What to get ready before your website build.
Gather the essentials once, so your project can start with the right information.
The short version
Before a website build, prepare five things: your business details, the questions customers ask, original photographs, the logins you already hold and the one action you want a visitor to take. None of it needs to be polished. It needs to be accurate and in one place.
You do not need a folder full of polished copy to start a website. You do need a reliable set of facts about your business. A little preparation gives your designer something solid to work from, and it saves a fortnight of emails asking for opening hours.
Everything below can be gathered in an afternoon. Most of it lives in your head, your phone or your inbox already. The job is getting it into one place before the build starts, not after.
Gather the business basics.
The business basics are your name, address or service area, phone number, email and opening hours. Write them down once, exactly as you want them shown everywhere. The same spelling of the name, the same phone number, the same hours.
Accuracy matters more than it looks. Google’s help pages say that “businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local search results”. They ask for your hours too, including special hours (Google Business Profile Help, 2026). If your website and your Google Business Profile disagree, a customer does not know which to believe.
Include the changes customers get caught out by: seasonal hours, a late night, the week you always close in summer. A note like “closed Mondays in winter” saves a wasted journey.
Then list your main services or products. Plain names, the way a customer would say them. A rough order of importance helps, because the first two or three will get the most space on the page.
Write down the questions customers ask.
The questions customers ask on the phone are the best content your website can have. Every “do you cover my area?”, “how long does it take?” and “can I park outside?” is a question a visitor has too, and would rather not ring to ask.
Keep a list for a week. Jot each question down as it comes in, in the customer’s own words. Ten questions is plenty. Next to each one, write the answer you normally give.
That list becomes service descriptions, a frequently asked questions section and the wording on your contact page. It also helps when people ask ChatGPT or Gemini for a recommendation, because those tools quote pages that answer questions plainly. There is more on that in how to get named when someone asks an AI.
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Ask whoever answers the phone to keep the list with you. They will remember questions you have stopped noticing.
Choose your photographs.
Good website photographs show your premises, your team and the work you do. Real pictures of your own business do more than stock photography of someone else’s, because a customer is checking that you exist and look the way they expect.
Keep the original files where possible. A picture sent through a messaging app has usually been shrunk too far to print across a screen. Ask whoever took them to send the originals by email or a shared folder.
Sharp and well lit beats clever. Google’s guidance for Business Profile photos asks for images that are “in focus and well lit”, without heavy alterations or filters (Google Business Profile Help, 2026). The same test works for a website.
Check that you have permission to use every photo, especially where customers or other people can be recognised. A photo a customer sent you is theirs unless they say otherwise.
Decide the one action you want visitors to take.
Every small business website should be built around one main action: a call, a booking, a quote request, a visit or a message. Decide which one before the build starts, because it shapes the whole page.
A plumber usually wants the phone to ring. A salon wants a booking. A café wants people through the door, so the address and hours matter more than a form. Picking one does not mean hiding the others. It means one of them is always the biggest button.
If bookings are the answer, it helps to know now which booking system you use or want. The bookings guide covers what makes that step easy for a customer.
Find the logins you already have.
The logins that matter for a website build are your domain name, any existing website, your business email and your Google Business Profile. Find each one before work begins. A lost password can hold a finished site back for weeks.
- The domain name - who it is registered to, and the login for the company it was bought through.
- The current website, if there is one - the platform and the account owner.
- Email - where your business email is hosted, so changing the website does not break it.
- Your Google Business Profile - which Google account manages it.
- Any booking or payment system - the account, and who pays for it.
The domain is the one to check first. Under ICANN’s rules, the person named on the registration takes on “sole responsibility for the registration and use” of the domain (ICANN, 2013). If a former web designer registered it in their own name, it is theirs on paper. That is worth fixing now, while everyone is friendly.
Agree the scope.
Agreeing the scope means deciding which pages you need and what is included in the build. Ask who owns the finished work and how future edits are handled. A short written answer to each saves an argument later.
Keep domain registration, hosting and any third-party booking subscriptions visible in the discussion. Confirm responsibilities and ongoing costs before work begins.
If you have a logo, colours or fonts already, send them in their original files. If you do not, say so early. A website is often the first thing built from your identity, and it is easier to settle that once than to redo it later.
Start with accurate information. The design has something solid to build on.
Your pre-build checklist.
- Business name, address or area, phone, email and hours are written once, exactly as they should appear.
- Your main services are listed, most important first.
- The questions customers ask are written down, with your usual answers.
- The original photo files are ready, and you have permission to use them.
- You have picked the one action a visitor should take.
- Logins for the domain, email, current site and Business Profile are found.
- Scope, ownership and ongoing costs are understood.
0 of 7 checked
Once the site is live, the homepage check is a quick way to test whether all of this made it onto the page.
A few common questions.
I do not have any good photographs. Is that a problem?
It is worth solving rather than working around. A phone camera in daylight, on a tidy day, will do more for the site than stock photography of someone else’s shop. Say so early and it can be planned into the build.
Who should own the domain name?
You should, registered in your business name, whoever sets it up. Under ICANN’s rules for registrants, whoever is named on the registration takes sole responsibility for it. Ask for the login. It is the one part of a website that is genuinely difficult to recover later.
Do I need to write the website text myself?
No, but you need to supply the facts. Your services, your area, your hours and the questions customers ask are things only you know. A designer or writer can turn those into pages. They cannot invent them accurately.
How long does it take to get ready?
An afternoon for most of it, plus a week of noting down the questions customers ask. The slow part is usually finding old logins, so start with those.
