What to have ready before a designer starts
The six things that decide whether a website takes two weeks or four months, all of which are yours to supply.
Websites are rarely late because of the building. They are late because everyone is waiting on the client for photographs, or a decision, or the list of services nobody has ever written down. Have these six things ready and the project moves at the speed the quote assumed.
1. A list of what you actually sell
Not a category — the specific things. Not "metal fabrication" but the six jobs you actually get paid for, in the words your customers use when they ask for them. This list becomes your navigation, your page structure and most of your search traffic, and only you can write it.
2. Photographs of your own work
This is the single biggest quality difference between a site that converts and one that does not, and it is almost entirely in your hands. Photograph your premises, your team, your finished jobs. A phone in good daylight beats stock photography every time, because stock photography says nothing about you.
3. The one thing you want visitors to do
Call, WhatsApp, request a quote, visit the yard. Pick one. Sites that offer four equally-weighted options get fewer of all four, because a visitor who has to choose usually chooses to leave.
4. Two or three sites you like, and why
The "why" is the useful half. "I like this one" tells a designer nothing; "I like that you can see the price without filling in a form" tells them everything. They do not need to be competitors — often better if they are not.
5. Who decides
One person with final say. If three people have to agree, say so at the start so the process is built for it. The expensive version is discovering a third opinion after the site is designed.
6. Your existing accounts
- The domain, if you already own one — the login, not just the address.
- Your Google Business Profile, if it exists.
- Whatever is running your current site, if anything is.
- The email address you want enquiries to reach.
Tracking down a domain login from a developer somebody used in 2019 is the most common single-item delay in this entire process. Find it before you start, not on launch day.