Who's in charge?

As with any project, building a website is going to require a project manager who has final say. But websites offer a particular challenge because they are often built by two teams: a front-end design team and a back-end team of developers.

While there's no hard-and-fast rule for determining a pecking order, it is important that there be a clear driver, according to Amanda Lee Neville, a partner at Thinkso Creative.

"Decide on who is driving the project and who gets final say when something comes up for debate," Neville says. "Is the back-end team meant to support the efforts of the design team? Or will technical considerations trump design decisions? With good planning and a collaborative process, it won't be a battle between visual design and technology, but it's good for everyone to be clear on how these things will be decided when a question comes up."

If you're hiring an agency to build the site, you'll want to make sure that it has a mechanism for establishing that pecking order between teams. But if you're managing the project in-house, it'll be up to you. Either way, Neville recommends that you gather everyone at the same table as early in the process as possible.

What if we fire you?

It's a tough question to broach, especially at the outset of a project, but it's always a good idea for a client to ask what will happen if they fire their web design firm, says Peter C. VanRysdam, CMO of 352 Media Group.

"That's obviously something you don't want to consider at the beginning of a project, but it is important," VanRysdam says. "Many developers will try to retain the ownership of the work they create, only giving the client a license to use it. Others may use proprietary code or write things in non-traditional ways to try and help their job security. Look for a developer that works within industry standards, properly comments their code, and will provide documentation after the fact."