Before you pay for a website, ask these seven questions.

Who owns the website and the domain when it is finished?

This is the first question and the one most people forget. You should own your domain name and your website outright, with the accounts in your name, not locked inside someone else's account where you are effectively renting your own business. Ask plainly: when this is done, are the domain, the hosting, and the code mine, and can I move them elsewhere if we ever part ways. If the answer is anything other than a clear yes, you are not buying a website, you are buying a leash.

Will it be genuinely fast on a phone?

Most of your visitors will be on a phone, often on mobile data, sometimes in a hurry. A site that looks lovely on a designer's large screen but loads slowly and awkwardly on a phone will lose people before they ever see it. Ask how the site will perform on a mid range phone, not a new flagship, and whether speed is something they actually test or just hope for. Slow is the single most common quiet failure, because nobody complains, they just leave.

What happens when it breaks, or I need a change?

Every website needs changes and occasional fixes. Find out now who does that, how fast, and what it costs, before you are stuck with a broken contact form and no one answering. A one time build with no plan for afterwards is how businesses end up with a site that slowly rots. You want a clear answer about care after launch and a named person to reach, not a vague promise that it will be fine.

Is it built to be found, or only to look nice?

A beautiful website that Google cannot understand is a very expensive brochure that no one visits. Ask whether the site is built so it can rank, with the basics done properly, sensible structure, real content that answers what customers search for, and pages that describe what you actually offer. Looking good and being found are two different jobs. Plenty of pretty sites bring in nothing because no one thought about the second one.

Can I edit it myself, and should I?

You should be able to make small changes, update your hours, add a photo, change a price, without paying for every tweak. Ask how you would do that and whether it is genuinely simple. At the same time, be honest about how much you want to manage yourself, because a site that needs constant hand holding is its own kind of trap. The right answer is that the everyday things are easy for you, and the technical things stay someone else's job.

Is the Arabic real, or machine translated?

If you serve Arabic speaking customers, an Arabic version that reads like a rough machine translation does more harm than no Arabic at all, because it signals carelessness at the exact moment you were trying to show respect. Ask whether the Arabic will be properly written and reviewed, and whether the layout is built for right to left reading rather than an English page with the words swapped. In this market, that detail is noticed.

What is not included in the price?

Ask directly what the quote does not cover, because that is where the surprises live. Photography, content writing, the Arabic version, ongoing care, hosting, future changes, all of these are sometimes assumed and sometimes quietly extra. A trustworthy answer is specific about what is in and what is not. A vague one usually means the gaps become invoices later. You are not being difficult by asking, you are being a good client.

Questions owners ask us