THE SHORT ANSWER
Ask what each recommended tool or feature changes for your customers and your team. Put the pages, responsibilities, working preview, launch checks and handoff in writing before approving the project.
Start with what the business needs the site to do
A proposal is easier to judge when it begins with an ordinary business task. Customers need to find the right service, see where the business works, book an appointment or ask for a quote. Pick the tasks that matter to your operation before anyone chooses a layout or a tool.
Ask the designer to connect each major recommendation to one of those tasks. If a new system will make editing hours easier, that is a useful explanation. If the explanation is only that the system is modern or powerful, ask what it changes for the owner or customer.
Make a note of what already works. A proposal should not force you to replace a working booking system just because the developer prefers another product. A change may make sense, but the reason and extra work should be visible.
Translate the common terms without memorizing a dictionary
CMS means content management system. The useful question is who will update your text, images, menu or service list after launch and how they will do it. The brand of the system matters less to the owner than the everyday editing process and any ongoing cost.
UX stands for user experience. Ask what a visitor can find and finish on a phone. CRO is conversion rate optimization. Ask which customer action someone wants to improve and how it will be measured, not whether a fashionable acronym is in the slide deck.
SEO means search engine optimization. Ask which pages need clear information, which technical problems are being fixed and what can actually be checked after the work. A promise of guaranteed rankings is not a useful definition or a realistic acceptance test. A KPI is simply a measure chosen for a goal. Decide what will be counted and who gets to see it.
Get specific about what you are paying to receive
Ask for the expected pages, features and content responsibilities in writing. 'Five-page website' might leave open whether a booking integration, customer login, photo editing, copywriting or additional locations are included. Ask which tasks belong to the designer and which must come from your team.
Make revisions and approvals understandable too. A working preview, a list of rounds of changes and clear decisions about anything outside the agreed scope give both sides something practical to refer to. 'Unlimited improvements' is not a clear project description.
Before discussing a deposit or a package, compare the actual responsibilities and read the current provider terms. A lower quote for a smaller deliverable may be sensible, and a larger scope may justify more work. Avoid comparing unlike projects as if they are identical.
Have the designer demonstrate one real customer task
Choose something ordinary: a visitor looking for a service, trying to contact the company or opening the site on a phone. Ask the designer to show where that person starts, what they read and what happens when they click. A working screen makes a vague explanation much easier to evaluate.
Do not be satisfied with a screenshot if the proposal promises an actual form, booking or ordering process. A design image can show where a button may sit, but it cannot prove what happens after the button is pressed. Ask when the working functionality will be demonstrated and tested.
For longer website pages, W3C recommends useful headings that describe the sections. That offers a practical review test: can somebody scan the page and understand what is available without reading every line? If not, change the wording before arguing about colors.
Check the words a customer will actually see
Industry vocabulary can cause problems inside the finished website too. Customers should not have to know the office's internal names for services. Match labels to the terms people use when asking for help, and explain special conditions that affect whether the business can take a job.
If a customer form asks for details, the labels and instructions should make sense. W3C accessibility guidance calls for labels or instructions when a form expects input. The question for the owner is whether someone understands what to enter and what the business will do next.
Check the site for claims nobody has verified, such as guaranteed turnaround times, a service area the business does not cover or a testimonial that does not belong to a real customer. The person responsible for the business needs to approve those facts.
Ask what happens after the site goes live
Find out who owns the domain account, how business email is handled, who has the administrator login and what instructions will be provided. The answer should not be a mysterious handoff to an account nobody at the business controls.
Ask about ongoing updates, support and optional maintenance. If the business changes its hours or hires a new employee, who makes that change? What happens if a contact form stops working? If ongoing help is a separate service, have that made clear before launch.
An owner should also know how to access the finished content and who to contact if they switch vendors later. The specifics depend on the contract and platform, so ask for the actual terms rather than relying on an assumption about ownership.
Turn the discussion into a short approval checklist
Write a one-page summary of the business goal, pages and major features, content you need to provide, what is excluded, how the preview works, the launch tests and who supports the result. Put anything still unanswered in a separate open-questions section.
Invite the designer to correct the summary. The point is not to catch anyone out. It is to make sure both sides mean the same thing when they say the website is ready. A good explanation should survive being repeated in ordinary language.
Your Page has a brief form for organizing these details before a project discussion. Use the actual business problem and the customer action you want the site to support. You do not need to show up speaking fluent web development.