WEB DESIGN CONSULTATION
Book a Web Design Consultation with Vertical Web
Talk to the team that would actually design, build, host and market your website. Pick a time on the calendar, or send a few details first so we can review your site before we meet.
Galleria 713-703-3030 | Kingwood 281-852-8253
BOOK A TIME
Schedule your website design consultation
Choose a time on Beth Guide’s booking calendar. It opens in a new tab and sends you a confirmation with the meeting details.
Prefer to talk now? Call 713-703-3030 or visit our contact page for every office and email address.
GIVE US A HEAD START
Tell us about your website before we meet
Send the basics and we will review your current site, your search visibility and your competitors before the call, so the consultation starts with answers instead of questions.
Tell Us About Your Business
WHAT WE COVER
What does a website design consultation include?
A good consultation is not a sales pitch. It is a working session about your business. Here is what we cover in most of them.
Your goal. What should a visitor do? Call, book, buy, request a quote or apply? Everything on the site gets built around that action, and many sites we review never decided.
Your current site. If you have one, we look at it on a phone first, because that is where most of your visitors see it. We check speed, structure, the title tags Google reads and how a lead actually reaches you. Sometimes the answer is a rebuild. Sometimes it is a few fixes and a better website redesign plan for later.
Your rankings. If your site already ranks for anything, a new design must keep every existing URL or redirect it. We show you what is ranking today so nothing valuable gets thrown away.
Platform. We build on WordPress with Elementor Pro. You own it, you can move it and you control the SEO. If you are on Wix, Squarespace or Shopify, we explain the trade-offs of moving, and our WordPress web design page covers how a conversion works.
Scope and budget. Page count, content, photos, forms, integrations and hosting. You get a rough range in the meeting and a written scope afterward.
What happens after. Within a few business days you receive a written recommendation: what we would build, what it costs, how long it takes and what you would need to provide. There is no pressure to sign. Many owners take the recommendation to their partners first, and some use it to fix things on their own, which is fine with us.
THE CASE FOR VERTICAL WEB ON WEB DESIGN CONSULTATION
Advice from the people who build it
PREPARE
How to prepare for a web design consultation
Beth Guide’s advice in her web design classes is to come with three lists: what your customers ask you most, which services make you the most money, and which competitors you lose work to. Those three lists shape the navigation, the pages and the SEO plan better than any color choice.
It also helps to bring two or three websites you like and one you do not, logins you have for your domain, hosting and Google accounts, and any brand assets such as a logo or style guide. If you have no logo yet, our branding team can help.
Not sure you are ready for a full consultation? Start with the free website audit, read our guide to hiring a web designer, or see the work behind our Houston web design services.
Two jobs, one project
What's the difference between web design and web development?
Web design is how your website looks and how a visitor moves through it: the layout, the navigation, the colors, the photos and where the buttons go. Web development is the code and the CMS underneath that make it work: the forms, the integrations, the speed, the security and the functionality behind every page. You need both, and they work best when they are planned together.
In a web design consultation we talk about both sides at once. A designer can draw a beautiful mockup, but if the developer cannot build it fast and clean, it hurts your search rankings. A developer can build a fast site, but if the layout confuses users, it hurts conversion. On our team, the designer and the developer are in the same room, so the plan you hear in the meeting is one the whole team can deliver.
We build on WordPress with Astra and Elementor Pro. You can see how that works on our WordPress development page, and how the build side fits with hosting on our web development services page.
Your visitors are on a phone
Will my website work on mobile devices?
Yes. Every website we design is responsive, which means the same pages rearrange themselves to fit any device: phone, tablet or desktop. Google ranks the mobile version of your site first, so this is not optional. It is part of how you get found.
In the consultation, we look at your current site on a phone before anything else, because that is where most of your visitors see it. We check whether your phone number is one tap away, whether forms are short enough to finish on a small screen, and whether pages load fast enough to pass Core Web Vitals. We also check basic accessibility, such as readable text sizes and buttons large enough to tap.
