Ask any agency what delays projects and the answer is content. The design is signed off, the build is finished, and then everything waits six weeks for the copy and the photographs.
The frustrating part is that content preparation is the one part of a website project a business can do entirely by itself, in advance, at no cost. This guide covers what to get ready and in what order.
- 1
Audit what you already have
List your existing pages and mark each one keep, rewrite or drop. Most sites carry a lot that nobody reads. Being ruthless here saves money, because migrating and rewriting content you did not need is work you paid for twice.
- 2
Write the page purposes before the words
For each page you are keeping or adding, write one sentence on what it should achieve and who it is for. Writing to a defined purpose is dramatically faster than staring at a blank page, and it stops pages sprawling into everything the business does.
- 3
Draft in plain text, not in a design
Use a document, not a page builder. Content written to fit a design gets shaped by the box it is in, and the box was chosen before anyone knew what the content was. Write what needs saying, then let the design accommodate it. Headings, subheadings, body text — that is enough structure.
- 4
Book the photography early
Original photography is the single biggest difference between a site that looks like your business and one that looks like a template. Book it as soon as the structure is agreed, because weather, availability and the state of a site or premises all conspire against short notice. Shoot more than you think you need.
- 5
Gather the assets nobody remembers until the end
Logo in vector format, brand fonts and colours, team names and job titles, certifications and accreditation logos, insurance details, company registration and VAT numbers, terms and conditions, privacy policy. These always take longer to find than anyone expects and they always hold up launch.
- 6
Collect testimonials while you are waiting
Ask recent clients for a few sentences, with their name, role and company. Named testimonials from real businesses carry far more weight than anonymous praise, and they take weeks to collect because people are busy. Start before you need them.
- 7
Get it proofread by someone outside the business
You cannot proofread your own copy, and neither can the person who helped you write it. Someone outside will catch the jargon you stopped noticing years ago. This is also the last cheap moment to fix things — changes after build cost considerably more.
How much writing is actually involved
For a typical small business site of ten to fifteen pages, expect two to four days of focused writing. Spread over a few weeks it is manageable. Left until the build is finished it becomes the bottleneck everyone is waiting on, usually at the least convenient moment.
If writing is not your strength
Say so at brief stage rather than discovering it later. Copywriting is a service most agencies offer, and it is far cheaper commissioned upfront than as an emergency halfway through. What nobody can do for you is supply the raw material — the facts, the numbers, the specifics of how you actually work.
Frequently asked questions
You can, and it almost always stays placeholder. Live sites stop getting attention once the launch pressure is off. It also means launching a site that does not do its job, which was the reason for building it.
Would rather we did it?
These guides are here so you can do it yourself. If you would rather hand it over, that is what we do.
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