The Library 📜 at the 🪄Business Witch Academy💸 is an edutainment series published by The Business Witch Academy which blends the magic of storytelling, the potent learning potential of humor and interactive components with tried and true business concepts and strategies to make learning how to maximize your business revenue fun, relatable, easy and affordable. This publication exists because of the paid support of readers like you. If you find value in what I’m doing here, please show your support by shopping in the store, buying a Library Membership (and getting all the full access, free downloads and other perks that come with it) or working with me directly via Live Support.
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In 1999 I applied to a title related position at one of the big underwriters. I actually got a call from HR because back then HR wasn’t AI. And I actually got hired to do a job, but it’s not what you think.
You see the woman from HR wasn’t calling me as a representative of her day job. She was in the process of starting a side hustle and saw on my resume that I knew how to do web design. I answered a few questions and boom, before I knew it I’d been hired as a professional web designer. My very first client.
That’s pretty much how my whole career has gone, if I’m being honest.
I am not exclusively a title agent and business consultant turned title documentarian. I occasionally take on freelance work. It keeps my skills fresh.
Right now, my web design skills seem to be in high demand and it has been a reminder that the problems that were plaguing businesses back when I started doing web design in the late 1900s, unfortunately, haven’t changed.
So today we’re not talking about my services. But we are talking about some of the reasons I still get gigs I never asked for because something has gone horribly wrong.
The Web Design Problem That Never Ends
This episode exists because I’ve had the same conversation over and over again for decades.
Different businesses.
Different budgets.
Same outcome.
Someone hired a cheap designer.
Or a “free” one.
Or a friend of a friend who “does websites.”
And now, well, the lucky ones are stuck with something that looks… fine.
But doesn’t work.
Doesn’t convert.
Doesn’t grow with them.
And—this is the big one—
they’re afraid to touch it.
So let me tell you a story.
The Website that Looked Fine But Wasn’t
I was hired to replace a website for an arborist company—Carmichael Tree Specialists.
Real trucks.
Real crews.
Real risk.
They hired an overseas designer through a low-cost platform. The site wasn’t ugly. It wasn’t broken at first glance. It looked modern. Clean. Professional enough.
But it was doing almost nothing.
The copy explained what an arborist is—
but it didn’t speak to the homeowner lying awake at night worrying about a tree hanging over their roof.
There was no meaningful search engine optimization—
which matters a lot when your customers are searching “tree service near me.”
No brand guidance.
No cohesion with their trucks, their cards, or their signage.
And then we opened the backend.
This is the part people never see.
It wasn’t that the owner didn’t know WordPress. That would’ve been completely reasonable. WordPress is not beginner-friendly.
The site was actually broken.
Editing text caused layouts to collapse. Buttons disappeared. Images misbehaved. Fixing it would’ve taken as long as rebuilding it properly on a platform the owner could actually use.
So we started over.
New brand kit.
New copy.
A platform that wouldn’t punish the owner for touching their own website.
And that’s when it hit me—again—
cheap websites don’t save money.
They just delay the cost.
What You’re Really Paying For When You Hire a Web Designer
When people hear I charge $3,000 for a basic four-page informational site, they think they’re paying for pages.
They’re not.
They’re paying for thinking.
Strategy.
Sales psychology.
Copywriting.
Brand alignment.
Platform decisions.
And—this matters—a site that doesn’t collapse when you try to update your hours.
That site takes me 20–30 hours to build. That’s under $100 an hour, which is actually low in professional web design.
Cheap websites exist because most of that work is skipped.
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The Free Website that Costs Months
Let me tell you another story—this one still makes my eye twitch.
My friend Kelly is starting a business called Salted Herb Co.
She was offered a free website from a brand-new web design startup. New business, no budget—price was right.
They didn’t set up her DNS.
They didn’t explain what DNS even is.
They handed her instructions and told her to do it herself.
After two days of frustration, she called me.
Thank goodness she did.
If she had followed their instructions correctly, she would’ve broken her email. Completely. The kind of mistake that makes people hate Google for all the wrong reasons.
Why didn’t the web company do it themselves?
You got me.
Three months later?
Still no website.
Kelly gave up.
She’s opened an Etsy shop and is forwarding her domain to it just so she can move forward.
Lesson:
That’s the real cost of bad web design:
lost momentum, lost confidence, lost profits and months you don’t get back.
Web Design Platform Truth Bomb
Here’s something you should ask before you hire anyone:
What do I need to be able to do on this site without help?
Update text.
Change hours.
Add products.
Post a blog.
If the answer is “email the designer and wait”…
you’re not buying a website.
You’re buying dependency.
And that brings me to the big lie.
The Big Web Design Lie
Most web designers will tell you they’ll make small updates anytime you need them.
Most of them won’t.
Not because they’re evil but because it’s a terrible business model.
Fifteen-minute updates are interruptions, not income. So requests get delayed. Then ignored. Then quietly avoided.
Years pass. Your site becomes inaccurate. You hate it. Eventually you pay someone else to rebuild it.
Or you’re paying a monthly “maintenance” fee—mostly for access—while hosting quietly costs about $10–$20 a month.
Sometimes that model makes sense.
Often, it doesn’t.
SEO: You May Not Need What You’re Being Sold
While we’re talking about lies, let’s talk about one of the biggest ones I see pushed on title agencies specifically, all the time!
The lie that you need to be worried about SEO or search engine optimization. This is when your website is specially designed to rank high in search engine results.
It’s an ever changing art form all on its own and the people who are good at it, and the people who just think their good at it will charge a premium for their services.
I once had a struggling agency ask me to analyze their website for search engine optimization. They’d paid some company a boatload of money for their services and were convinced they’d been swindled because the website wasn’t producing any leads at all.
They’d been swindled alright, but not because the company didn’t deliver what they sold, but because the company sold a service that wouldn’t deliver results.
Let’s take a Quick clarity check.
If you run a local service business—construction, plumbing, landscaping—SEO matters. A lot. Even today in 2026.
If you run a title business?
Trust me, no one is Googling you. No one knows what you do.
Don’t take my word for it. I’ve dropped a chart in the show notes that shows the search volume from 2004 to now for the terms “title insurance agent” and “real estate agent.” There is a little blue line at the bottom of the chart that almost looks like the chart border itself. That’s the title agent search volume.
SEO often matters far less than positioning, clarity, and trust.
Anyone selling the same web package to both businesses isn’t thinking about how customers actually find you.
They’re selling convenience—for themselves.
Why Vetting Your Web Designer Matters
So no—this episode isn’t about convincing you to hire me.
It’s about teaching you how to think clearly before you hire anyone.
And when you find someone who explains tradeoffs, tells you what you don’t need, builds for how your business actually works, and leaves you stronger instead of dependent—
That’s not magic.
That’s just competent, ethical design.
And it’s worth paying for once instead of twice.
If this episode hit home, the companion guide goes deeper into the how and the why—and they’re designed to work together.
Get the Guide: How to Work With Web & Graphic Designers Without Getting Burned
And if you’re sitting there thinking,
“Okay… I don’t want to mess this up again,”
That’s exactly where you should be.
Your business should set you free.
Your website shouldn’t trap you.
Until next time—
protect your time like it’s treasure, and stop buying things that steal it quietly. 🐉
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Cheryl
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