How to choose a web designer in Gatineau

Three proposals are sitting in your inbox: one from a studio across the river in Ottawa, one from a freelancer in Aylmer, one from an agency you found through a search and have never met. Each promises a modern, mobile-friendly, search-optimized website for your Gatineau business, and the prices differ widely. Nothing in the documents tells you which one will still be answering your emails in two years.

Where the designer sits matters less than the answers you get to a handful of questions. Before you sign, find out who will own the domain, hosting, and content; how the French and English versions will be produced and reviewed; how accessibility will be checked; and what happens after launch. Then compare the quotes against the same written scope. A portfolio shows what a designer can make. These questions show what working with them will be like, and whether you can leave if you need to.

Many of your peers are deciding this for the first time

Getting a first business website built is still a common decision among the smallest Canadian firms. In Statistics Canada’s Table 22-10-0120-01, from the 2023 Survey of Digital Technology and Internet Use, 45.0% of Canadian private-sector micro-size enterprises, those with zero to four employees, reported having a company website in 2023, and 39.8% reported no web presence at all. Among small enterprises with 5 to 19 employees, 74.7% reported a company website.

The table is national, not specific to Gatineau or the Outaouais, and it describes 2023. It does not say who built those websites, what they cost, or whether they helped. It does suggest that an owner shopping for a first website has few local habits to copy, which is why a written set of questions beats a gut feeling about a sales call.

First, decide whether you need a designer at all

A hosted site builder or a well-chosen template can be the right answer. If your business needs a few clear pages, hours, a map, and a contact form, and someone on your team is comfortable editing text, a builder may serve you well for years. The trade-offs are real: your layout and content live inside the provider’s product, bilingual support varies, and leaving later usually means rebuilding. Read the current plan terms before you commit, because features and fees change.

A designer earns their fee when the site has to do something the template does not: explain several services to distinct audiences, carry complete English and French journeys, connect to a booking or intake system, or meet an accessibility standard you can test. If none of that applies, say so. An honest designer will tell you when a template is enough.

Ask who will own the domain, the hosting, and the content

This is the question that protects you most, and it is the one owners skip. Ask, in writing:

• Who is the registrant of the domain? It should be your business, with your email address on the account, even if the designer handles the setup. ICANN’s Registrant Rights and Responsibilities make the registrant responsible for the registration and entitle them to their registrar’s instructions for managing, transferring, and renewing the name. If the domain sits in the designer’s account, you cannot exercise those rights without their cooperation.
• Which registrar and host will be used, and who pays them? For a .ca domain, CIRA’s registrar list explains that CIRA runs the registry while certified registrars sell the names, and that a WHOIS search shows who your registrar is. Run that search on your current domain today.
• Who can log in? You should hold administrator access to the domain, hosting, analytics, and any content system, with the designer added as a collaborator rather than the other way around.
• What do you receive if the relationship ends? Ask for an export of the content, images, and source files, and ask which parts of the site depend on a licence or subscription in the designer’s name.

A designer who answers these questions clearly is not offended by them. They would ask the same on your behalf if you were leaving someone else.

Ask how the French will be produced, and who reviews it

In Gatineau, a bilingual site is often a customer expectation and, for many businesses, a legal matter too. Section 52 of Quebec’s Charter of the French language requires that catalogues, brochures, commercial directories, order forms, “and any other documents of the same nature that are available to the public” be drawn up in French, regardless of the medium, and allows another language only when the French version is available on terms at least as favourable. How that applies to your business and website is a question for the Office québécois de la langue française or a lawyer, not a web designer, and this article is not legal advice. But a designer working in the Outaouais should know the question exists and should not treat French as a box to tick after the English site is finished.

Ask process questions:

• Will both languages be designed together, or will the French be fitted into an English layout afterward? French copy runs longer, and menus, buttons, and forms designed only in English often break when translated.
• Who writes or translates the French, and who reviews it? If the answer is “the tool does it,” ask who checks the result. A fluent reviewer from your business or a professional translator should approve the words customers read. Our guide to planning a bilingual website for Ottawa–Gatineau covers the journey-level details.
• Which parts of the journey are in scope in both languages? Form errors, confirmation emails, and your team’s reply are the pieces most often left in one language.
• How will each language be addressed and labelled so a search engine and a visitor can tell them apart?

If a designer has never built a two-language site, that is not disqualifying, but you will be supplying the expertise. Price that into your comparison.

