Web Design in Ottawa South

No contract, no portfolio of live sites, registering the domain in their own name, 'free' websites with mandatory monthly fees, 100% payment up front, and guaranteed #1 Google rankings. The domain-ownership trap is the costliest — walking away can mean losing your web address.

Fixed price for a defined scope (a 5-page site with listed features) protects both sides; hourly suits ongoing work and vague scopes. Standard payment structure is 30-50% deposit, remainder on launch — never pay 100% up front, and be wary of anyone who asks.

Use a builder if your budget is minimal and your needs are a brochure plus contact form. Hire a freelancer for a custom site with some business logic. Pay agency rates when you need strategy, copywriting, SEO and design under one contract with accountability. Many small businesses outgrow a builder in year one — budget for that path.

Distinguish two things: technical SEO basics (clean structure, fast loading, meta tags, sitemap, mobile-friendliness) should be included in any competent build. Ongoing SEO — content, keywords, link building — is a separate monthly service. A designer bundling 'SEO' vaguely into one price is worth interrogating.

Two to three structured revision rounds are the industry standard, usually stated in the contract. Unlimited-revision promises sound generous but signal weak process — projects with no revision cap routinely stall for months. Consolidate all your feedback into each round instead of drip-feeding changes.

Freelancers typically run CAD 50-140/hr, with 5-page small-business sites commonly at CAD 2,000-8,000 and e-commerce from CAD 5,000. Rates track close to US levels in Toronto and Vancouver.

Only if you do business in Quebec, where French is required for commercial websites serving the province — and federally regulated sectors have their own rules. For the rest of Canada, English-only is legally fine; bilingual is a market-reach decision.