If you’ve never had a website built, the process can feel like a black box. You pay a deposit, there’s a kickoff call, and then weeks go by before you see anything you can click.
It doesn’t need to be mysterious. Almost every good website project, whether it takes a week or a quarter, goes through the same seven steps in the same order. What changes between designers is how long each step takes and how much of the work lands on you.
This guide walks through each step, what should come out of it, what you’ll be asked to do, and the questions worth asking so you know a project is on track.
Step 1: The brief
Everything starts with understanding your business. A good designer wants to know who you serve, what those people search for, what makes you different from the firm down the road and what you want a visitor to do.
What comes out of it: a short written summary of your business, your audience and the one action the site should drive, such as booking a call or requesting a quote.
What you do: answer questions, either in a workshop or a written brief. A written brief is usually faster and gives you time to think, and ours takes about 15 minutes online.
Where it stalls: when the brief is a long meeting with no written outcome. If nobody writes down what was agreed, the same conversation happens again at the design stage.
Step 2: The sitemap and search plan
Next comes the structure of the site: which pages it needs, what each page is for and which search each one should be found for. For a service business, that usually means a page for each service rather than one long list, because Google can only send someone to a page that exists.
What comes out of it: a list of pages, each with a purpose and, ideally, a target search.
What you do: check that every service you want to sell has a home, and that nothing important is missing.
Where it stalls: when the sitemap keeps growing. Our guide to the seven pages every service business needs is a good place to start, and you can always add more once the site is live.
Step 3: The copy
This is the step that decides most projects. For a service business, the words do most of the selling, so the copy should be written before the design, not poured into it afterwards.
What comes out of it: the real text for every page, including headings, calls to action and page titles for search.
What you do: either write it yourself or review a draft. Reviewing a draft is much quicker. Writing from a blank page is the single most common reason a launch date slips.
Where it stalls: when you’re asked to write the copy “whenever you get a chance”. Ask who writes it before you sign, and if the answer is you, add a month to the timeline.
Step 4: The design
With real words in place, the designer works out layout, type, colour and imagery. The goal is a site that makes your copy easy to read and your business easy to trust, and that doesn’t look like every other site in your industry.
What comes out of it: a design for the key page types, such as the homepage, a service page and the contact page, ideally shown as a working page in a browser rather than a static image.
What you do: give feedback, which works best when it comes from one person who has gathered everyone else’s views first.
Where it stalls: feedback by committee. When several people review separately, comments arrive in waves and contradict each other, and each round can add a week.
Step 5: The build
The design becomes a real website. Pages are built to work on every screen size, forms are connected to your inbox or CRM, and anything that needs connecting, such as a booking system or a listings feed, is wired in.
What comes out of it: a working site on a preview link that you can click through on your phone and your laptop.
What you do: very little, apart from supplying logins for any tools the site connects to. Gather those early, because chasing a forgotten password can hold up a build for days.
Step 6: Testing and search setup
Before anything goes live, the site should be checked properly. That means speed, accessibility, forms, links and how it looks on different phones and browsers. It also means the search basics: page titles and descriptions, a sitemap, structured data and redirects from your old URLs so you don’t lose the rankings you already have.
What comes out of it: a site that’s fast and works for everyone, with measured results. Every site we build has to score 95 or above on Lighthouse, Google’s speed and quality test, before we hand it over.
What you do: test the site yourself and send any final changes together, in one list.
Where it stalls: when redirects are left until launch day. If your current site gets search traffic, read our guide to a redesign without losing Google rankings before you start.
Step 7: Launch and after
Your domain is pointed at the new site, redirects are checked on the live domain, the sitemap is submitted to Google Search Console, and analytics starts recording. Then the site needs looking after: hosting, security updates, backups and the changes you’ll want as your business moves.
What comes out of it: a live site, and a clear arrangement for who looks after it.
What you do: decide who makes changes after launch. Our guide to website maintenance for small businesses explains what that should cover and cost.
How long the whole process should take
Most agencies quote eight to twelve weeks for the seven steps, and plenty of projects run longer. Very little of that time is design or build. Most of it is waiting for copy, waiting for feedback and fitting meetings around two diaries. We explain where the weeks go in how long a website should take.
We run the same seven steps in a fixed week. You complete the brief before Day 1, we write the copy, you approve it on Day 3, and the finished site is live for review on Day 7. If it isn’t, your build is refunded in full. Here’s how the week works.
Questions to ask about any designer’s process
- Who writes the copy? If it’s you, the copy will set the timeline.
- Will I see the design with my real words in it? Placeholder text hides the problems you most need to see.
- How many rounds of changes are included, and when? A clear number keeps feedback focused.
- Who handles redirects and search setup? If nobody owns it, you can lose rankings at launch.
- What happens after launch? Know who hosts the site, who makes changes and what that costs before you sign.
Frequently asked questions
What are the main stages of the website design process?
Most projects follow seven steps: the brief, the sitemap and search plan, the copy, the design, the build, testing and search setup, and finally launch and ongoing care. Good designers do them in that order, with the copy written before the design.
Should the copy or the design come first?
The copy should come first. Designing around real words means feedback is about the real site, and it avoids a redesign once the actual content turns out to be longer or shorter than the placeholder.
How involved do I need to be in the process?
Plan for a few short check-ins rather than weeks of work. On our builds, you spend about 15 minutes on the online brief, about 15 minutes approving your copy on Day 3, and time reviewing the finished site on Day 7.
