What to look for
They ask about your clients before your colours
A designer who starts with fonts and colour palettes is designing a website. One who starts with who your clients are, what they're struggling with and why they hire you is designing a way to get more of them. You want the second.
Live websites you can click
Mockups and screenshots are easy to make look good. Ask for live sites, open them on your phone, and see how fast they load and how easy it is to find the next step.
They talk about results, not just looks
Listen for words like enquiries, bookings, sign-ups and sales. A designer who measures success by how it looks will give you a nice-looking site. One who measures it by what visitors do will give you a useful one.
A clear scope and price before you start
You should know what's included, how many pages, who writes the words, how many rounds of changes you get, and what costs extra, in writing, before you pay a deposit.
They understand coaching offers
Coaches sell trust and transformation, often to people who aren't ready to buy on their first visit. Someone who has built for coaches will know about discovery calls, lead magnets, programme sales pages and booking flows.
Questions to ask on the first call
- What would you want to know about my clients before designing anything?
- Can you show me two or three live sites you've built for coaches or consultants?
- Who writes the copy, and is it included?
- How will the site work on a phone, and how fast will it load?
- What tools will it connect to: booking, payments, email?
- Will I be able to edit it myself afterwards?
- Who owns the design files, the domain and the hosting when we're done?
- What support do I get after launch, and what does it cost after that?
Red flags
- No live examples, only images.
- A price before they've asked a single question about your business.
- They keep the domain or hosting in their own name.
- No mention of mobile or speed.
- “Unlimited revisions” with no clear scope. It usually means no clear process either.
What a good process looks like
- Discovery and strategy: your audience, offer and goals, and the one action the site should drive.
- Structure first: a wireframe of each page before any styling, so the argument works before it's decorated.
- Design: your brand applied to that structure.
- Build and test: on real phones, with every form and button checked.
- Launch and support: analytics in place, and someone to call if anything breaks.
Where I fit
I'm Ben Odeyemi, a web designer and creative developer with 7+ years' experience, and that's the process I use. I build conversion-focused websites and sales pages for coaches, consultants and growing brands, and I work with clients worldwide. You can see live work on the works page and prices on the pricing page. If I'm not the right fit, I'll tell you.
