Search "web designer Johannesburg" or "web design company South Africa" and you get hundreds of results, most of them claiming to be the best. The rankings will not help you choose. What helps is knowing what kind of help you actually need, and how to tell good work from a good sales page.
This is the process we would use if we were on your side of the table.
Start with what the website has to do
Before you contact anyone, write down in a few lines what the site is for. Not the pages — the job. Bring in enquiries? Sell products? Take bookings? Make a new brand look established enough to win a tender?
This matters because the right web designer for a five-page brochure site is often the wrong one for an online store, and neither may be right for a site that has to talk to your stock system. A clear brief also makes quotes comparable. Three designers quoting the same written brief will give you three numbers you can actually weigh up.
Freelancer, studio, agency or website builder?
- DIY website builders (Wix, Squarespace and similar). Cheap to start, quick to launch, and fine for a simple site you are happy to run yourself. You trade flexibility and, usually, page speed. Monthly fees are often billed in dollars, so the rand cost moves with the exchange rate.
- Freelancers. Often good value and very hands-on. The risk is single-person dependency: if they get busy, ill or change careers, your site has nobody behind it. Ask what happens in that case.
- Small studios. A handful of people who design, build and maintain. You usually deal directly with the people doing the work, with enough depth that one holiday does not stall your project.
- Large digital agencies. Right for big brands needing strategy, campaigns and a full team. For a small business, much of what you pay for is overhead and account management.
None of these is wrong. The mistake is paying agency prices for a brochure site, or freelancer prices for something that needs to run your business.
How to read a web design portfolio
Every web designer has a portfolio. Most people look at it the wrong way — scrolling screenshots and judging the colours. Instead:
- Open the live sites. Screenshots can be mock-ups. A live URL proves the site exists, launched and is still running.
- Open them on your phone. Most South African visitors will. If the portfolio sites are awkward on a phone, yours will be too.
- Check they do not all look the same. If every site shares the same layout with different colours, you are buying a template, whatever the quote says.
- Look for work like yours. Not the same industry necessarily, but the same kind of job: e-commerce, bookings, a business that sells on WhatsApp.
- Ask a past client. One five-minute call tells you more than any testimonial on the designer's own site.
Questions that separate good web developers from risky ones
- Who will own the domain, hosting account and content? The answer should be "you". Get it in writing.
- Is this a template, a page builder or custom-coded? All three can be fine. Not knowing which you are getting is not.
- What does it cost every month after launch? Hosting, maintenance, licences, plugins. A quote with no monthly figure is incomplete.
- What SEO is included? At minimum: page titles and descriptions, proper headings, fast loading, a sitemap and Google Search Console set up. If they cannot list it, it is probably not happening.
- How many rounds of changes are included, and what does an extra one cost?
- Can I edit my own content afterwards?
Red flags
A price before any questions. A web designer who quotes without asking what the site needs to do is quoting for a template.
The domain registered in their name. This is the most common way small businesses end up held hostage by a former developer. Your domain is your address; it should be registered to you.
Guaranteed first place on Google. Nobody can promise that honestly. Good SEO improves your chances; it does not buy a ranking.
No contract or written scope. If it is not written down, it was not agreed.
Big upfront payment, vague timeline. A deposit is normal. Paying in full before you have seen a design is not.
Local or remote?
Being in the same city as your web designer matters less than it used to. Most projects run perfectly well over video calls and WhatsApp, and plenty of South African businesses work with studios in another province. What matters more is response time, clear communication and someone who understands the local details: rand pricing, South African payment gateways, POPIA and the way local customers actually make contact.
The short version
Write down what the site has to do. Pick the type of help that matches that job. Judge portfolios on live sites, on your phone. Insist on owning your domain, and get the monthly costs and the scope in writing. Do that and most of the bad outcomes simply cannot happen.