How long should a business website take to build?

A small business website does not need to take three months. With a clear brief and prompt feedback, a focused site of a few pages can be designed, built, tested and live in about a week. Larger sites with many pages, bookings or product catalogues take longer, and that is fine, as long as you are told the plan upfront.

The usual stages

1. Brief. You share what you offer, who your customers are, and what you want visitors to do. Logo, photos and a rough list of services help a lot.
2. Design. You see how the site will look before anything goes live, on both a phone and a computer.
3. Build. The design becomes a real website: fast pages, contact forms that work, links that go to the right place.
4. Test. Every page, button and form is checked on Android, iPhone and desktop browsers.
5. Launch. The site goes live on your own domain and is submitted to Google.

What slows projects down

The code is rarely the problem. Waiting is. The most common delay is content: photos that have not been taken, text that has not been written, or a logo that is only a low-resolution screenshot. The second is feedback that arrives in many small pieces over several weeks instead of one clear round.

How to keep it quick

• Gather your logo, 8 to 10 good photos and your contact details before you start.
• Write a few lines about each service, even rough notes. They can be polished later.
• Nominate one person to give feedback, so changes do not contradict each other.
• Agree the number of revision rounds at the start.

Be wary of two extremes

A site promised in one day is usually a template with your name pasted in. A site that takes several months for a handful of pages usually means unclear planning. A good studio gives you a written timeline and tells you what it needs from you, and when.

Curious what a one-week plan would look like for your business? Tell us what you do and we will outline it.