Hiring a Dental Website Designer in Toronto: 12 Questions to Ask
Planning to hire a dental website designer in Toronto? Ask these 12 questions about ownership, contracts, scope, moving your old site, editing and RCDSO rules.
Hiring someone to build your clinic's website is a small project with long consequences. The person you pick decides who owns your domain, how hard it is to leave, and whether your front desk can change holiday hours without a support ticket.
These 12 questions help you compare designers in Toronto and the GTA on the things that matter after launch. Send the same list to everyone you're considering and ask for written answers. A clear written answer is a good sign on its own.
Before you send the questions
Gather a few things first. The answers will be more useful, and you'll spot gaps in your own setup.
- The login for wherever your domain name is registered, or at least the company's name.
- Access to your current website and hosting account, if you have one.
- Access to your Google Business Profile.
- A list of the services you offer, in the order you want patients to see them.
- Any photos of your team and office you already own.
If you can't find one of these, that's worth knowing now. Whoever builds your new site will need most of them.
Ownership and contract
1. Who owns the domain name and the hosting account? Your clinic should own the domain, registered in the clinic's name, with a login you control. If the designer registers it for you, ask them to put it in your name from day one. A domain held in someone else's account is one of the hardest problems to fix later.
2. What do we keep if we stop working together? Ask what you walk away with: your text, your photos, the design files, and the site itself or a way to export it. Some platforms make a full move impossible. For example, Wix says a site built on Wix “must run on Wix's servers” (Wix Help Center). That can be fine, as long as you know it before you sign.
3. Is there a contract term, and what does it cost to leave? Ask whether the website is tied to a longer marketing or hosting contract. Get the term, the notice period and any exit fee in writing.
Scope and price
4. Exactly what is included in the price? Get a list. How many pages, and is there one page per service? Who writes the text? Are photos included? Is there a booking link or request form? Is a second language included? Two quotes for the same amount can cover very different work. My guide to what a dental website costs in Toronto explains what moves the price.
5. What will we pay every month after launch? Hosting, the domain, security updates and small edits all cost something. Ask whether these are bundled into a monthly plan or billed by the hour, and what a typical small change costs, like adding a new hygienist. Ask what happens to the monthly price after the first year, and whether the domain renewal is included.
6. How long until the site is live, and what do you need from us? A realistic timeline names the steps and what you must supply: logo, photos, service list, insurance details, team bios. Delays usually come from missing content, so ask what happens if you send it late.
Moving from your old site
7. How will you protect our Google rankings when the old site goes away? The answer you want mentions mapping every old page to its new page and using permanent (301) redirects. Google recommends “server side permanent redirects from the old URLs to the new URLs” and keeping them “for as long as possible, generally at least 1 year” (Google Search Central). If a designer says rankings will sort themselves out, keep looking.
8. Who moves our content, and what happens to the old site? Ask who copies over your existing pages, blog posts and photos, and whether the old site stays online until the new one is ready. Ask for a backup of the old site before anything is switched off.
Editing and support
9. Can our front desk edit the site without breaking it? Ask for a short demo of the editor. Your team should be able to change hours, add a team member or post a holiday closure in a few minutes. Ask what they can't change, too. Limits that protect the design are a good thing. A staff member who can change fonts and colours on any page can also break the layout on a busy morning.
10. Who do we contact when something breaks, and how fast do you reply? A broken booking button on a Monday morning costs you patients. Get a named person, a way to reach them and a reply time in writing.
Rules and patients
11. Do you know the RCDSO's advertising rules? The Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario's advertising guidelines list content to avoid, including superlatives such as “state of the art” and “testimonials or any statement that can only be verified by a person's personal feelings or views.” The College also says dentists are responsible for “all advertisements involving them and their clinic(s),” and suggests sharing its advisory with any third party that creates them (RCDSO). A designer who has worked with Ontario dentists should know this without being told.
This is general information, not legal advice. As the dentist, you are responsible for what your website says, so check the RCDSO's current guidance before you publish.
12. How will patients call, book or find us from a phone? Ask to see a site they built on a phone. Can you find the phone number, hours and address on the first screen? Is there a clear way to book or request an appointment? My dental website checklist for GTA clinics lists what patients look for first.
How to compare the answers
| Topic | Good answer | Warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| Domain | Registered in your clinic's name | “We'll handle it” with no details |
| Contract | Term and exit cost in writing | Long term, unclear notice period |
| Price | Itemized list of pages and features | One number with no breakdown |
| Old site | Page-by-page redirect plan | No mention of redirects |
| Editing | Live demo of the editor | Every change goes through a ticket |
| Rules | Knows the RCDSO guidelines | Suggests adding patient testimonials |
My own answers, briefly
Since I'm asking you to quiz designers, here is how I answer the same questions.
- Price. A clinic website is C$1,450 as a fall offer for the first five clinics.
- Monthly. An optional care plan at C$149/month covers hosting, the domain, updates and small edits.
- Timeline. Live in two weeks as standard. One week costs 20% more. One month takes 10% off.
- Old site. Old URLs are redirected to the matching new pages, as I did for Brampton North Dental and Lord Dufferin Dental Centre.
- Editing. On Lord Dufferin Dental Centre's site, staff edit text, images, SEO fields, FAQs, team profiles, redirects and landing pages in a content editor. The editor accepts no colours, font sizes or raw HTML, so an edit can't break the design.
- Replies. Same business day.
What I'd do
Send these 12 questions to two or three designers and compare the written answers side by side. Pay the most attention to questions 1, 2 and 7, because those are the hardest to fix after launch. If you'd like my answers in full, or a look at three Ontario practices I've rebuilt, see my dental website design page for GTA clinics.
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