Free checklist · trade businesses
9 questions to ask a web company before you pay them a dollar.
Number 6 is the one that decides whether you own anything. Every question came out of a real complaint filed by a real business owner, and most of them you can check yourself in about ten minutes.
- Free, no card
- No sales call unless you ask
- Yours to keep
Send it to me
Your email and your website.
What is in it
Nine questions, and what a straight answer to each one sounds like.
The free 30-second lookup that tells you whose name your domain is really in
You can run it yourself before you finish reading this page. A lot of owners have never checked, and some of them are in for a surprise.
"As long as you are a client, the site is yours" is a different sentence from "you own the site"
They sound identical on a sales call. Only one of them survives you leaving. Question 1 covers how to hear the difference.
The twelve-month structure that closes your exit before you have seen the work
Billing starts the day you sign. Onboarding takes two months. The cancellation window is sixty days. Question 6 walks the arithmetic.
The one-line email that tells you most of what you need to know
Send it today to whoever runs your website now. What comes back, and how fast, is the answer.
How to tell a custom build from a recolored template
Three live sites and your own phone. Takes about four minutes.
What "SEO" should look like on an invoice
A deliverable you cannot check yourself is not a deliverable. Question 8 covers what to ask for instead.
Why am I giving this away?
Because I build websites for a living, and the fastest way to show a contractor I am not like the last guy is to hand him the questions that expose the last guy.
Some people read this, check their own setup, and find out they are fine. Good. Some find out they do not own their site, and a few of those end up calling me. That is the whole catch. There is no card and I am not going to chase you.
I am Dayne. I build websites out of Thibodaux, Louisiana, for roofers, contractors, auto shops and marine companies around south Louisiana. Foret Construction & Roofing is one of mine. Jacob owns every file of what I built him, and if he ever wants to take it somewhere else, he can, and he does not need my permission.
That is the standard I think you should hold anybody to, including me. It is why I wrote the list.
Send it to me