenshots on their homepage — the actual live websites.
Click through them. Are they fast? Do they look good on your phone? Is the content clear?
More importantly: do they have experience with businesses like yours? A designer who's built websites for restaurants and fashion brands isn't the same as one who's built sites for trades companies, service businesses, and local contractors.
Ask About SEO
This is the question most business owners forget to ask, and it's the most important one. "Does SEO come included, or is that extra?"
A lot of designers build websites that look great and rank nowhere. They're not doing anything wrong from a design perspective — they're just not SEO specialists. If you want your site to show up on Google (https://www.mcgrawesome.com/seo), make sure whoever you hire knows what they're doing in that area specifically.
Are they available?
This sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised. A lot of web designers are solo freelancers who go quiet the moment they have a new client. If your site goes down, your form breaks, or you need a page updated — can you actually get a response?
Ask them: “what's your typical response time for support requests? What happens if I need something fixed after launch?”
red flags!
No portfolio. If they can't show you a website they've built for a business in Orillia or Simcoe County, they may not understand local SEO at all.
No discovery call. If someone will give you a price without asking you a single question about your business, your goals, or your customers — run. They're selling you a template, not a solution.
Too cheap to be real. A $500 custom website doesn't exist. If someone's offering one, it's either a template they'll spend 4 hours on, or it's been outsourced overseas. You get what you pay for.
No contract. Always have a written agreement that covers what's being built, what's included, the timeline, and what happens if something goes wrong.
The right web designer for an Orillia business is someone who understands that a website is a business tool, not an art project. They should be asking you questions about who your customers are, what you want the site to accomplish, and how you want to grow.
They should also be able to explain, in plain language, how they're going to help Google find you. Take a look at the work we've done for local businesses (https://www.mcgrawesome.com/web-design) and judge for yourself.
Ready to Talk?
McGrawesome Design has been building websites for Orillia and Simcoe County businesses for over six years. We're not going to oversell you something you don't need — and we're not going to hand you a template and call it custom.
