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Hiring a designer  ·  6 min read

Choosing a web designer in Columbia, SC: what to look for

How to choose a web designer in Columbia, SC: whether local matters, what a Midlands business site needs, how to vet a designer, and free help.

By Taylor Odom  ·   ·  Updated

The short answer: choose a web designer in Columbia, SC who can show you live sites they've built for local businesses, puts the price and scope in writing, registers everything in your name, and will meet you in person if you want that. Look the business up with the SC Secretary of State, and call one or two past clients before you pay a deposit.

If you're looking for a web designer in Columbia, SC, you'll find freelancers, small studios and agencies across the Midlands, plus remote designers anywhere in the country. This guide is about choosing well: what a local designer adds, what a Midlands business site should include, how to check a designer out, and where to get free advice before you hire. We're a studio in Newberry, so we have an interest here; everything below is something you can check for yourself.

Does your web designer need to be in Columbia?

No, but being able to meet helps. A first meeting in person is the easiest way to explain how your business works, what customers ask you on the phone, and what you want the site to do. A designer who knows the area also knows that Irmo, Blythewood and Cayce are different trips for a service van, and that "Columbia" to your customers might mean two counties.

Remote can work just as well when the process is written down: a questionnaire, a written scope and price, and a private preview link where you watch the site take shape.

For the record, we're based in Newberry, not Columbia. We hold the kickoff and handover in person in Columbia, Lexington and Irmo (as well as Newberry, Greenwood, Greenville and Spartanburg), and work remotely with anyone.

What should a Midlands business website include?

Your real service area

Plenty of Columbia-area businesses serve customers on both sides of the river, in Richland and Lexington counties. Your website and your Google Business Profile should both say clearly where you work. Google lets a service-area business list "up to 20 service areas," and says the overall area "shouldn't be more than about 2 hours of driving time from where your business is based." Our guide to setting up a Google Business Profile for a service-area business walks through it.

Be careful with town pages. Google's spam policies name "multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page" as doorway abuse. A page for Lexington is fine if it's genuinely about your work there. Forty copies of one page with the town name swapped is not. Ask any designer how they'd handle your service area; if the answer is a page per town with nothing else different, keep looking.

What does help: Whitespark's 2026 survey of local search experts put a dedicated page for each service at the top of its factors for local organic results. One page per service, plus a clear list of the towns you cover, is a solid start.

A site built for phones first

The Census Bureau's 2020–2024 estimates show 88.5% of households in the city of Columbia have a broadband internet subscription, so roughly one in nine don't. Nationally, Pew Research Center found 16% of adults are "smartphone-only" internet users. For many of your customers, your site is something they see on a phone, often while deciding who to call. The phone number should be one tap away on every page.

Accessibility in the code

The Department of Justice's guidance says the ADA's requirements for businesses open to the public apply to what they offer "on the web" too. Ask whether a designer builds accessibility into the code or adds a widget afterwards; we explain why the difference matters in do accessibility widgets make your website ADA compliant?

How do you check out a web designer in South Carolina?

  1. Look up the business. The SC Secretary of State's Business Entities Online lets the public see "general information for all entities on file, including registered agent and registered office information." If a designer's business is an LLC or corporation, it should be there. A freelancer working under their own name may not be, which is fine.
  2. Look at live sites they've built, on your phone. Not screenshots in a portfolio: the actual sites. The quick checks in our post on signs a website needs a redesign work just as well on someone else's work.
  3. Call two past clients. Ask whether it launched on time and on budget, whether they can edit it themselves, and whether they got every login at the end.
  4. Get it in writing before you pay. Price, scope, timeline, revisions, and who owns the domain and hosting. Our list of questions to ask before you hire a web designer covers what to listen for.

Where can Columbia businesses get free help before hiring?

Two local organizations offer free advice that can help you work out what your site needs to do and what to spend, before you talk to designers:

  • SC Small Business Development Centers. "21 SC SBDCs across the state of South Carolina offer individual, confidential business consulting at no cost," including help with marketing. The network is based at USC's Moore School of Business in Columbia.
  • SCORE Midlands offers "free, expert mentoring" to small business owners across central South Carolina, including Richland, Lexington and Newberry counties. Its office is at 1225 Laurel Street in Columbia.

They're advisers, not web designers, but arriving at a designer's first meeting with clear goals and a budget makes everything after it easier.

What does a web designer in Columbia cost?

It varies widely with the scope and who's building it. Our guide to what a small business website costs in South Carolina lays out the typical ranges and the yearly costs people forget.

Our own prices are published on our homepage:

  • Starter Site, $4,500: 1–2 weeks, 4–5 pages.
  • Business Site, $8,500: 3–4 weeks, 8–12 pages, with service pages, team pages, and booking or a small store.
  • Custom Build, $15,000+: 6–8 weeks, for multiple locations, full e-commerce or integrations.

Each one is a fixed price for the written scope, with half to book your slot and half at launch, or six monthly payments on a Starter or Business Site. More detail is on our small business website design page.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to meet my web designer in person?

No. Plenty of good sites are built entirely remotely. But if you'd rather sit across a table at the start and the end, choose a designer who offers that.

Should I hire a freelancer or an agency?

Either can do good work. What matters more is a written scope and price, live work you can check, and everything registered in your name.

Can a web designer set up my Google Business Profile?

Many will help. We connect a Google Business Profile on every site we build, and it's worth asking any designer whether that's included.

How long does a small business website take?

It depends on the size. Ours take 1–2 weeks for a Starter Site and 3–4 weeks for a Business Site.

This post is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

Want a website with the price printed on the page?

Starter Site $4,500 · Business Site $8,500 · Custom Build $15,000+. Written scope, a launch date, and you own everything.

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