Building and Designing a Website, how long does it take for a new website?
Short answer:
One week to do the actual development – maybe two depending on the size of the project.
Tip: Ignore all the Website in a Day or ChatGPT website in an hour inspired hype. Would you use AI or ChatGPT to draw up a legal contract? Or to write your will?
Longer answer:
Planning, Designing and Building a Website takes from 4 to 8 weeks on average. Initially, the chosen web design agency needs to ask loads of questions about you, your company, the services or products you offer, your target market, what problem do you solve and for whom. How will this website benefit you or your clients? Why exactly are you building it? What results do you expect for your website investment of time and money?
The web design agency has to determine if you need a website, at all what type of website do you need at this time, then write up a simple proposal with an estimate for you to consider. And that is IF they determine that they are a good fit for you and you are a good fit for them.
Then if you take them on, they will write up a very detailed Brief or plan for you to approve. This will be as good or as weak as the way you answer their initial questions. They will then draw a wireframe or sitemap or layout for you to approve. Then they move on to do a mockup custom graphic design or prototype for your approval, before they actually go to do any actual development. Again they wil ask for your likes and dislikes for the design. And they need to do your keyword research in advance. One step at a time…. Think of all this like a consultation with your doctor. Describe how you feel and your symptoms in detail. Do not attempt to tell the doctor what to do.
How Long Does It Take To Design And Build A New Website in 2024
We generally schedule a Development week within the 4 weeks from the date we get the final content. That is usually where any delays occur.
During all that time, you need to gather all your website content as in photos, videos and any written text, whilst the web design agency will be doing discovery for you. You might engage them, just to do the Discovery initially. They cannot or should not start any development whatsoever, until you have given them all the content you want in the website – text and photos for all planned pages. Plus the answers to your questions. That content is your responsibility to gather, unless you want to engage them to do that for you too, as an extra service, IF they offer it with competence. You know your business better than them or indeed anyone else.
Imagine the web design agency is the architect and then the builder, so they build the house based on the agreed architects plans or layout, but you have to bring the furniture, as in the content, photos, videos and text etc. The Graphic Designer on the team is like the interior designer, who can design your Home page and any other important pages that need design elements.
Once the website is built and all the content is added, then move on to testing, before actually doing the search engine optimisation, before going live and testing again. That SEO Search Engine Optimisation is critical, otherwise your new website will not get found by your target market. Do not get too caught up on design elements, you want a website that gets found, attracts the right clients and converts to an enquiry or sale – focus on this, not the aesthetics, unless you are an ‘artistic’ enterprise.
And there is more… See our short guide What to do before you build a website
