You ever sat in a pub with someone who tells you what they do for a living, and ten seconds in you’ve got no idea what they’re on about? It’s all waffle, jargon, and buzzwords. You're nodding politely, but inside you're thinking, "This person’s chatting pure turnip."
That’s the pub test. If someone can’t explain what they do in simple terms over a pint, they probably don’t understand it properly themselves. Or worse, they don’t want you to understand, because they’re hiding behind complexity.
Now apply that to your web developer.
If you ask a simple question like “Why is my site slow?” or “Why does this cost three grand?” and you get a long-winded answer full of acronyms and fluff, that’s a red flag. It means you’re either being blinded with science, or you’ve hired someone who couldn’t build a Lego house without watching a YouTube tutorial.
Here’s how to figure out whether your developer’s the real deal or full of it.
Let’s say you ask them why your website’s taking forever to load. If the response starts with “It’s due to TTFB and some render-blocking scripts from external APIs and a high CLS score...” stop right there.
That’s not helping you. That’s a TED Talk for no one.
Now here’s how a proper dev should answer:
“Your site’s slow because it’s loading too much stuff, like five Instagram feeds and an ancient Google Maps embed. Also, your hosting’s not up to scratch. We can sort that.”
One’s trying to sound clever. The other’s actually solving the problem.
Some developers build a whole personality around sounding clever. They use phrases like “headless CMS architecture” and “framework-agnostic scalability pipeline” when really, they just mean “we’re building something slightly different with JavaScript.”
You should never feel like you need a translator to understand what you're paying for.
Ask them this:
“What does this actually do for me or my customers?”
If they can’t answer without launching into a tech demo, walk away. You’re not building a spaceship. You’re building a website.
Web projects go wrong sometimes. Pages break. Plugins clash. Someone forgets to tick a box that takes down the entire contact form.
The question is not if mistakes happen. It’s how your dev deals with them.
If their go-to move is to blame plugins, browsers, WordPress, the hosting company, the moon phase and Mercury retrograde - you’re being taken for a ride.
A good dev will say:
“I missed that. Let me sort it.”
Simple. Honest. Professional. And worth their weight in Yorkshire Tea.
This one’s big. You don’t want a ‘yes’ person. You want someone who knows what works and has the confidence to tell you when something you’ve suggested will make the site worse.
If you say “Let’s put a big pop-up on the homepage that plays a video automatically,” your dev shouldn’t say “Sure, no problem.”
They should say:
“That’ll annoy your users, slow the site down, and hurt your conversions. Let’s do something better.”
That’s someone who actually cares.
It’s easy to list features.
“We’ll add a custom post type with an ACF repeater and taxonomy filters.”
Cool. What does that mean?
The answer should be:
“You’ll be able to manage your case studies properly, tag them by topic, and show the right ones on the right pages without faffing about.”
That’s a dev who’s thinking about you, not just flexing their technical vocabulary.
Websites aren’t a one-time job. Once it’s live, someone needs to keep it updated, secure, fast, and useful.
If your dev disappears after launch, leaves you with a login and a prayer, and suddenly stops replying to emails, that’s a massive red flag.
A proper dev will talk to you about what happens next:
“Here’s how you’ll update content. Here’s what I’ll take care of. Here’s what you should watch out for.”
You should never be left thinking, “What now?” after a site goes live.
This one’s simple. If you wouldn’t want to sit in the pub with them for half an hour, don’t hire them.
A good dev should make you feel like you’re in safe hands. They explain stuff clearly. They don’t make you feel daft for asking questions. They’re transparent, honest, and maybe a bit opinionated - because they actually care about doing a good job.
That’s the person you want building your site. Not the one muttering about Docker containers while the rest of the pub’s watching the match.
If your developer can’t pass the pub test - if they can’t have a clear, honest, no-nonsense conversation with you - then it’s time to get rid and find someone who can.
You need someone who speaks your language, not just JavaScript.
And yes. That someone might be me.
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Now’s your time. Hit the button below, and let’s see what your future holds.
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