Ask how accessibility will be checked, not whether they “do” it

Almost every proposal now mentions accessibility. The useful question is how it will be verified before you accept the site. The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative’s planning guidance lists acceptance testing as a responsibility of the organization buying the work: ensure that any agency-delivered website or component meets your desired level of accessibility. In other words, the check is yours to ask for.

Ask which pages will be tested with a keyboard alone and on a phone, how form errors will be announced, whether colour contrast will be measured, who writes the alt text, and who fixes problems found before launch. An automated scan is a start; it cannot tell you whether a customer using a screen reader can finish a booking.

Ask what happens after launch

A website is not a finished object. Software updates, certificate renewals, backups, broken forms, and hosting bills continue after the invoice is paid. Ask who maintains the software and hosting and what that includes; how you request a change and what counts as a new project; who receives renewal notices and what happens if a payment lapses; who responds when a form stops sending; and what the plan is if the designer closes or becomes unavailable.

Our article on who keeps a small-business website secure walks through the technical ownership questions in detail. For a buying decision the point is simpler: a low build price with no stated support arrangement is not a low price. It is an unknown price.

Compare quotes on the same scope

Quotes that differ by a wide margin usually describe different work, not different skill. Send every candidate the same short brief and ask each to list what is included, what you must supply, and what is excluded. Our guide to preparing a brief for a website designer gives a structure you can copy. Then line the proposals up on the same rows:

What to compare	Why it changes the price
Pages and journeys in scope, in each language	A five-page bilingual site is ten pages of content and review.
Writing, translation, and photography	Included, excluded, or assumed to be yours.
Forms, booking, and integrations	Anything that connects to another system needs testing and upkeep.
Accessibility and launch testing	Named checks cost time; “accessible design” without checks costs nothing.
Hosting, domain, and support after launch	Monthly or annual costs, and what they cover.
Ownership and handover	Accounts in your name, exports, and licences.
Review points and approvals	How many rounds, and what happens to changes outside scope.

Fill the table yourself from each document. Where a row is blank, ask. This article does not quote prices, because the right number depends on those rows, your content, and your own time.

Red flags that should end the conversation

• Guaranteed rankings. Google’s own guidance for hiring search help says plainly that no one can guarantee a number-one ranking, and lists claims of a special relationship with Google or a “priority submit” among the warning signs. Search visibility depends on many things beyond the website; a designer can build sound foundations and should promise nothing more.
• No written scope. If deliverables, exclusions, review rounds, and ownership are not on paper, you have nothing to hold anyone to.
• The domain or hosting in their name. Sometimes offered as a convenience, it is also a reason you cannot leave.
• No preview before launch. You should review the site on a phone and a desktop, in both languages, before it replaces your current one.
• Vague answers about who does the French. “We handle it” is not a process.
• Unsolicited approaches and pressure to decide today. Google lists unsolicited emails from search consultants as a warning sign; the same caution applies to designers who contact you with urgent claims about your current site. A good proposal survives a week of questions.

Local or remote: what actually changes

A Gatineau or Ottawa designer can meet you in person, is more likely to understand the Outaouais market and its bilingual expectations, and works in your time zone when something breaks. A remote designer may bring a specialty you cannot find nearby. Neither is better by default: a local studio that registers your domain in its own name has served you worse than a remote one that puts everything in yours.

If the proposals you are holding cannot answer these questions, ask for revisions before choosing. If they can, you are choosing the team whose process you understand and whose exit terms you could live with, not the nearest or the cheapest.

Red Comet Media designs bilingual websites for businesses in Gatineau and Ottawa, and we are happy to be asked the same questions. If you are comparing options for a Gatineau business, read about our web design work in Gatineau and bring your list.

Sources

• Statistics Canada, Table 22-10-0120-01, Types of web presence by industry and size of enterprise, released September 17, 2024; 2023 reference period. Table notes define micro-size enterprises as 0 to 4 employees and small enterprises as 5 to 19 full-time employees. The Survey of Digital Technology and Internet Use, 2023 release describes the survey population and collection period.
• Québec, Charter of the French language, CQLR c. C-11, section 52, Légis Québec official consolidation.
• ICANN, Registrant Rights and Responsibilities.
• CIRA, Current registrar list.
• W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, Planning and Managing Web Accessibility: Plan.
• Google Search Central, Do you need an SEO?.