How do I know if my website developer is doing a good job?

Open the URL they gave you on a mid range phone over mobile data, this week, not after the launch party. If a stranger still cannot read a fee or send a WhatsApp before they leave, the job is failing, whatever the mockup looked like on their laptop.

I will not give you a score out of ten. I will give you checks a dental clinic or a coaching centre owner can run without being technical.

Checks on the page itself

How to check if your website is actually fast is the longer timing method. Start smaller.

• First visit, 4G, no wifi. Write the wait in seconds you can feel.
• Hours, a price, a way to write. If any of those need a call that rings out, the page is not doing the job.
• The map or the address matches the door. A pin on the wrong floor is not a design detail.

People leave after three seconds. If they are still showing you desktop screenshots at week two, ask for the phone view on your SIM.

A Mayur Vihar coaching owner who opened the staging link on the metro, first visit, saw a slider and no batch fee. That is a failed week, not a “we are still polishing”. An Ashok Vihar clinic that could read Sunday hours and send WhatsApp on a Redmi, in the first three seconds, had a job that was doing the work even before the launch mail.

Questions to ask before hiring is the list you should have used earlier. How to choose a website developer is the hire. This page is after money has moved.

Checks on ownership and the week after

Ask to see the domain login in your browser, on your email. Ask to see the host in your name. If those still sit with them “until the end”, you are watching a delay that often becomes a lock.

Ask who you message when a batch time changes. If the answer is a ticket form with no person, write that down. On my websites the message is to one person. Floor Rs 30,000 on pricing. That is not a score for their work. It is what this studio starts at.

Mayur Vihar and Ashok Vihar both had cousins who “held the GoDaddy for now”. Now is how a lock starts. Open the registrar on your own mail this week, not after the launch cake.

What good does not mean

Good does not mean they promised you the map pack. Google’s local ranking notes already refuse a paid local slot. Anyone selling a guaranteed “dentist near me” slot during the build is selling a hope.

Good does not mean a Lighthouse number they screenshotted on office wifi. Ask them to reproduce it on your phone. The sample I shipped opened at 1.7s, 89 KB, Lighthouse 100, on the conditions the home page already states. I will not pretend their theme matches that without a measurement of their URL.

Good does not mean more enquiries by a percentage I cannot see. Count whether a stranger can finish a job. That is the week.

Good does not mean a weekly PDF of keywords. If the staging URL still spins, the PDF is decoration. Sit on 4G and watch the first paint together. That meeting is shorter than the report and harder to fake.

Downsides of watching too hard

You can stall a simple page by asking for a new colour every day. The check is the phone test and the login, not a new mood every afternoon.

You can also stay polite while the wait stays at a wait longer than they will sit. Polite does not open the page.

A useful weekly note from them names the staging URL, the seconds they counted on a phone, and whether the domain already sits in your mail. A useful weekly note does not name a new font. Mayur Vihar parents and Ashok Vihar patients do not book a font.

Usually under two weeks for a site here. If their calendar has no URL you can open by then, ask why.

What to do with a failed check

Save the timestamped phone screen. Send it once. Ask what changes this week. If the answer is another mood board, stop paying for moods.

Then get in touch if you want that screen read back to you. Bring the staging link. I will say the job is on track, the job has failed the wait, or the page you already had was fine and this rebuild was the wrong spend.