How to choose a web designer for your practice

You can find ten designers whose work you like before lunch. That doesn’t make the choice easy. One builds beautiful sites but expects you to show up with finished copy. Another writes copy but has never built a site with online booking. A third promises a website that will “fill your schedule,” which sounds great until you ask what that includes. If you’re hiring a web designer for your practice, you need someone who understands the job the site has to do.

This guide is for established health and wellness practices, usually with a team, a reputation, and a website that hasn’t kept up. Here’s how I’d choose, from someone who sits on the other side of these calls.

Know what your practice needs before you call a web designer

Start with the problem that sent you looking. Maybe the site looks dated, but the message still works. Maybe new patients can’t tell which clinician or service fits them. Or the practice has grown into different work, and the whole site introduces the practice you opened.

Write down what’s happening now:

• People ask about services you no longer prioritize.
• Referrals understand your value better than people who find you online.
• You hesitate before sending someone the link.
• Your front desk answers the same basic questions every day.
• Updating a clinician bio requires emailing someone and waiting a week.

You don’t have to diagnose the whole project yourself. A good web designer for your practice will help you sort it out. But this list makes your first calls far more useful than “I’d like something modern.”

Look at a web designer’s portfolio like a patient would

A portfolio shows you whether you like someone’s taste. Look further than that.

Open the live sites on your phone. Can you tell what each business does? Is the menu easy to follow? Can you find the next step in a few seconds? Then look for range. If every project has the same layout and the same mood, the designer may be applying a house style instead of making decisions for each client.

Check for health and wellness work, too, since a web designer for your practice should know what patients worry about. A therapy practice, a pelvic health clinic, and a med spa each have different questions to answer before someone books. You can see how we’ve handled that for Modern Therapy, where the site had to leave room for new therapists, services, and courses.

Ask a web designer who writes the copy

This one question can change your budget and timeline more than any other.

Some designers expect final copy before design starts. Others offer prompts, edit your drafts, or bring in an outside copywriter. None of those is automatically wrong. You just need to know which one you’re buying.

Ask, “Who decides what each page needs to say, and who writes the final copy?” If the answer is you, think hard about whether you have the time. Plenty of practice websites stall when an owner has to write five pages between patients. For more, read whether professional copywriting is worth it for a practice website.

Ask what “SEO included” means

SEO is broad, so two proposals can both mention it while covering very different work. Ask which tasks are included. That might be page titles, meta descriptions, headings, URLs, image descriptions, redirects, and basic technical setup.

Then ask what’s outside the scope. Ongoing blogging, local listings, and monthly reporting are often separate services.

A good web designer for your practice can explain the site’s search foundation without promising a ranking. Even Google’s own SEO Starter Guide says there are no secrets that will automatically rank a site first. If someone guarantees page one, ask how.

Ask about mobile and accessibility

“Yes, it’s mobile friendly” isn’t enough. A page can technically fit on a phone while the text is hard to read or the booking button sits below four screens of scrolling. Ask how they test the mobile version, then try booking a consult on one of their live sites yourself.

Accessibility deserves the same attention, especially for a health practice. Ask how they handle readable text, color contrast, headings, form labels, and image descriptions. The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative explains that accessible design helps people with disabilities, and it also helps older adults and anyone on a phone in bright sunlight. Be wary of anyone who says one plugin solves it all.

Make sure the designer’s platform fits your practice

Ask any web designer you’re considering what your practice will need to update after launch. Clinician bios, open positions, new services, and office hours change often in a growing practice. Your team should be able to handle those without calling the designer.

Also ask how the site connects to your booking tool, EHR, and intake forms, and which subscriptions you’ll pay for separately. We build custom sites on Showit because it gives us real design flexibility and lets owners edit easily. If you’re weighing it, read is Showit right for your practice website?

Compare the scope before the price

A lower quote may cover fewer pages, no copy, and one round of revisions. A higher one may include strategy or photography you hadn’t thought to ask about. So compare what’s actually included:

1. How many pages, bios, and locations are included?
2. Who provides copy and photos?
3. How many design directions and revision rounds do you get?
4. Who handles redirects if URLs change?
5. What testing happens before launch?
6. What training and support come after launch?

Ask about the timeline too, and what the designer needs from you to meet it. For realistic price ranges, see how much a practice rebrand costs.

When a web designer for your practice isn’t enough

Here’s what many owners discover partway through. The website looks dated because the whole brand is dated. The logo was made for a solo practice. Nobody has written down what the practice should be known for. The copy still describes services from five years ago.

A web designer can make that look newer. But a new site built on old positioning will still say the same things, just in nicer fonts. If you’ve outgrown your website, there’s a good chance you’ve outgrown more than the website.

That’s why we stopped selling web design on its own. In the Complete Brand, one team handles strategy, a complete visual identity, copy for five pages, and a custom Showit site for desktop and mobile, plus SEO setup, testing, launch support, and training. It’s $16,000 and takes about nine weeks.

Notice how they handle your questions

The sales call is a preview of the project. Does the designer ask about your patients before suggesting a look? Can she explain her choices in plain language? Will she tell you when an idea might cause a problem? You want someone who listens and brings expertise, rather than someone who agrees with everything. For more on what to look for, see green flags when hiring a branding agency.

Choose the partner who understands the job

Your new site has to explain a grown-up practice, support your rates, and help strangers trust what referrals already know. The right web designer for your practice will show skill in the portfolio and understanding in the conversation.

If you’d like to talk it through, apply to work with Liberty Type. We’ll tell you plainly whether a full rebrand makes sense or whether something smaller would do.