Hiring a website designer is one of the highest-leverage decisions a small business owner will make. Your website is often the first (and sometimes only) impression a customer has before they call, book, or buy. This guide walks through what to look for when hiring a website designer in Des Moines — without the sales pitch.
What Actually Matters When Hiring a Designer
1. Custom Design (Not a Recycled Template)
Templates are fine for getting started, but real brand differentiation comes from custom design that reflects your business — not a theme 5,000 other companies are also using. Ask to see original work, not just template customizations.
2. Mobile Responsiveness
More than 60% of Iowa small business traffic comes from mobile. Every project should be designed mobile-first, tested on iOS and Android, and shipped with clean layouts at every breakpoint.
3. SEO Fundamentals
Good SEO starts in the code: semantic HTML, fast Core Web Vitals, structured data, canonical tags, and local schema. If a designer can't explain how they'll help you rank for 'small business website Des Moines' — keep looking.
4. Performance
Load times directly impact conversions and SEO rankings. Ask for real Lighthouse or PageSpeed Insights scores from live projects — not marketing screenshots.
5. Communication
You should always know who you're talking to and where the project stands. Working directly with the person building your site tends to be faster and clearer than a large agency where you're passed between account managers.
6. Ongoing Support
A website is a living asset. Your designer should offer hosting, maintenance, and updates after launch — not disappear the moment the invoice clears.
7. Reviews and Portfolio Work
Look at real, live projects — not mockups. Read Google reviews. Ask for references. Any good Des Moines designer will happily share both.
Why Small Businesses Don't Need a Big Agency
Large agencies are built for enterprise budgets. Small businesses need a partner, not a project number. When you work directly with the person building your site, decisions are faster, revisions are cheaper, and quality doesn't dilute across a chain of hand-offs. That's how every Fisher Built Websites project runs — one point of contact, one build team, one person accountable from kickoff through long-term support.
Examples From Our Work
Recent projects — BETR Dermatology Exchange, Shift Electric, Paddlepalooza, and Birch Corp Health — each solved a different problem for a different type of business. Some are custom marketing sites, some are Shopify storefronts, some are event platforms with Airtable and CRM integrations behind them. The common thread: every one was designed, built, and supported without agency hand-offs.
View our recent projects or schedule a consultation.
See Our Portfolio
