How to Choose a Web Designer in Delaware: Questions, Pricing and Real Examples

This guide is written by Second Gen Digital, a web design company based in Harbeson, Delaware. We obviously have an interest in who you hire, so we've kept the questions vendor-neutral. Use them on us, on a Wilmington agency, on a freelancer or on a do-it-yourself builder. A good provider will have straight answers to every one of them.

Where we describe how we work, we say so plainly, and our prices are published on our pricing page so you can compare them against anyone else's.

Start with what the website has to do

Before you compare designers, write down what a good month looks like. For most Delaware small businesses that's some mix of phone calls, quote requests, bookings or walk-ins. A roofer in Kent County, a boutique in Lewes and an accountant in Newark need very different sites, even if all three just say they need a website.

If a provider never asks how you get paid work, what you sell most, or where your customers are, they're about to build you a brochure instead of a tool.

Agency, freelancer or do it yourself

There's no single right answer. Each option fits a different kind of business.

• Do it yourself (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy and similar): cheapest up front and fine for a very simple presence. You trade money for your own time — writing, photos, structure, search setup and keeping it updated are all on you.
• Freelancer: often affordable and personal. Ask what happens if they get busy, sick or move on, and make sure the domain and hosting accounts are in your name, not theirs.
• Small agency or studio: usually more process, more ongoing support and higher cost. Ask who actually does the work and who you'll talk to after launch.
• Large or out-of-state agency: can be excellent for complex projects. For a five-page local site, check that you aren't paying for overhead you don't need.

How to actually check a portfolio

Screenshots are easy to fake and easy to polish. Live websites aren't. Ask for links, not images, and spend five minutes on each one.

• Open it on your phone. Most of your customers will. Can you find the phone number and call within a few seconds?
• Look for real businesses with real addresses and real phone numbers, not concept designs or templates.
• Check whether the business is independent or owned by the designer. Both can be legitimate, but you should know which is which.
• Look at more than the homepage. Service pages, contact forms and location pages show whether the structure was thought through.
• If a provider claims rankings, leads or revenue increases, ask how they measured it and whether the client agreed to share it.

What fair pricing looks like

Delaware pricing varies widely, from a few hundred dollars for a template setup to five figures for large custom builds. The number matters less than whether you can see what's included.

Ask any provider for the build price, any monthly fee, what each one covers, how many revision rounds are included, and what costs extra. If you can't get those in writing before you pay, keep looking.

For transparency, here's how we price: builds start at $1,000 for a Starter site of up to five pages, $1,500 for a broader Contractor Growth build, and $2,000 and up for comprehensive custom work. Every site we build also requires Digital Care at $100 a month, billed separately, which covers hosting, updates and maintenance. Google Growth at $350 a month is optional. The full breakdown is on our pricing page.

Monthly fees: what you should be paying for

A monthly fee isn't a red flag by itself. Hosting, security, backups, updates and someone answering when something breaks all cost real money. The red flag is a monthly fee nobody can explain.

• What exactly is included each month, and what is billed on top?
• How quickly do you respond to changes or problems?
• Is there a contract term, and what happens if I cancel?
• If I cancel, do I keep the domain, the content and the design?

Ownership: the question most people skip

The domain name is the most important asset you'll have online. It should be registered in your business's name, with login access you control, even if someone else manages it day to day.

Ask who owns the written content, the photos and the design, and whether you can move the site to another provider later. Get the answer in writing. We tell every client the same thing: your domain and your content are yours.

Local knowledge across Sussex, Kent and New Castle

Delaware is small, but the three counties behave differently. New Castle County is dense and competitive, with out-of-state agencies targeting the same searches. Kent County mixes Dover's government and military households with rural service areas. Sussex County has year-round residents, second-home owners and summer visitors all searching in different ways.

You don't need a designer who lives down the road. You do want one who asks which towns you actually serve, whether your demand is seasonal, and how your customers choose between you and the next company. Location pages should exist only where you genuinely work and have something specific to say.

Technical basics worth checking

You don't need to understand code, but you can ask whether these will be in place at launch:

• Fast loading on a phone, with images sized properly
• Secure connection (https) on every page
• A unique title and description for each page
• Your business name, address and phone shown consistently and matching your Google Business Profile
• Structured data that describes your business accurately
• A sitemap submitted to Google Search Console, and ideally Bing Webmaster Tools
• A contact form that actually delivers, plus a click-to-call fallback
• Privacy and terms pages that match what the site really collects

How AI search fits in — without the hype

More people now ask ChatGPT, Google's AI answers, Copilot or Perplexity for recommendations. These tools draw on what they can find and read: your website, your Google Business Profile, reviews and other public mentions.

What helps is the same thing that helps people: clear, accurate pages that say what you do, where you do it and how to reach you, written in plain text a crawler can read. What doesn't exist is a guarantee. Nobody can promise that an AI tool will recommend your business, and you should be wary of anyone who does.

Questions to ask any Delaware web designer

• Can I see three live websites you built for businesses that aren't yours?
• What's the total build price, and what's the monthly fee after launch?
• Who registers and owns the domain?
• Who writes the content, and how many revisions are included?
• What do you need from me, and what's the realistic timeline once you have it?
• What happens to my site if I stop paying the monthly fee?
• How will customers contact me from the site, and where do those messages go?
• Do you guarantee rankings? (The honest answer is no.)

Where Second Gen Digital fits

We build websites for small businesses across Delaware and Delmarva, and contractor and trade websites are our strongest specialty. Our founder runs Shore Tint & More, a separate family window film business in Delaware, so we build from the contractor side of the table. The 370+ Google reviews you may see mentioned belong to that family business, not to Second Gen Digital.

If we're not the right fit, these questions will still help you find someone who is. If you'd like to see our work, every project in our portfolio links to the live site.