Web Design
How long a website actually takes to build
Six weeks is the usual promise. Here is where the time really goes, and the one thing that causes almost every delay.
Nearly every website project overruns, and nearly always for the same reason. It is worth knowing what the reason is before you sign anything.
The realistic shape
- One-page site: 2–3 weeks.
- Five- to eight-page business site: 6–10 weeks.
- Site with a CMS, blog and several templates: 10–14 weeks.
- Shop: 12–20 weeks, more if products need photographing.
Where the time goes
- Discovery, 1–2 weeks. What the site must achieve, for whom, and what it must say.
- Content, 2–6 weeks. Almost always the longest phase and almost never scheduled as one.
- Design, 2–4 weeks. Including at least two rounds of feedback.
- Build, 2–5 weeks. Overlapping design if the process is sensible.
- Testing and launch, 1 week. Devices, forms, redirects, analytics, and the hundred small things.
The one thing that causes delay
Content. Not design revisions, not development. Text and images arriving late, arriving in pieces, or arriving as "can you just use the old copy". A design cannot be finished around content that does not exist, so everything downstream waits.
The projects that finish on time are the ones where the copy was written, or at least drafted, before design started. If your agency does not push for this, they are being polite rather than helpful.
The second cause: unclear approval
Feedback from four people with different opinions, gathered over three weeks, contradicting itself. Nominate one person who can say yes. Give them a deadline for each round. This alone typically saves a fortnight.
How to shorten it honestly
- Write the content first, even badly. Editing is fast; starting is slow.
- Reduce the page count. Eight good pages beat twenty thin ones.
- Book the photography in week one, not week eight.
- Agree the number of revision rounds up front so nobody feels shortchanged when they end.
What to be suspicious of
"Your site live in two weeks" almost always means a template with your logo dropped in. That is a legitimate product at a legitimate price — just know that is what you are buying.
Working on something like this?
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