To choose a web designer in Hawaii, look at live sites they've built (on your phone, not just in screenshots), make sure you'll own your domain and site, and ask how they handle speed, Google and life after launch. Being local helps, especially for understanding island-by-island search and how visitors plan trips, but it matters less than skill, honesty and whether they actually listen to you.
Here's the checklist I'd use if I were hiring someone myself, plus the questions worth asking and the red flags to walk away from.
Start with what you need the site to do
Before you talk to anyone, write down the jobs your website has to do. Be specific.
- Show hours, location and a menu or price list
- Take bookings or reservations
- Sell products and ship them
- Collect inquiries or quote requests
- Let you or your staff manage orders, schedules or customers behind the scenes
This list does two things. It helps you compare quotes fairly, and it quickly shows you which designers have built something similar before.
The checklist
1. Look at their real work
Ask for links to live sites, not just a portfolio of images. Then open them on your phone.
- Do they load quickly?
- Is the text easy to read without zooming?
- Can you find the phone number, hours and booking button in a few seconds?
- Do the sites look different from each other, or is every one the same template with new colors?
You can also run any of their sites through Google's PageSpeed Insights to see how they score on mobile. One weak score isn't a deal-breaker, since clients sometimes add heavy content later, but a pattern tells you something.
2. Make sure you'll own it
This is the most important item on the list. Ask directly:
- Will the domain be registered in my name, on my account?
- Will hosting and any platform accounts be in my name, or at least transferable?
- If I stop working with you, what do I take with me? The design, the content, the code?
You should always own your domain. Everything else depends on the platform, but you should know the answer before you sign.
3. Ask how they handle speed and search
A good-looking site that nobody finds isn't doing its job. Google uses the mobile version of a site for indexing and ranking, so phone performance matters. Ask:
- How do you make sure the site is fast on phones?
- Will each page have its own title and description for Google?
- Do you set up Google Search Console?
- Do you connect the site to my Google Business Profile?
- Will you create pages for the towns or islands I serve, if that makes sense for my business?
You don't need to understand every detail of the answer. You're listening for whether they've thought about it at all.
4. Understand the process
- Who writes the text? Who provides photos?
- How many rounds of changes are included?
- Will I see a design before it's built?
- Will I have a private link to watch the site come together?
- What's the timeline, and what could slow it down?
5. Ask about after launch
Websites need upkeep. Software needs updates, hours change, menus change.
- Can I make simple edits myself?
- Do you offer a monthly care plan? What's in it?
- What do you charge for work outside the plan?
- How fast do you usually reply?
6. Pay attention to how they talk to you
Do they ask about your business, your customers and what makes you different? Or do they jump straight to a package? Do they explain things in plain words? The person who listens closely in the first conversation is usually the one who builds a site that sounds like you.
Questions worth asking on the first call
- Can you show me two or three live sites similar to what I need?
- Who will I actually be working with day to day?
- What will I own when the project is done?
- What platform will you build on, and why that one for me?
- How do you handle speed and Google setup?
- What's included in the price, and what costs extra?
- What ongoing costs should I expect, like hosting, domain, apps or a care plan?
- What happens if I want to leave later?
Red flags
"We'll register the domain for you"
That's fine only if it's registered in your name. If a designer owns your domain, they effectively own your web address. Getting it back can be painful.
A platform you can't leave
Some companies build on their own closed system. It may work fine, but if you can't take your site with you, you're locked into their pricing and their timeline forever. Ask about it up front.
Guaranteed rankings
Google is clear on this one: in its guide on whether you need an SEO, it says no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Anyone who promises first place is either misunderstanding how search works or telling you what you want to hear.
No mention of speed or mobile
If the conversation is entirely about colors and fonts, and nobody mentions phones, loading speed or Google, the site may look nice and still underperform.
Vague pricing
You should know what you're paying, what's included and what isn't before work starts. "We'll figure it out as we go" tends to get expensive.
Long contracts with no clear exit
Monthly plans are normal and useful. Long lock-ins with cancellation fees and no clear handover are not.
Every site in their portfolio looks the same
Templates aren't bad, but if every client gets the same layout, yours will look like everyone else's too.
Does the designer need to be in Hawaii?
Not necessarily. Plenty of good designers work remotely. That said, someone who lives here tends to understand things that are easy to miss from the mainland:
- Visitors researching on their phones before and during a trip
- Search results that change from island to island and town to town
- Hawaii not observing daylight saving time, which matters for anything with bookings
- Place names that people type both with and without the ʻokina
Being on the same time zone also makes calls easier.
How I work
I'm a designer and full-stack engineer living on the North Shore of Oahu, and I work with businesses here and anywhere else. I design the site from your brand and build it with you, rather than handing over a prebuilt template, so it carries your voice. Every site I build is set up to be fast on phones and readable by Google from day one. And everything is yours: your domain and your accounts are in your name, so you can take your site anywhere.
You can see my packages on the services page, some past work on the work page, and more about my background on the about page.
A good first step
If you already have a site, start with my free website audit. In about 30 seconds it shows how your site performs on a phone, using Google's own testing tool, and it's useful no matter who you end up hiring.
If you'd like to talk about a project, you can start here. It's a few questions, I read every one myself, and there's no pressure either way.
