How to Choose a Freelance Frontend Developer: 7 Questions to Ask First

Many businesses pay for a website that arrives late or never reaches its goal. The cause is usually how the developer was chosen, not the idea. These seven questions take ten minutes and can save weeks.

1) Do they have live work you can open?

Design screenshots aren't enough. Ask for links to published sites on real domains, open them on your phone, click around and try the forms. Ask: what exactly did you do on this project?

2) Do they understand your business goal?

A good developer starts with questions about your customers and what you want visitors to do (call, order, book) before talking about colors or frameworks.

3) How fast are their sites on mobile?

Run one of their sites through PageSpeed Insights and look at the mobile result. Slow pages lose visitors before they read anything.

4) Do they handle Arabic / RTL properly?

If your audience reads Arabic, test an Arabic page: fonts, right-to-left layout, mixed English and numbers. Problems show immediately on sites that weren't built for it.

5) What do you receive, and who owns it?

• The domain should be registered in your name.
• Hosting and admin accounts are handed over to you.
• You get the source code or a full copy.
• You get a simple guide to edit text and images yourself.

6) Is there a clear timeline and milestone payments?

Agree on stages (design, build, delivery) with a payment tied to each. Avoid both "pay everything upfront" and "pay everything at the end".

7) What support is included after launch?

Ask what happens if a bug appears a week after launch, how long fixes are covered and what maintenance costs. Settle it before you start.

Red flags

• Guaranteed #1 ranking on Google. Nobody can promise that.
• A very low price with no detail on what's included.
• Refuses to share past work.
• Doesn't ask about your customers or goals.
• Slow or disappearing replies before the contract.