A portfolio tells you less than you think
Every web development company shows their best-looking projects. What a portfolio doesn't show: page load speed, whether the site is still maintained a year later, or whether the underlying code is something another developer could pick up without a rewrite. Ask for a live site you can actually test — run it through PageSpeed Insights yourself.
Technical questions worth asking
What stack do they build on, and why? A modern stack (React, Next.js, TypeScript) with server-side rendering matters directly for SEO and load speed — not just developer preference. Ask how they handle mobile responsiveness, not as an afterthought but as the default design target, since most traffic to a business website is now mobile.
Ask about deployment and hosting. A web development company that only hands you a ZIP file and disappears is very different from one that deploys to proper infrastructure (AWS, Docker, Nginx, SSL) and can explain how updates get pushed without downtime.
What 'done' should actually include
A finished website isn't just pages that render. It includes on-page SEO (metadata, structured data, sitemap), analytics wired in, a contact/lead capture flow that actually reaches someone, and a maintenance plan for the months after launch. Corporate websites, landing pages, and e-commerce platforms all need this baseline — the visual design is only part of the deliverable.