Hiring
Ask these before money moves. Skip the rest.
People hire on a vibe. A nice mockup. A cheap gig. A cousin who “does websites.” Then the phone number is a picture, the form 404s, and the person who “had the files” does not answer. The questions below are not a personality test. They are how you tell a site you can take with you from a login you will lose. Ask them before the card is charged. Ask them even if the person is charming. Charm is not a backup zip.
This shop answers the list in public, on this domain, with a checkout you can see. That is the difference between a shop and a thread. Most standard jobs finish in under 72 hours when the brief is clear. Worldwide, 24/7. Phone (813) 328-6079. Bill is in Tampa / Zephyrhills. No public storefront. You still pay on /sale/ like everyone else. Neighbors do not get a secret menu.
Ask these, in writing
- Do I get the files, or only a login to your builder?
- Whose hosting? What happens if you vanish, or I leave next year?
- Is the domain in my email, on my card? Will you connect my name?
- How many revision rounds, in writing, before extra invoices?
- Can I see three live sites, not mockups, with phones that still work?
- What is in the price, and what is quoted separately — cart, app, members, ads, ranking?
- When does the clock start? What do you need from me before it starts?
- Who proofs the draft before a customer is told it is live?
- If I already have a host, will you put the files there, or force me onto yours?
- Who holds DNS, SSL, backups? Will you ask me to email a registrar password in a form?
If the answers are mush, you are buying a hope. That is how $50 becomes $1,050 and a month of delay. Read freelancer vs a shop and who owns the files before you wire anything. If the last person already disappeared, skip the reunion. Read when the designer disappeared and rebuild.
What a usable answer looks like here
| You ask | This shop |
|---|---|
| Files or a login? | Files on Bluehost or a host you control. Not a builder you cannot leave. |
| Whose hosting? | Yours, or we set it up. The $49 hosted plan can live on our server for hosting included ($54). |
| Whose domain? | Yours. You still click at the registrar. We tell you what to click. We do not steal the name. |
| Revisions? | One round on the standard marketing site. Extra rounds quoted. |
| Live work? | /work/ — Dodo, Pets Helping Pets, Tampa’s Best DJ, LazerMerch, petcalendar.pet, US Helping the World. This shop’s own sites, not fake client revenue. |
| Clock? | Starts when payment is in and the brief is usable: name, work, photos, phone, hours, domain or host. See the brief. |
| SEO / #1? | Title, meta, Open Graph. No ranking prize. We will not sell #1 Google with the website. |
| Cart / app / members? | Not at this price. Quoted separately. We will say so before you pay. |
Labeled samples of the shape — fictional shops, not fake clients — live at /examples/. The checkout is on this domain. After you pay, you brief the build. A person looks at the draft before a customer is told it is live. That is the hire. See /hire/ if you already decided you are not DIY.
Questions that waste the call
“Can you make it pop?” is not a brief. “We want to be the best in the city” is not a brief. “Will we be #1 on Google this month?” is a no. Basic SEO here is tags, not a map-pack campaign. Anyone who bundles “logo + 10 pages + we rank you” for $150 is selling a hope. Read what the numbers usually buy.
Do not ask for a walk-in studio. There is not one. Service-area shop. Street address stays off Google and off this site on purpose. If you wanted a glass door and a receptionist, this is the wrong hire. If you wanted someone who will pick up, proof a draft, and help point a domain, that is the product. City pages: /where/. If you are not in Florida, you are still this shop.
Do not ask us to babysit a Wix or Squarespace editor you enjoy. Keep it. Do not ask us to clone a ThemeForest demo pixel for pixel and then call it custom. A standard job here is a layout from your facts and photos, a contact path that works on a thumb, hosting setup, help pointing DNS, one round of changes. A hosted website with hours and a phone is $49/mo, hosting included if you want it ($54). That is a different product. The $49 hosted plan: $49 down, then $49/month.
Forms notify tampasbestdj@gmail.com. Put the questions in an email if you want them in writing. We already put the answers on this page. Then either stay with whoever you were going to hire, or pay and send the facts. Waiting for a perfect feeling is how the old site keeps running with the wrong hours.
Free next step: paste the URL you have now. If you already know you are hiring, /hire/.