When Google Ads wins: How to choose a web designer in Brisbane for small businesses

Most Brisbane web designers will quote you between $3,500 and $25,000 for what looks like the same website. The gap isn't talent or quality — it's whether the person quoting actually knows what your business needs to earn back. We've seen tradies pay $18,000 for a site that generated three leads in a year, and a Springwood accountant pay $6,200 for one that paid itself off in 71 days.

The choice of designer matters more than the choice of platform, the choice of colour palette, or the choice of stock photography. Get the designer wrong and you'll spend the next two years patching a website that should have been a quiet asset.

The only question that actually matters first

Before you look at portfolios, prices, or platforms, answer this: do you need a website that sells, or a website that shows?

A selling site has a job. It captures phone calls for a plumber. It books consults for a physio. It pulls quote requests for a fencing contractor. Every page exists to move someone closer to a transaction.

A showing site is a digital brochure. It tells people you exist and what you do. That's it. Both are legitimate — but they cost different amounts of money and need different designers.

Most Brisbane small businesses need a selling site and end up with a showing site. The agency delivered exactly what was asked for, because nobody asked the right question upfront.

Why most Brisbane small businesses need a custom website

A template site from a national chain will get you to "online" in about three weeks. It will not get you to "found by people searching for your service in Carindale at 9pm on a Tuesday".

Custom doesn't mean expensive. It means the site is built around how your customers actually buy, not how a Sydney template designer assumed they would.

Three real differences we see between template and custom builds for Queensland small business:

• A template plumber site lists "Services" and "Areas". A custom one has a dedicated page for each suburb the plumber actually services, each one ranking on its own.
• A template allied-health site has a generic contact form. A custom one books appointments directly into the practitioner's calendar, with intake forms attached.
• A template tradie site loads in 4.8 seconds on mobile. A custom one loads in 0.9 seconds. Google notices. So do the people scrolling.

Your site should pay for itself in 90 days, not 90 weeks. If the designer can't tell you how that happens, they're guessing.

How to choose a web designer in Brisbane: an eight-step process

This is the order we'd run it in if we were the client, not the agency.

Step 1: Decide your sell-or-show answer

Write down, in one sentence, what the site needs to do for the business. "Bring in five qualified roofing quotes per week" is useful. "Look professional" is not.

Step 2: Set a real budget, not a hope

For a selling site that needs to rank locally, $5,000 is the realistic floor in Brisbane. Below that, you're buying a template with a fresh coat of paint. Between $5,000 and $12,000 covers most small businesses with proper local SEO baked in. Above $15,000 you should expect custom integrations — booking systems, CRMs, e-commerce.

Step 3: Shortlist three designers, not seven

Pick three. Any more and you'll spiral. Look for ones who have built sites in your industry or an adjacent one — not because the work is harder, but because they'll ask better questions.

Step 4: Ask to see one site they built two years ago

Anyone can show you a fresh launch. Ask for a site that's been live for 24 months. Open it on your phone. Does it still load fast? Is the client still happy? Has it actually earned anything?

Step 5: Ask who owns the site after launch

This is where most Brisbane small businesses get burned. Some agencies build on proprietary platforms you can never leave. Some hold the domain name. Some charge $400/month for "hosting" on a $7 server.

We build it, you own it. That should be the answer. If it isn't, walk.

Step 6: Ask about the first 90 days after launch

A launched website is a half-built business asset. The first three months are when you discover what actually converts. Ask the designer: what happens between launch and day 90? If the answer is "we'd love to talk about a retainer", that's fine — but it needs to be earned by results, not assumed.

Step 7: Get the quote in writing with a fixed scope

Hourly quotes for new websites are a trap. You need a fixed scope, a fixed price, and a defined process for change requests. Anyone who refuses to give you a fixed number is telling you they don't know how long the work takes.

Step 8: Trust the gut check on the first call

If the first conversation is all about their awards and process diagrams, the rest of the engagement will be too. The designer should spend most of the first call asking about your business, your customers, and your numbers.

Brisbane suburb-targeted landing pages — when they're worth the money

For service businesses that travel to clients — electricians, mobile mechanics, dog groomers, allied health doing home visits — suburb pages are the single highest-ROI piece of a website. We've shipped sets covering New Farm, Paddington, Fortitude Valley, Newstead, and Spring Hill where the pages started ranking within 60 days, without a dollar of paid ads.

For businesses with one physical location that doesn't travel — a café, a dentist, a barber — they're mostly a waste of time. Google knows where you are. Your competitors near you matter. Suburbs 12km away don't.

The rule we use:

1. Does the customer come to you? Skip suburb pages. Invest in Google Business Profile instead.
2. Do you travel to the customer? Build a page for every suburb you actually service.
3. Do you ship products statewide? Skip suburb pages. Build category and product pages instead.

When Google Ads is the right call instead of SEO

For most of the small businesses we work with, SEO is the better long-term spend. But sometimes Google Ads wins, and a good Brisbane web designer should tell you so.

Google Ads is the right call when:

• You're brand new and need leads in the next 30 days, not the next 6 months.
• You're in a service with genuine urgency — emergency plumbing, locksmithing, after-hours vet care.
• You have a sales process that converts cold leads at 20% or higher.
• Your average sale is above $800, so the cost per lead maths actually works.

On a Meta lead-gen campaign we ran for Dam Good Patios (Brisbane patio builder), a A$525 spend delivered 63 leads at A$8.33 per lead — that maths only works because their average job value justifies it. For a $90 service ticket, the same cost-per-lead would have buried them.

What "disappearing after launch" actually looks like

The most common complaint we hear from new Brisbane clients moving across from another agency: "They went quiet after we paid the final invoice."

What that looks like in practice:

• An email asking for a small text change takes 11 days to get a reply.
• The contact form has been broken for six weeks and nobody noticed.
• A plugin update broke the booking system and the agency wants $280/hr to fix it.
• The hosting renewal arrives with a 40% price increase and no warning.

Pick a designer who tells you upfront what ongoing support looks like and what it costs. A 12-month support plan should be in writing, with response times in business hours, before you sign anything.

When a generic template site is the right call

We migrate clients off template sites nearly every week. We also tell some new clients to stick with one. Both are true.

A template site makes sense when:

• You're testing a brand-new business idea and don't yet know if anyone will pay.
• Your service is delivered entirely offline and the website only needs to confirm you exist.
• Your total marketing budget for the year is under $3,000.
• You'll be replacing the site in 18 months once the business stabilises.

If any of those apply, spend $89 on Squarespace and put the saved money into Google Business Profile photos and review-asking. The website isn't your bottleneck.

If you're trying to decide right now

Look at the last three websites the designer built, on your phone, in a dim room. If they load fast, read clearly, and make you want to enquire about whatever the business is selling, that's the strongest signal you'll get.

The portfolio matters more than the pitch deck. The two-year-old site matters more than the launch announcement. And the answer to "who owns this after launch" matters more than every other technical question combined.

If you'd like a second opinion on a quote you've been handed, we're happy to look it over and tell you what's fair and what's padding. No obligation, no pitch — just the honest read from someone who builds these things for a living.