Published by eproductions · Athens, Greece · Est. 1997 ·
April 16, 2026
10 Questions to Ask a Digital Agency Before You Sign — And What the Answers Tell You
A framework for evaluating any digital agency — written by one.
eproductions has been building websites, e-shops and digital strategies since 1997.
These are the questions we would want a client to ask us — because we have good answers to all of them.
These are the questions we would want a client to ask us — because we have good answers to all of them.
Most businesses go into agency selection with the wrong questions. They ask about price, timeline and portfolio aesthetics — and miss the questions that actually predict whether the engagement will succeed. Here are the ten questions that separate agencies that deliver from agencies that disappoint, along with what a good answer looks like and what a bad one sounds like.
Choosing a digital agency is one of the more consequential commercial decisions a business makes — particularly in Greece, where the market ranges from genuinely expert studios with decades of experience to freelancers operating under agency branding with no infrastructure, process or accountability. The price differential between these two ends can be modest; the outcome differential is enormous.
The questions below are designed to be asked in a first meeting or discovery call. They are not designed to be confrontational — a good agency will welcome every one of them. An agency that deflects, becomes vague or takes offence at being questioned seriously is itself an important data point.
The 10 Questions
Can you show me a website you've built that is similar to what I need — and tell me the actual results it achieved?
Portfolio aesthetics are easy to curate. What matters is whether the sites an agency has built actually perform commercially — do they rank in search, do they convert visitors, do they hold up technically? Any agency worth hiring should be able to point to specific results: organic traffic growth, conversion rate improvements, search ranking achievements, client revenue outcomes. If they can only show you how the site looks, not what it does, you are looking at a design studio, not a digital agency.
CAUTIONARY ANSWER
We've worked with some really great brands — you can see them all on our portfolio page.
GOOD ANSWER
Here's the Arty Tours site — it's been ranking #1 globally for 'tours in Athens in Spanish' since month 18 of our SEO programme.
What is your SEO methodology — and is it included in the build?
A website with no SEO architecture is a brochure that nobody will find. In 2026, professional SEO is not a bolt-on — it is fundamental to how a site is structured, how pages are named, how content is organised, what schema markup is implemented. Ask specifically: do they handle title tags and meta descriptions as standard? Do they implement structured data (schema.org)? Do they do keyword research before writing page content? Do they target Core Web Vitals as part of development? These are the questions that reveal whether 'SEO included' means anything meaningful.
CAUTIONARY ANSWER
We include basic SEO — titles, descriptions, that sort of thing. This is the minimum that any CMS does automatically. It is not an SEO strategy.
GOOD ANSWER
SEO architecture is baked into the build from day one — URL structure, on-page hierarchy, meta system, schema markup, Core Web Vitals targets.
Who will actually work on my project — and will I have a single point of contact?'
In the Greek agency market, a significant proportion of 'agencies' outsource significant parts of their work — development, design, SEO, copywriting — to freelancers or sub-contractors who have no relationship with the client and no accountability for the outcome. This is not inherently wrong, but it must be disclosed. What you are paying for is project management, accountability and quality control — make sure you understand who provides those, and whether your day-to-day contact has genuine oversight of the work being done.
CAUTIONARY ANSWER
Our team handles all aspects of the project. (With no names or specifics.) Vagueness here usually means outsourcing is involved and the agency doesn't want you to know.
GOOD ANSWER
Your project will be led by Aris I., our senior in house developer. You'll have his direct contact and a weekly status update.
What do I own at the end — domain, hosting, code and content?
This is the single question most clients forget to ask and most regret not asking. In a professional engagement, you own everything: your domain (registered in your name), your hosting account (accessible to you directly), your codebase (fully yours, no proprietary lock-in), and all content produced. Some agencies — particularly those offering very cheap packages — register your domain in their name, host your site on their shared account, and retain effective control of your digital infrastructure. Changing agencies then becomes a hostage negotiation. This should never happen.
