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What to prepare before you have a website built

Nearly every late website is late for the same reason: the content never arrived. Here is what to gather, and what to do about the parts you don't have.

The list

• Your list of services, with prices if you are willing to show them
• 20 to 30 photos of your place, your team, and your work
• Your logo, in the largest file you still have
• Your opening hours, and the addresses of every branch
• The phone number and email you want customers to use
• Your Facebook Page link
• Your web address login, if you already own one

That is genuinely everything. Anyone asking you for a great deal more before starting is probably making the project bigger than it needs to be.

The photos are the hard part

Not because they need to be professional. Phone photos are fine and a good designer will clean them up. The problem is quantity. People think they have plenty and then find they have four, all taken at night.

A quick way to get usable ones in half an hour:

• Shoot in the morning or late afternoon, near a window or outside. Avoid midday sun and avoid your ceiling lights
• Clean the space first. The camera notices clutter more than your eyes do
• Hold the phone still and take three of everything. One will be sharp
• Get the outside of your building, including the signage, so people recognise it when they arrive
• Get your team working, not posing. Working photos always look better
• Do not use stock photos of other people's businesses. Customers can tell, and it makes you look less real, not more

Your service list

It does not need to be typed. A photo of your printed rate card works. A voice message works. A page from a notebook works. What matters is that the prices are current, because they are the thing customers came for and the thing that is embarrassing to get wrong.

Your logo

Look for the original file from whoever designed it, usually ending in .ai, .svg, .pdf, or a large .png. If the only copy left is a small blurry image saved from Facebook, say so early. It can usually be redrawn for a small fee, and that is a much better outcome than a fuzzy logo at the top of every page.

If you don't have everything

Send what you have anyway. Nobody has all of this ready, and it has never stopped a project. What matters is telling your designer early what is missing, so it can be planned around instead of discovered in week two.

Why it matters more than it sounds

A launch date is only a real commitment if the content arrives when agreed. We put the content deadline in writing next to the launch date for exactly this reason. If your material is a week late, the launch moves a week. No penalty, no drama, but no way around it either.