Edip Kilinc is the founder of Webwavers. Together with his team, he develops websites, brands, and digital presences for ambitious companies – with over 250 completed projects and accolades including the German Design Award 2026.
Six things can be assessed in twenty minutes and without contact.
Your own website. It is the only work sample that is entirely under the agency's control. Does it load quickly? Does it work on mobile? Does it say something concrete, or is it just adjectives?
Case studies with substance. Not walls of logos, but projects with a starting situation, approach, and outcome. If it is not mentioned anywhere what actually happened in a project, there is usually a reason for that.
Industry proximity. Not necessarily the exact same industry, but comparable complexity. Someone who has only done retail so far will not automatically understand a buying process with three decision-makers.
Reviews with sources. Google, Sortlist, Provenexpert – verifiable and with dates. Quotes without a last name and company mean nothing.
Stability. How long has the agency been around? How big is the team? With a single person, downtime is a real risk that you can take consciously – but consciously.
Professional footprint. Does the agency write about its field? Anyone who regularly explains how they work usually has a methodology.
Six things can be assessed in twenty minutes and without contact.
Your own website. It is the only work sample that is entirely under the agency's control. Does it load quickly? Does it work on mobile? Does it say something concrete, or is it just adjectives?
Case studies with substance. Not walls of logos, but projects with a starting situation, approach, and outcome. If it is not mentioned anywhere what actually happened in a project, there is usually a reason for that.
Industry proximity. Not necessarily the exact same industry, but comparable complexity. Someone who has only done retail so far will not automatically understand a buying process with three decision-makers.
Reviews with sources. Google, Sortlist, Provenexpert – verifiable and with dates. Quotes without a last name and company mean nothing.
Stability. How long has the agency been around? How big is the team? With a single person, downtime is a real risk that you can take consciously – but consciously.
Professional footprint. Does the agency write about its field? Anyone who regularly explains how they work usually has a methodology.
1. What is the first thing you would change on our current website? A good answer is concrete and names a priority. A bad one praises first and then evades.
2. How many page types are you budgeting for, and why these? Anyone who has no answer to this has not thought through the project.
3. Who writes the copy? The answer determines a significant part of the price and the result.
4. What happens to our previous URLs? If nothing about redirects comes up here, a central building block is missing.
5. How much does operation cost in the first year after the launch? The answer shows whether someone is thinking about the time after the project.
6. What projects do you reject? The most revealing question of all. Anyone who does everything has no stance. A clear answer shows specialization and self-assessment.
Six patterns where caution is advised.
A price in the initial consultation, without further questions. Anyone who names a figure without knowledge of scope, content, and migration, names a figure that will rise later.
Guarantees for rankings. No one can guarantee rankings. Anyone who does is either selling nonsense or refers to terms that nobody is searching for.
Not a word about goals. If you aren't asked what the website is supposed to achieve during the entire conversation, the result will reflect that.
Only design in the portfolio. Beautiful images without indicating what the project achieved. This is not an exclusion criterion, but it shifts the risk to you.
Contract terms without an exit. Especially with "website for 99 euros a month" models. Calculate the term once and check who actually owns the site in the end.
No direct contact with those implementing the project. If you only speak with sales, you don't know who is actually doing the work.
All three work, for different tasks.
Freelancers. Best price-performance ratio, direct line of communication, high flexibility. Prerequisite: You take on the project management and can live with the risk of a person dropping out. Good for clearly defined projects with a clear briefing.
Small to medium-sized agency. Multiple disciplines under one roof, project management included, backup in case of absence. The usual path for medium-sized projects between 15,000 and 50,000 euros.
Large agency or network. Strategic depth, experience with complex organizations, resilient processes. In return, higher costs, longer communication channels, and often changing contact persons. Sensible for project sizes where coordination itself becomes the task.
The decision should not be based on sympathy, but on the question: How much project management can and do you want to take on yourself?
Four points that should be clarified in writing before the start of the project – and which make all the difference in the event of a dispute.
Rights of use. Who owns the design, code, and content after the project ends? The answer should be "you", unrestricted and unlimited in time.
Access. Who has access to the domain, hosting, and CMS? In any case, you should have your own access with full rights – not only when there is a dispute.
Revision rounds. How many are included, and how much does an additional one cost? This is the most common additional cost item of all.
Acceptance and warranty. When is the project considered accepted, and how long will bugs be fixed free of charge? Six to twelve months are common for implementation defects.
None of these points are unusual. Anyone who avoids all four is sending a message.
If two or three providers are technically comparable, the pure list of criteria is no longer of any help. Then two things decide.
Does the agency contradict you? A provider who finds every idea good will not suddenly start steering in the project. Someone who says in the initial meeting "I would do that differently, and here is why" will save you work later on.
Do you understand what they are saying? If explanations sound like technical jargon and you cannot reproduce what was suggested after the meeting, the collaboration will be exhausting. Good providers explain their field in a way that is understandable to those outside of it.
Both sound soft, but in practice are the best indicator of how the project will run.