CAUTIONARY ANSWER
We manage all of that for you — it's included in your package. This answer is a red flag. Managing for you and you own it are very different things.
GOOD ANSWER
You own your domain, your hosting account and the full codebase. We help you set these up and transfer them to you at handover. If you ever want to move to another agency, everything is yours.
What are your Core Web Vitals targets and how do you measure them?
Core Web Vitals — Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), Interaction to Next Paint (INP) — are Google's publicly stated ranking factors for page experience. A professional web developer in 2026 should be able to quote LCP targets (under 2.5 seconds for a good score) and explain how they engineer for them. If an agency has never heard of this metric or waves it away as a technical detail, their sites will underperform in search relative to competitors who take it seriously. It is not a trivial concern — Google's own data shows that each additional second of load time costs approximately 7% of conversions.
CAUTIONARY ANSWER
'The site will be fast, don't worry.' No measurement, no benchmark, no accountability.
GOOD ANSWER
We target LCP under 2.5 seconds on all builds, measured via PageSpeed Insights and Google Search Console. Here's a screenshot of a recent client's Core Web Vitals report.
How do you handle the brief — do you do discovery work before proposing a solution?
A professional agency does not quote a website before understanding the business. Discovery work — understanding the target audience, the competitive landscape, the commercial goals, the existing digital footprint — is what separates a website that is built for your business from a website that happens to have your logo on it. An agency that gives you a fixed quote at the first meeting, without asking substantive questions about your business, has already decided what they are going to build regardless of what you tell them.
CAUTIONARY ANSWER
A fixed-price proposal in your inbox within 24 hours of a 20-minute call. Fast is not the same as thoughtful.
GOOD ANSWER
We start every project with a discovery phase — we need to understand your audience, your competitors and your commercial goals before we can design an architecture that serves them. Our proposal comes from that understanding.
What does the handover look like — and how will I be able to update the site myself?
A website you cannot manage yourself is a website that costs you money every time you need to update a phone number. Professional WordPress development includes a backend configured for your team's non-technical use: a content management system where you can update text, add blog posts, change images and manage products without involving a developer. Ask specifically: will there be a training session? Is the backend simplified for non-technical users? What is the estimated time and cost for the kinds of updates you will regularly need?
CAUTIONARY ANSWER
'You contact us when you need updates and we handle them.' This is a dependency model that benefits the agency, not you.
GOOD ANSWER
he backend is configured for your team — you'll be able to update content, add products and publish posts without any coding. We include a 2-hour training session and a written guide at handover.
Do you offer ongoing SEO, social media or digital marketing — and how does that work with the build?
A website is the start of a digital strategy, not the whole of it. The best website in your category will underperform if it has no ongoing SEO programme, no content strategy and no traffic acquisition plan. Asking about ongoing services at the proposal stage tells you whether the agency thinks holistically about digital — and whether they can grow with you after the launch. It also tells you something important: an agency that builds a site with excellent SEO architecture is signalling that they understand what comes after launch. One that builds without it is signalling they don't.
CAUTIONARY ANSWER
'We focus on the build — for marketing you'd need to find someone else.' A web build agency with no ongoing capability will produce a site that is never properly activated.
GOOD ANSWER
We offer SEO retainers, social media management and Google Ads — and they're designed to work from the site architecture we build.
How do you approach mobile — and what percentage of your clients' traffic comes from mobile devices?
CAUTIONARY ANSWER
'Of course everything is mobile responsive.' Responsive does not mean optimised. This answer often means desktop-designed, then squeezed to fit.
GOOD ANSWER
We design mobile-first as standard. Our process starts on 375px and builds outward. Every project is tested on iOS and Android across at least six screen sizes before handover.
What happens if something goes wrong — what is your support and fix commitment?
