Red Flags to Watch for When Hiring a Website Designer
If you’ve ever tried to make a simple update to your website, like changing your hours, updating a service, or adding a page, and realized you can’t, this episode is for you. In this episode of Elevate Your Practice, I’m sharing down the biggest red flags to watch for when hiring a website designer, especially the ones that quietly leave health and wellness practitioners feeling locked out of their own websites. You’ll learn what true website ownership should look like, why control and education matter just as much as design, and how to spot warning signs before signing a contract. Most importantly, this episode reinforces one core truth: your website should never feel like something you’re renting or borrowing from someone else.If your site feels restrictive, confusing, or stressful to maintain, this episode will help you understand why (and what to look for instead).
Key Takeaways
Your website should always be something you own, control, and understand.
Designers who use proprietary platforms or restrict access create long-term risk.
Paying monthly should include clear support or strategy — not just hosting.
You should always be able to make basic updates to your own website.
No designer can ethically guarantee rankings, traffic, or bookings.
A well-designed website is accessible, optimized, and built to evolve with your business.
Resources
Transcript
[00:00:00] Samantha Mabe: I am Samantha Mabe, website designer and founder of Lemon and the Sea, and this is Elevate Your Practice. If you're a holistic health practitioner ready to grow your practice without wasting time on things that don't work, you're in the right place. Each week I share a website, SEO, and marketing advice along with guest experts so you can bring in the right clients and feel confident about how you are showing up and serving the people that you help. Let's get started.
When You Can’t Make Simple Website Updates
[00:00:38] If you've ever gone to make what should be a simple update to your website, like changing your hours, updating a service, or adding a new page, and suddenly realize that you can't, this episode is for you.
[00:00:49] Over the past year, I've had more and more people reach out to me, not because they want a brand new website, because they feel stuck. They're working with a designer or a marketing company that they no longer wanna work with, they don't have access to their own site, or they're paying ongoing fees and still can't get basic changes made.
[00:01:08] And I wanna say this upfront: it's usually not because you made a a bad decision. Most health and wellness practitioners were never taught what questions to ask when hiring a website designer or what red flags to look out for before signing a contract.
[00:01:24] So in this episode, I wanna walk you through the biggest red flags I see when it comes to website designers and why your website should never feel like something you're borrowing or renting from someone else.
[00:01:35] My goal as a website designer and in my company is simple: I want you to have a website that you love and that you actually own, understand, and feel comfortable using whether you work with me or not.
Red Flag #1: Your Designer Controls the Platform
[00:01:48] Red flag number one, and this is one I have seen multiple times, the person you worked with builds your website on a platform that they control. If your designer built your website on their own custom platform, or one that you can't log into without them, that's a problem. That means you can't take your website with you if you decide to leave or you may be forced to rebuild from scratch. And it means that another designer often can't step in to help if you're not getting the results you want from the person that you're working with.
What Website Ownership Should Actually Look Like
[00:02:25] What you wanna look for instead is a website designer who's gonna work on a platform that you have full control and ownership over like Squarespace, Wix, or WordPress. You want to have your own account with your own login, where you are the owner and the administrator, and not just somebody who can go in to take a look and give feedback.
[00:02:52] For many of my clients, this means that they have started their website on one of these platforms and they just give me access where I can get in and make changes. For some of my clients, I start their website for them, but once their invoices are paid and their website is designed, they are made the administrator and the owner of the website, which means they can kick me off anytime they want and add anybody else that they want to that site.
Red Flag #2: Paying Monthly Just for Hosting
[00:03:19] The second red flag that I see, and it goes along with the first one, is that you are paying someone monthly just to host your website. Now you do have to pay to have a website. What is normal and expected is that you're gonna have a domain, that's your URL that you type in to go to your site, and those are generally about 20 to $30 a year unless it's something really special. Your domain host is going to be something like GoDaddy, Namecheap, or even Squarespace Domains. You should own your domain and have all access to that information. The second thing you're gonna be paying for is your website platform. So this is going to be something like WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, or Kajabi, and you could be paying anywhere from $250 to $750 a year, depending on which platform you choose and how many additional features you are using. If you are using WordPress, you are probably paying for a couple of plugins, things like Yost for SEO, Elementor, or Divi that vary in cost.
[00:04:37] So if you have to pay for a website, why is it a red flag to be paying hosting to your designer? It's a red flag because what I see happen is that someone is paying a designer or a marketing agency an a additional $150 to $300 a month after the website has been designed, and that doesn't come with any real support, edits or strategy. It's just so that the website can exist and so that they can reach out to those people if they need help, but it doesn't include anything else. You're paying indefinitely just to have an online presence and leaving that agency or designer often means that you're losing access to your website and everything that you have built.
When a Retainer Makes Sense (and When It Doesn’t)
[00:05:23] Now, I wanna make sure that I'm not making it sound like you should never have a designer on retainer. Having somebody who offers ongoing support that you pay on a monthly or quarterly basis can make sense depending on how many updates you do and if you just wanna hand them off to somebody. But paying for hosting alone, especially if you're paying hundreds of dollars a month, is not the same as getting support and retainer work from your designer. Here's a rule of thumb: if you are paying monthly to a designer or an agency, you should know exactly what you are getting and it should include some services.
Red Flag #3: You Can’t Make Basic Updates Yourself
[00:06:06] Red flag number three is that you can't make basic updates yourself even if you wanted to. Most of my clients don't want to edit their own sites. In fact, they come back to me every quarter or every year and have me go through a list of updates. But you should always be able to make those updates on your own.
[00:06:29] This means that if you need to update a button, because your scheduling software has changed, you don't have to wait weeks for somebody to respond. You don't need to email back and forth and wait in order to update the office hours on your website or change the pricing when the new year rolls around, and you should never feel nervous to touch anything on your website because you think that means something is going to break.
