Red flags when hiring a developer

None of these means someone is dishonest. Each one means you should ask another question before you sign anything.

1. Their portfolio looks like this tool's outputGo through their recent sites. If every one is a centred hero, three columns and a contact form, they're selling templates. That's fine, but it should cost what a template costs.
2. They won't say who owns the domainAsk directly: will the domain be registered to me, in my account? A pause, a 'we handle that for you', or a monthly fee that includes the domain are all the same answer.
3. Vague maintenance terms'Ongoing support included' means nothing. What's included, how many changes, how fast, and what happens after the first year should be written down.
4. No questions about your businessA quote that arrives before they've asked who your customers are, what you want the site to do, or what's not working now is a quote for a template.
5. The price is a round number with no breakdownTwo thousand dollars for 'a website' tells you nothing. Ask what the hours go to. Design, copy, build, setup and testing should each be a line.
6. Everything is a monthly feeSome things cost monthly for real reasons: hosting, a form service, a booking tool. A monthly fee for 'the website' with no breakdown is rent on something you should own.
7. You can't get the filesAsk what you'd receive if you left tomorrow. If the answer isn't 'everything, in a form another developer can use', you're being locked in.
8. They promise page one on GoogleNobody can promise that. Anyone who does is either guessing or planning to buy ads with your money.
9. No accessibility answerAsk what standard they build to. 'It works on mobile' isn't an answer. If they've never heard the question, they haven't thought about it.
10. The demo leads with things that moveFade-ins, hover effects, a header that shrinks as you scroll. It looks like craft and it is the cheapest thing on the page: this tool adds all of it with one click, free. If motion is the first thing they show you, ask what the site does, not what it does while you watch.
11. They talk about the tools more than your customersThe framework, the platform, the builder. None of that is your problem. What your visitors do when they land is.

Not sure what to ask? Build the baseline and the Reality Check at the end gives you the questions.