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Writing // Article

Writing // No. 05

How long does it take to build a small business website?

// By  // 4 min read

A simple website for a small business can be live in a week or two, once the words and photos are ready. A bigger site with booking, a shop or lots of pages takes longer. In my experience the building is rarely what holds it up. Waiting is: for the words, the photos, a decision or a login. Below is where the time goes, and what you can do to get yours live sooner.

Timeline

A rough guide

Every project is different, so treat these as a guide, not a promise:

  • SimpleDays, not weeks

    One page. What you do, where you work, how to reach you. The build itself is days, not weeks, once the content is ready.

  • StandardA few weeks

    A small site of four or five pages. Often a few weeks from start to going live.

  • LargerLonger

    Anything with online booking, payments or a shop. Longer, because each of those needs setting up and testing with test orders and payments.

If someone quotes you months for a one-page site, ask what the time is for. If someone promises a full site by tomorrow, ask whose words and photos will be on it.

Reality check

Where the time goes

  • The words. In my experience most delays start here. Writing about your own business is harder than it sounds, so it slips down the to-do list.
  • Photos. Real photos of your work, your van or your premises make a site feel like yours. Gathering them usually takes longer than people expect.
  • Decisions. Colours, which services to lead with, what to call things. Each round of "let me think about it" adds days.
  • Logins. Your domain, your email, your Google Business Profile. If nobody can remember who set them up, finding out can easily take a week.
  • Other people's systems. Booking tools, payment providers and anything that needs an account in your name all add their own wait.

How to

How to get your site live sooner

  1. Write down what you do in plain words. A list of your services in the order you want to sell them is enough to start. It does not need to be polished.
  2. Collect a handful of real photos. Five good phone photos of finished work beat fifty you never send.
  3. Pick one person to make the decisions. Feedback from three people pulling in different directions slows a project more than almost anything else.
  4. Sort out your domain early. Buy it in your own name, and find the login before you need it. That way it stays yours, whoever builds the site.
  5. Agree what "done" means. Launch with what you need now and add the rest later. A site that is live and good enough is doing its job.

The preview

Seeing it early cuts the back-and-forth

A slow stretch in many projects is the back-and-forth over something nobody can see yet. Describing a website in an email is hard. Reacting to one on your phone is easy.

That is why I offer a free one-page preview first, built from what you tell me about your business. There is nothing to sign and you do not have to buy anything. You see what your site could look like before you decide, and the changes you want are obvious straight away. It suits most trades and local services; shops and booking sites are quoted separately.

No obligation // Nothing to sign

Questions

Common questions

  1. Can a website be done in a day?

    A template can be filled in a day. Whether it says the right things about your business is another matter.

  2. Why do some agencies take months?

    Bigger teams add meetings and sign-off stages, and bigger sites have more pages to build. For a large organisation that can be right. A sole trader who needs customers to find a phone number rarely needs that.

  3. What happens after it goes live?

    A website is never finished: prices change, services grow, photos get better. On my website plan, changes to text, prices, photos and opening hours are covered by the monthly fee, so going live first and improving as you go does not cost extra. New pages or features are quoted separately. If you are still weighing up costs, what a small business website costs covers the market, and does a small business need a website? covers whether you need one at all.