Why Your Website Needs to Grow With Your Business
[00:06:58] Your business is supposed to evolve and grow and your website needs to grow with it. And being locked out of your website, not being able to touch things and update more than an image or two, creates friction and it causes delays. It's not about being able to do things yourself. It is about feeling held hostage by a company because you have to rely on them to get anything done on your site, and that's never how I want my clients to feel.
Red Flag #4: Guaranteed Rankings or Bookings
[00:07:29] Red flag number four when you are choosing who you want to work with for your design and marketing is that they are promising rankings, traffic or bookings. Here's the truth. Nobody can guarantee a number one Google ranking, a specific number of bookings, or instant traffic growth on your website. That's just not how it works. These promises are risky because they're often relying on shortcuts or really vague metrics. They don't account for your location, your niche, or your competition, and they create unrealistic expectations for you.
[00:08:07] Just like a good instagram agency is going to tell you that things take time and consistency. A good website designer is going to tell you the same thing. We can put all of the foundations into place, but things take time to grow. And there are so many pieces in the algorithms of Google and AI searches that we don't control, that we can never guarantee you a result in traffic, bookings, income, or rankings.
What a Good Designer Can Control
[00:08:42] A designer should be able to explain what is in their control: things like making sure all of the foundational pieces are in place, building a website structure that is well designed with clarity, and filling in all of the SEO and accessibility pieces that need to be done. And they should also be able to give you a realistic timeline on how long it should be before you start seeing results and what you can do if you're not seeing the results you hoped for and what tweaks might need to be made.
Red Flag #5: “All-In-One” Without the Basics
[00:09:16] Red flag number five is that they call themselves an all-in-one, but can't explain the basics that go into website design. This is a conversation I actually saw on Threads recently when someone was talking about people who call themselves website designers and charge thousands of dollars for a website, but then don't know anything about accessibility or SEO.
[00:09:41] When you are choosing a designer, you should be able to answer these questions with confidence so that you know exactly what you're getting. Is your website accessible? Is SEO part of what your designer is doing for you? Were your images optimized or were they just added to the site as you gave them to your designer? And do you know how to update your site after you launch?
Pretty Isn’t Enough: Why Accessibility and SEO Matter
[00:10:09] A website isn't done just because it looks nice. Things like SEO and accessibility have a real impact on how visible your website is, the usability for people, and the trust you are building with potential clients and patients.
[00:10:28] This doesn't mean that your designer needs to do all of those pieces. There are lots of designers out there who build a website, but they don't do anything with SEO or they don't write copy or help with branding, and that's fine. But you should know what you are getting and what you aren't getting so that you can then fill in the rest of the gaps for yourself and know what was done and what wasn't.
[00:10:57] You also wanna make sure that your designer isn't ignoring fundamental things like building an accessible website, because that is part of the design process. If a website isn't accessible, then it actually isn't well designed, and so what you don't want to do is hire somebody who's going to give you something pretty, but that isn't actually going to help your business to grow and help your clients to find you.
How I Do Website Design Differently
[00:11:28] A big part of my philosophy here at Lemon In the Sea is that I don't want to own my client's websites. I want you to own your website and be able to make changes to it with confidence. And that's why when I am designing a custom website, I make sure that you are on a platform that you are able to own and edit on your own.
[00:11:56] Unfortunately, this means that sometimes I can't help you with the website you currently have. The platform that your website is built on, the code that is used, and the way it's set up matters, and some sites literally can't be transferred. If you were to stop paying for hosting, you're going to lose access to the copy, the images, all of the pieces behind the scenes. And so I am not able to take those over and just have you pay me instead of your previous company.
[00:12:30] I've actually helped quite a few clients who wanted to leave their previous designer and discovered that they had to build a new website on a new platform in order to do so. And while that isn't ideal, because it is a larger investment and it takes time, taking over a broken system, especially one that you or I cannot make all of the edits we need to on, is just going to create more problems.
[00:13:01] That's why I've built my process to focus on a website that is strategically designed to show up in front of the right people and convert them into paying clients and customers for your business. We structure things in a way that makes it really easy for people to figure out what you do, what makes you different, and if you are a good fit to work with them.
[00:13:28] I design my websites so that everything is built from the foundation up to be streamlined, to have all of the pieces that you need in order to launch, and then I give you the education to make changes to that site yourself so that you can stay with me as a designer who makes updates as long as you like, but you can also take your website and hand it over to somebody else or keep working on it in-house. The goal isn't that you need me forever. The goal is to never feel stuck again because of the way a designer set up your site.
[00:14:07] If you have experienced this and you feel like you're locked into your website and you have no idea how to get out of it, you are not behind and you did not make a mistake. It can feel easy to go with a designer or an agency that charges less or bills you on a monthly basis instead of an upfront cost for a project. It can also feel really good to hire somebody who says they're going to always be there for you to update their website as long as you continue to pay them. But that's not always the best decision for the long term.
[00:14:47] If you are wondering whether your website is on a platform that you can take over, or if you have questions about if your website designer did all of the things that you expected them to, I would love to take a look at it and give you some suggestions on ways that you can improve your SEO, your design, and your user experience with a free 15 minute video reviews where I go through your website and give you some suggestions on what you can do to improve your traffic and your conversions. You can get that at lemonandthesea.com/review or in the show notes.
[00:15:28] Thanks for listening to Elevate your Practice. If you enjoyed today's episode, follow the show and leave a review. It helps more practitioners find these tips and start growing their practices with confidence. And don't forget to check out the show notes for links and resources from today's episodes. I'll be back next week with more strategies to help you build a thriving practice.