If you want the background before we meet, read why responsive web design best supports SEO.
Cost, timeline and content
How much does a custom website design project cost, and how long does it take?
A custom website design project is priced by its scope: how many pages, how much content, which features, which integrations and whether you need ecommerce. A small service business site and an online store with hundreds of products are very different projects. You get a rough range in the consultation and a written scope afterward, so there are no surprises.
The timeline depends on the same things, plus one more: how fast content and feedback come back. The biggest delays we see are not in design or development. They are in waiting for photos, copy and approvals. If you have those ready, the project moves faster.
Do you need to provide the content, or will the designer write it? Either works. Some owners write their own pages, and we edit them for search. Others want our in-house content team to write everything from an interview. Your own experience and examples make the best content, so even when we write it, we start by talking to you. Every page is planned around the words your customers actually search.
Before you hire anyone
What should I look for when hiring a web designer or web design agency?
Look for a web designer who asks about your business before showing you a template. Ask to see the portfolio, then ask what happened to those sites after launch. Did they rank? Did the phone ring? Are they still online? A professional web design agency should be able to answer that for most of its work.
Ask who does the work. Is the design, development, SEO and hosting done in-house, or passed to subcontractors? Ask what happens to your old URLs if you are redesigning, because a redesign that drops pages that rank is the most common way businesses lose traffic. And ask who you call for ongoing support and updates after the site launches.
We wrote a full guide to hiring a web designer with the questions to ask. Bring it to any consultation, including ours. If you want us to review your site first, request a free website analysis before the meeting.
After the consultation
What happens after your website design consultation: from plan to launch
After the meeting, you receive a written recommendation with what we would build, what it costs and what you would need to provide. If you move ahead, the project follows a simple process: strategy and site map, design mockups for your review, development on a private staging copy, content and SEO checks, then launch.
You review the design before we build it and the finished pages before they go live. Every page gets a title tag, meta description, clean headings and schema. Every old URL that ranks is kept or redirected. After launch, we watch traffic and Search Console for problems and handle updates, backups and hosting.
The decision is yours at every step. Some owners use the recommendation to fix things themselves, and that is fine with us. Our goal in the first meeting is to give you a clear picture of your website, your industry and your options, so whatever you decide, you decide with real information.
QUESTIONS
Website consultation questions
We talk through what your website has to do for the business, who it is for, what is working and what is not. If you have a site, we look at it together: speed, mobile layout, Google Business Profile and how leads come in. You leave with a plain recommendation and a rough scope, even if you never hire us.
Yes. The first consultation costs nothing and carries no obligation. If a project makes sense, we follow up with a written scope and price.
Most run 30 to 60 minutes. Bring your website address, a list of the pages or features you know you need, and examples of sites you like or dislike.
Yes. Use the booking calendar on this page to pick a time that works, or send the form and we will reach out to schedule. You can also call 713-703-3030.
Both. We meet at our Galleria, Kingwood and Cypress offices by appointment, or by phone or video for clients anywhere in Texas and beyond.
A range is enough. Knowing whether you are thinking about a small service site or a large custom build lets us suggest the right approach instead of guessing. We will tell you plainly if your budget fits a different solution better.
Web design is how the site looks and how visitors move through it. Web development is the code, CMS and functionality underneath. Both are planned together on our team.
Yes. Every site we build uses responsive design and is checked on phones before launch. Google ranks the mobile version of your site, so it has to work there first.
Either works. You can write your own pages and we will edit them for search, or our in-house team can write them from an interview with you.
It depends on page count, content, features and integrations. You get a rough range in the consultation and a written scope after, with no pressure to sign.
Yes. The consultation and the written recommendation are free. Many owners use them to plan their next step, whether they hire us or not.
Ready to talk about your website?
Book a consultation or request a free audit. Either way you get a straight answer about what your site needs.
Galleria 713-703-3030 | Kingwood 281-852-8253 | info@verticalweb.com