How long does it take to build a business website?

How long does each route take?

The figures below are published industry estimates, linked to their sources, followed by our own process for comparison.

The spread is not about skill. A developer who can build a page in a day still quotes eight to twelve weeks for a standard business site, because the quote is for the whole project including the parts that wait on you.

Where do the weeks go?

Bluehost’s phase estimates for a professionally built site are a good map of the time: planning 2 to 5 days, design 5 to 15 days, content creation 7 to 20 days, development 10 to 30 days, testing 3 to 7 days (Bluehost). Arising Co’s generic model puts discovery at 1 to 2 weeks and design at 2 to 3 weeks before development starts (Arising Co).

Two things stand out in those numbers. Content creation is the longest single phase after development, and it is the one the client does. And the phases are sequential: design waits for discovery, development waits for design, and each hand-off is a meeting that has to be found in two calendars.

What actually stretches a timeline?

• Content. The words and the photos. If the designer is waiting for a paragraph about each service, the project is paused however fast the designer is. Deciding at the start who writes what removes the longest wait.
• Meetings. A kickoff, a design review, a content review, a pre-launch walkthrough. Each one is a week of calendar-hunting for thirty minutes of decisions that could have been written down.
• Revision rounds. Feedback arriving one comment at a time, over days, restarts the build with every message. Batched feedback, all the changes in one written list, is answered in one pass.

How do you get it down to ten days?

• Decide the top of the homepage first. Most of the argument in a website project is about the direction, and the direction is visible in the first screen. Settle the first fold before anything else is built and the rest follows it.
• Brief in writing. A questionnaire answered in an evening replaces the discovery phase. It also produces a record both sides can point to.
• Supply the words as notes, not prose. A list of services with one line each is enough for a writer to work from. Polished paragraphs from the owner take weeks and are usually rewritten anyway.
• Approve in batches. One list of changes per round, and as many rounds as it takes, beats a trickle.
• Measure instead of meeting. A performance score is a fact. A launch walkthrough is a meeting.

What does “about ten days” mean at Firstfold?

The first fold is designed and published at a private link within two business days of the form. If it is approved, a written brief replaces the kickoff, the site is built from the brief and the approved fold, and a preview goes out with a change-request form on every page. Revision rounds are unlimited and answered within a business day. The ten days assumes the brief comes back within a day or two and that changes are sent as lists; a client who needs three weeks to gather photos will take three weeks, and that is fine.

What it costs is in what a small business website costs, and how the process compares to the other three routes is in agency, freelancer, DIY or done-for-you.

Questions people ask

Can a professional website really be built in a week or two?

Yes, when the words and the decisions are ready before anyone starts. Template-based sites take one to three weeks by industry estimates, and a build that starts from an approved first fold and a written brief goes faster still, because nothing waits on a meeting. What cannot be compressed is a client who takes two weeks to answer an email.

Why do agencies take three months for a ten-page site?

Because the timeline is calendar time, not working time. Discovery, design, content, development, testing and launch run one after another, and each phase ends with an approval that has to be scheduled. One to two weeks of discovery plus two to three of design plus two to four of development adds up before a single revision round is counted.

What should I have ready before starting a website project?

Your logo and colours, a list of your services in your own words, your address and hours, photos, three sites you like and why, and the name of the one person who approves things. Content creation alone is estimated at 7 to 20 days when it is left to the project, and most of that is waiting on the client.

Does a faster build mean a worse website?

Not when the speed comes from process rather than shortcuts. A site built in ten days from a written brief, with every page measured against Google's performance test before it ships, is a better site than one built over four months of meetings that nobody measured at all. Ask for the score, not the timeline.