Six Weeks Is About Right

When you ask a web designer how long a custom website will take, you usually get one of two answers. Either “it depends” (true but useless) or “two weeks” (probably a lie).

Six weeks is about right for a typical small business website. Sometimes less, sometimes more, but six is a number you can plan around.

What’s actually happening in those six weeks

Week 1: Discovery and content. We figure out who the site is for, what it needs to do, and what content exists. I send you a content brief and a list of things I need from you (logos, photos, testimonials, copy you already have).

Weeks 2 to 3: Design. I build out the homepage and one inner page first so we can lock in the visual direction. Once you sign off, the rest of the pages come together fast.

Weeks 3 to 5: Development. I build the actual site from the approved design. This is where most of the heads-down time goes. You don’t hear from me as much during this phase, which sometimes makes clients nervous. It’s normal.

Weeks 5 to 6: Review, revisions, and launch. You see the staging site, send feedback, I make changes, we go through final QA, and the site goes live.

What slows things down

The most common reason a six-week timeline slips to nine weeks isn’t development. It’s content.

If you don’t have your copy ready by the end of week one, week two design work has to use placeholder copy, which leads to design decisions that need to be revisited when the real copy lands. If your photos aren’t ready, the design stalls. If the person who has to sign off on the design is on vacation when sign-off is due, the project waits.

The fastest projects I’ve ever done were ones where the client had a clear content brief written before kickoff. The slowest were ones where copy and photos came in piece by piece over six weeks.

What’s not realistic

Two-week websites are usually template installs with content drops. Those exist, they’re called Squarespace, and the result is what it is.

Three-month websites are usually projects where the scope is bigger than “small business website.” E-commerce with thousands of products, custom integrations, multi-language sites. Those projects deserve a real timeline.

For a five-to-ten-page custom marketing site, plan on six weeks.

If your website project has dragged into month four and you’re not sure why, send me what you have. I’ll tell you honestly what’s going on.