Before building a website, have your services, pricing, business process, usable photos, account access and one final decision maker ready. You do not need to write the copy yourself. We need your business facts and your decisions, not finished paragraphs.
Website projects can also spend a lot of calendar time waiting for information, decisions, approvals or access rather than in active production. Most of what follows is about removing that waiting.
The five things that hold projects up
1. The information behind the content
Not the copy. The facts.
- Exact services, and which of them matter most
- Prices, or how pricing works
- Your process, from first contact to finished job
- Products and specifications
- Service areas
- Guarantees and limitations
- The questions customers actually ask
- What makes you different
- What you will and will not do
You cannot manufacture business knowledge from a logo and an old website. This is the first gap we check.
2. Photos
Clients say “I have photos.” Then a handful of phone images from several years ago arrive, plus a few social media screenshots and a blurry logo.
That is not the same thing as having usable photography.
3. Decisions
More important than content, and less obvious.
What to lead with, whether prices are public, which products and markets matter, which services are actually profitable, and what you would rather not promote at all.
A website exposes the decisions a business has been avoiding. That is uncomfortable and it is also useful.
4. Approval and feedback
Something gets sent, then sits unreviewed while other work takes priority. The project is later described as late.
5. Access
Access can be particularly painful when it is missing. Domain, hosting, WordPress, Google Business, Analytics, Search Console.
Production time and calendar time are different things
A project can contain a relatively small amount of active production time and still take much longer on the calendar, when information, approvals or access arrive late.
The other version of this problem is information arriving in pieces. A service list on Monday, a different service list on Wednesday, new prices on Friday, then a request to remove one of the services.
Changes to agreed services, prices or priorities can force revisions to work already completed. That is where time disappears, and it is why we cannot promise a date until the inputs are in.
The decisions that are yours, not ours
We can advise on all of these. We cannot make them.
What you want to sell. We can tell you what has search demand and what deserves a page. You have to tell us whether it is a service you actually want more enquiries for.
Your prices. We can recommend publishing them or not. We cannot invent them.
Your margins. The service customers ask for most may not be the one you want more of. We need to know which is which.
Your priorities. If you offer ten services, which three would you like more customers for? That is a business decision and it shapes the whole site.
What you are willing to say publicly. Some businesses publish prices, specifications, process and supplier names. Others will not. That decision changes the entire content structure.
How direct the offer should be. There is a large gap between “learn about our services” and “request a site visit this week.” We can advise which will convert better. You have to be able to deliver on it.
The question that is hardest to answer
Why should someone choose you instead of the other companies they just found on Google?
Common first answers are quality, service, experience and professionalism. Those are too broad to build useful copy around, so we keep asking until something specific appears.
Specific sounds like this:
- The owner personally surveys every job
- You manufacture rather than subcontract
- Your installers are employees, not subcontractors
- Quotes go out within a set time and you hold to it
- You handle the permits
- You take small orders competitors refuse
That is what we need. Not a slogan.
And sometimes the honest answer is that there is nothing yet. Better to find that out before the website is built than after.
Photos
What is worth having
- The business. Exterior, premises, showroom, office, workshop, clinic, vehicles where relevant.
- The people. Owner, team, staff actually working, where you want them shown.
- The product. Products, materials, details, finishes, options.
- The work. Often the most valuable. Installation, production, work in progress, the finished job, before and after.
For a contractor, genuine photographs of real installations beat beautiful stock images of houses you never touched.
What makes photos unusable
- Too small, or compressed by a messaging app
- Screenshots instead of original files
- Out of focus, or very dark
- Heavy filters or watermarks
- Every image vertical when the site needs a wide banner
- Photos taken from someone else’s website
- Supplier imagery presented as your own work
And AI images presented as real completed projects. AI has its place. But do not present a generated image as completed work you actually delivered. It creates a false impression of your experience.
Send full resolution originals, not a copy that has been through a messaging app.
Access, and what goes wrong
For an existing site we may need access or ownership details for the domain registrar, DNS, hosting, WordPress, Google Business Profile, Analytics, Search Console and your business email.
Not every project needs all of it. But one question should be answered before serious work starts.
Who owns the domain, and where is it registered?
Common problems:
Nobody knows where the domain is registered. The renewal notice goes to an address nobody checks.
The previous agency owns everything. They created the domain, hosting, Analytics, Search Console and the Google Business Profile under their own accounts. Now you want to leave and nobody is sure what you actually control.
Nobody can access Analytics or Search Console. Then recovering access becomes part of the project. Until that is resolved, we may be unable to use the historical performance data that would help us understand how the existing site is doing.
What we need before we can write
We do not want you to write paragraphs. We would honestly rather you did not.
We need your knowledge, in whatever form is easiest. Rough notes, voice messages, price sheets, product documentation, technical PDFs, old quotations, and the questions and objections customers raise every day.
And especially anything that starts with “customers always think X, but actually Y.” That sentence is excellent website material.
What we will ask:
- What do you sell, who buys it, and where?
- What does it cost, and what affects the price?
- What are the limitations, and what goes wrong?
- What do customers misunderstand, and what do they ask before buying?
- Why do some choose a competitor, and what do you refuse to do?
- Which service makes you money, and which do you want more of?
Then we can write.
We do not ask you to send finished website copy. We ask for the business knowledge, the documents and the answers we need, then we write it.
what is included in a website project
If your offer is not clearly defined yet
Knowing how to run the business is a different thing from having organised it into a clear offer.
A company says “we do sourcing.” The conversation then reveals that this actually covers several distinct services, with different buyers and different questions. That changes the site structure.
Part of our job is turning operational knowledge into something a stranger can understand in five seconds. Sometimes that discovery changes the whole shape of the website, and that is a good outcome rather than a problem.
The checklist
| Have ready | Notes |
|---|---|
| Business details | Legal name, address, phone, every contact method you use |
| Services | The full list, and which three you want more customers for |
| Prices | Real figures, or how pricing works, and whether they go public |
| Process | What happens from first contact to finished job |
| Photos | Full resolution originals. Premises, people, product, and the work itself |
| Logo | The original file if it exists |
| Access | Domain, hosting, Google Business, Analytics, Search Console |
| The address you want set up | |
| References | Three sites you like, three competitors, colours you want |
| Decisions | What you will and will not publish |
| One decision maker | One person with final approval |
That last row matters more than it looks. Conflicting approvals create rework and delay, which is why one person needs final sign off.
The honest version
You do not need all of this perfectly organised before calling a designer. Some of it will come out in the first conversation.
But the more business decisions you have already made, the less time you spend paying someone to wait for them.