Every website has issues after launch. A plugin update breaks something. A hosting migration goes wrong. A form stops submitting. The question is not whether problems will arise — it is whether you have a reliable partner to fix them quickly. Ask specifically: what is the response time for critical issues? What is included in the maintenance retainer vs billed additionally? Who do you call at midnight if your e-shop checkout breaks before Black Friday? The answer to this question tells you more about the real quality of the agency relationship than the portfolio ever will.
CAUTIONARY ANSWER
'We're always available — just send us a message.' No SLA, no defined response time, no maintenance structure. 'Always available' means 'we'll get to it when we can.'
GOOD ANSWER
Critical issues (site down, checkout broken) get a response within 2 hours during business hours, same day out of hours. Our maintenance retainer includes monthly updates and a bank of support hours for fixes.
How to Use These Questions
Don't fire all ten questions at an agency in a first email — that reads as adversarial. Instead, weave them into a structured discovery conversation. A professional agency will welcome the depth of engagement. The questions that matter most for your specific situation:
- If you've been burned before by a cheap build: Questions 4, 7 and 10 (ownership, independence, support)
- If you're comparing 3+ quotes: Questions 2, 5 and 6 (SEO, performance, process) — these reveal the most differentiation
- If this is your first professional website: Questions 1, 3 and 8 (track record, team, ongoing capability)
- If you're building an e-shop: Questions 5, 9 and 10 (performance, mobile, support)
"The agency that welcomes every one of these questions — and has concrete, specific, evidenced answers — is the one that has earned the right to charge a professional fee. The one that deflects, generalises or takes offence at being scrutinised has just told you everything you need to know."
Frequently Asked Questions
How many agencies should I get quotes from?
Three is usually the right number — enough to understand the market range and the variation in approach, not so many that comparison becomes paralysing. More important than the number is the quality of the briefing you give each agency: a thorough brief (your goals, your audience, your competitive context, your budget range) produces quotes that are actually comparable. Vague briefs produce wildly divergent quotes that tell you nothing about value.
Is it a problem if an agency outsources parts of the work?
Not inherently — many excellent agencies use specialist freelancers for specific disciplines. The problem is undisclosed outsourcing, where you believe you are working with an in-house team and you are not. Ask specifically: which parts of the project are done in-house and which are subcontracted? Who are the subcontractors accountable to — you or the agency? What happens if a subcontractor delivers below standard? Transparency here is the standard; evasiveness is not.
What is a reasonable response time for a digital agency in Greece?
For non-urgent queries during business hours: same day or next morning. For urgent issues (site down, checkout broken): within 2 hours during business hours is the professional standard. For critical emergencies outside business hours: the agency should have a defined emergency contact process, not just "we'll see your message when we're back." If you are operating an e-commerce site, your agency's emergency response SLA is as commercially important as your payment gateway's uptime.
Should I choose a Greek agency or consider an international one?
For most Greek businesses, a Greek agency is the right choice — not out of nationalism, but because local market knowledge matters enormously for SEO (Greek search behaviour), social media strategy (Greek cultural context), and practical project management (time zone, language, available for in-person meetings). The exceptions are large international projects, highly specialised technical requirements that genuinely exceed the Greek market's capability, or businesses whose primary audience is entirely international. For the vast majority of Greek SMEs, hospitality businesses and professional services firms, an Athens-based agency with genuine sector expertise will outperform an international agency with no local knowledge.
We welcome every one of these questions — and we have specific answers to all of them.
eproductions has been building websites and digital strategies in Greece since 1997. We can answer every question in this guide with evidence: real case studies, real Analytics data, real client references, real technical documentation.
If you're evaluating agencies right now, we'd be happy to be one of your three quotes — and to answer every question you put to us directly and specifically.
- 27 years of Greek digital market experience
- 100+ portfolio projects across hospitality, healthcare, food, energy, retail and more
- Fixed-price delivery · You own everything · Full transparency on process
- Ongoing SEO, social media and Google Ads alongside any build
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