Top local business plan Experts
are the people you want to talk to.

This is probably how things will go because as a doctor, lawyer, painter, roofer, whatever. You won't know the questions to ask before you hire someone or some company.
They will probably charge half the money up front and half when you approve the site. Now there are two things off the top of my head wrong with that. First thing is they will probably use something like word-press to generate the site, and there are questions you should ask that you don't know to ask. Just picking a theme for your site can be a major headache.

Using word-press or one of the other programs that come with your average hosting account will generate a nice looking site but unless you understand what it takes to design a site that not only appeal's to your customers or clients, also it needs to appeal to googles algorithm. Without that when google indexes your site you end up on page 10 for any search term that will actually bring new clients to your site and hopefully new customers to your door. And nobody looks on page 10, most people don't even look at page two on the search engines.