A common question we get asked when doing up a website quote is:
How long will it take to launch my website?
It is difficult to provide an accurate timeline without first scoping out the project and then scheduling it into our schedule. However, we can provide ballpark timeline estimates based on the average time it takes to complete a similar sized project. Here’s our generic answer:
- A smaller website can take about two months to launch.
- Larger and complex websites can take between 3-6 months from start to launch.
As we’ve finally systemized the entire process, we are more organized and hence getting faster at launching. Heck, our last launch launched early! That’s pretty much unheard of 🤩!
At the same time, when calling around for a quote, you might hear companies say, “I can launch your website in less than two weeks.” And we would agree—if you have literally everything completely written and prepared prior to starting the project, the website design and build could take less than 2 weeks. Unfortunately, this slim timeline ignores most of the web design process and is therefore just chiming in to what a client wants to hear before they send the deposit.
Your website will be done in two weeks, with most of it magically creating itself. Yeah right!
Fortunately, there are lots of things you can do to speed up your website launch; here are a couple of the most effective ideas.
Speed Up Your Website Launch
The biggest impact you can make is to prepare website content in advance and have things ready to go to hand over to the web designer at the start of the project.
- Write and edit your website text content in advance of project start.
- Complete any professional (or amateur) photoshoots in advance of project start.
- Blog? Have at least 6 blog articles ready to populate your blog to start.
- Job Board? Create a couple standard job posting templates. Plan to keep them posted on your job board all of the time and add time-sensitive ones as needed.
Another thing you can do is go through our Website Design Checklist and ensure you have everything you need, or at least will be educated about everything you need when you are speaking to web designers.
Biggest Launch Delays
Writing your content is hands down the biggest web design delay.
There’s two camps:
- The website copywriting (text) drives the design, or
- The website design drives the copywriting.
We believe it is a combination and balance of both that will produce a successful website. This means that you can get a head start by writing your content in advance of the web project starting, but that the design will dictate some modifications.
Editing the content is the second biggest website launch delay.
Editing content back and forth when it’s already in the website can be a huge pain in the butt. It’s important to get as much editing as possible completed BEFORE the content is populated into the website.
Web Project Team Changes
I was recently working on a project where both the agency and the client had mid-project team member changes. This derailed the project and added months to the timeline.
- On the agency side, a new person was thrown into the project manager role and it was difficult for the new PM to get a handle on the project.
- On the client side, a new person was assigned to be in charge of content and threw out ALL of the old content and replaced it.
This emphasizes the importance of starting and finishing your website project quickly; avoiding this type of disruption and facilitating continuity of the project vision.
The Best Plan Is...
The best way to prepare for a website design project is to plan out and create as much of the content that you know you will need in advance of starting the project. As an added benefit, you will have a better idea of how big your website project will be for quoting purposes.
The rest of it may be a Running With Wolves type of exercise. But if you work with a skilled design team, they can keep the project moving as smoothly as possible for you.
