Plain-English guides to choosing and hiring a web design company in Cochrane, AB — checklists, quote comparisons, red flags, contracts, and timelines from a local team.
Build a shortlist, interview it properly, and verify the proof behind every claim.
How to choose a web designer — A 15-check worksheet for comparing Cochrane web designers on outcomes, ownership, scope, SEO, revisions and support — before you sign.
12 questions to ask a web designer — The twelve questions that expose ownership, SEO, revision and support problems before you sign — with strong and warning answers for each.
How to evaluate a portfolio — Seven tests that take a portfolio from pretty screenshots to hard evidence — live URLs, mobile, speed, outcomes, and a scoring sheet.
Verify reviews and case studies — A six-step ladder for verifying reviews, references and case studies — from the original platform to live evidence you can inspect yourself.
Local and delivery-model decisions
Local studio or Calgary agency, freelancer or team — match the model to the project.
Cochrane designer vs Calgary agency — When a Cochrane-focused studio beats a Calgary agency, when it does not, and the questions that make both answer plainly.
Designer vs developer vs agency — What designers, developers, agencies, and founder-led studios each own — and which mix a local business project actually needs.
Freelancer vs agency — Freelancer, agency, or boutique studio — an honest risk-and-fit comparison, with best-fit answers for five common small-business projects.
Quotes, contracts and ownership
Read a quote line by line, spot the red flags, and keep ownership of everything you pay for.
What a web design quote should include — The 12 line items every professional quote should state, the costs quotes quietly leave out, and how to compare three quotes fairly.
17 web designer red flags — The 17 warning signs that predict a bad web design project, why each matters, and the safer requirement to put in writing instead.
Who owns your website — What you actually own after paying for a website — domain, code, content, licences, accounts — and the clause and handover folder that protect it.
Web design contract checklist — Every clause a website agreement should state in writing — scope, money, ownership, cancellation, and support — before a Canadian small business signs.
What your build must include
The SEO, AI-search, speed, and accessibility requirements that belong in the written scope.
SEO included in a new website — The SEO foundations every website build should include at launch, the optional add-ons, and the rankings work that stays a separate program.
AI search requirements — What actually earns AI citations — normal Search eligibility, entity clarity, and first-party evidence — and the promises to ignore.
Website speed requirements — The measurable speed thresholds, budgets and verification steps to write into any web design scope before signing.
Accessibility checklist — The accessibility checks to confirm in a small-business build — WCAG 2.2 targets, keyboard and contrast tests, and one scope line that makes it verifiable.
Getting found on Google
Why a listing does not appear, how local ranking actually works, and the setup a business with no storefront needs.
Why you're not showing up on Google — An ordered diagnostic instead of a list of maybes — work through eight checks in sequence and you will know which one is actually your problem.
Google profile with no storefront — Hiding your address is a trade-off, not a free move — the eligibility rules, the 20-area cap, the two-hour boundary, and what to do when your home address leaks anyway.
How local rankings work — The three factors Google names, what the evidence says about their relative weight, and an honest account of the two you cannot change.
Getting more Google reviews — Ask everyone, make it one tap, and never filter for the happy ones — what Google's review rules actually permit, and what quietly gets a profile penalised.
Reaching the towns around you
Where location pages earn their place, what is genuinely documented about showing up in AI answers — and what to do when an AI answer gets your business wrong.
Pages for every town you serve — Location pages work when each one earns its place and fail as templates with the town swapped — the test that separates them, and where Google draws the line.
Showing up in AI search — Google says no special markup is needed, llms.txt is unused, and blocking the wrong bot removes you from ChatGPT — what the documentation actually says.
When AI gets your business wrong — The fix runs through your profile and website, not the AI — the documented feedback path, the closed-label correction, and an honest list of what cannot be forced.
Doing it yourself, and knowing it worked
The half of local SEO you can finish without hiring anyone, and the free reports that show whether any of it moved.
Local SEO checklist — Twenty items split honestly into what you can finish yourself this week and what needs developer access — including the Canadian directories nobody lists.
Is your local SEO working? — Track actions, not positions — the free first-party reports that show whether anything is actually changing, and the numbers agencies lean on because they always rise.
Timelines, launch and after
Realistic schedules, migrations that protect rankings, and what good support looks like.
How long a website takes — Typical planning ranges by project type, what happens in each stage, and the five delays clients can prevent.
Redesign migration checklist — The before, launch-day and 30-day checklists that carry URLs, rankings and analytics safely through a redesign.
What a maintenance plan includes — The inclusions that make a maintenance plan real — tested backups, response times, exit terms — and the red flags to catch.
Content your designer needs — The content package your designer actually needs — facts, customer language, proof, photos, approvals — and how preparing it early shortens the build.
A real website case study — How a Cochrane home-services business went from word-of-mouth only to page-one visibility and structured quote requests — with every claim verifiable.