1. Be wary of companies who charge by hour and don’t put on a cap! There isn’t a regulated industry standard in fees. So websites can easily end up costing you a small fortune. Ask for a flat fee if possible—you’ll know exactly what you’re paying up front. It’s common to pay for 50% down, and in certain cases, when working with businesses online; you may need to pay whole flat fee down. This is perfectly acceptable. You wouldn’t order books from Amazon and wait to pay for them when they got there!

2. Try to get a turnaround time in writing. It is up to you to bring as much information as possible to your designer. This will make design process go much faster. You can’t just go and say “make a website for me” and expect your designer to know what to put on your website! The more you bring to table, faster your designer can work. And faster you respond to proofs, faster your site will be active and live! Depending on your designer’s workload, it could take anywhere from 1 week to 3 weeks to finish design of your site.

3. Original custom designs are always best for branding your image. If your designer works exclusively from pre-designed templates, with no customization at all, you will not have as professional a site as if you received 100% customized work. Make sure you understand how your website designer creates websites.

For instance, a website which serves as a depository for articles and information catering to lawyers would probably not be a good candidate for a Flash "makeover". However, if you are a rock band, you may want to consider it.

Those are two very opposite ends of spectrum, but exemplify how you should consider your audience.

Corporate, retail, industrial, informational and many other types of websites can actually benefit from a little bit of Flash if it is created professionally and used properly (especially in combination with "static" design).