Plan your website before you hire anyone

The owners who get the best websites, fastest, aren't the ones with the biggest budgets. They're the ones who show up prepared: they know what the site is for, they've gathered their words and photos, and they know where their domain name lives. None of this takes technical skill. Give it an afternoon and a folder on your computer, and you'll save weeks and avoid the most expensive mistakes. This guide walks through everything to decide and collect, in order.

1. Decide the one job your site has to do

Every good small-business website has one main job. Pick yours:

Get people to call you.
Get people to book an appointment.
Get people to request a quote.
Get people to visit your shop or office.
Get people to buy, sign up, or donate.

Finish this sentence and keep it where you'll see it: "When someone finishes reading my site, I want them to ___." Every page should lead there, and every decision gets easier once you know what you're aiming at. It's fine to have second goals, like answering common questions so the phone rings less, as long as they don't get in the way of the first.

2. Know who it's for

Picture your best customer, the kind you'd love more of, and write down:

Who they are, and what problem brings them to you.
The words they'd type into Google to find someone like you. Their words, not industry terms.
What worries them before they buy: price, trust, timing, hassle.
The three questions they ask most before hiring you.

Those questions become your FAQ, the worries become the proof you show (reviews, photos of your work, your licensing or insurance), and the search words become your page titles. Also assume they're on a phone: most small-business visitors are, often while they're out and about or in a hurry.

3. Map your pages

Most small-business sites are built from the same core pages:

Home: who you are, what you do, where, and the main thing to do next.
Services: an overview, plus a page of its own for each main service you want to be found for.
About: your story, your people, and why customers can trust you.
Contact: every way to reach you, with your hours and area.

Then add what your customers need:

Pricing, even if it's "most projects fall between X and Y". People want a range before they call.
Reviews or testimonials.
A gallery or portfolio, if your work is visual.
FAQ.
Service areas or locations, if you serve several towns or have more than one location.
A blog or news page, only if you'll actually keep it up.

One page, one topic. A single "Services" page listing eight services is much weaker in search than eight pages that each explain one service properly. Here's what a plumber's site map might look like:

Home
Services
- Emergency plumbing
- Water heaters
- Drain cleaning
- Bathroom remodels
Service areas
About
Reviews
Contact

Count your pages when you're done; it's the first thing that decides the size and price of the project.

4. Write, or at least outline, the words

Words are the slowest part of almost every website project. Designers can't design a page well without knowing what goes on it. Even rough notes help. Here's what each core page needs.

Home

A headline that says what you do and where. "Licensed electricians serving Springfield since 2009" beats "Welcome to our website".
A sentence or two on why customers choose you.
Your main services, each linking to its own page.
Proof: a few short reviews, years in business, licenses, a photo of real work.
The one thing to do next, as a clear button.

Each service page

What the service is, in plain language.
Who it's for, and the problems it solves.
What's included, and what isn't.
Price, a starting price, or what the price depends on.
How it works, step by step, from the first call to the finished job.
Common questions about this service.
The next step.

About

How you started and why you do this work.
The people customers will deal with, with photos.
Licenses, insurance, certifications, and memberships that matter to customers.

Contact

Phone, email, and a short form.
Hours, and your address or the area you serve.
What happens after someone gets in touch, and how quickly you reply.

Tips that make any page better

Write like you talk. Read it out loud; if you wouldn't say it to a customer, change it.
Be specific. "Most repairs done the same day" beats "fast, reliable service".
Keep paragraphs short, and use headings people can skim.
Use your customers' words from section 2, especially in headings.

If writing isn't your thing, it's one of the most common jobs to hand off. I write pages for $49 each; see copywriting and brand kits.

5. Gather your photos and logo

Photos

Real photos of your work and your people beat stock photos almost every time. Customers can tell the difference, and they're deciding whether to trust you. Make a shot list:

You and your team, working and not posed stiffly.
Finished work, and before-and-after pairs if your work suits them.
Your shop, office, vehicle, or tools.
The outside of your building, if customers visit.

A recent phone takes perfectly good website photos if you shoot in daylight, wipe the lens, hold the phone horizontally for wide images, and take several of each shot. Send the original files, not screenshots or pictures saved from social media, which are shrunk and lose quality.

Only use photos you took or have permission to use. Images found on Google almost always belong to someone, and using them without a license can lead to a demand letter asking for payment.

Logo and colors

Find the original logo files from whoever designed it. The most useful are vector files (often ending in .svg, .eps, or .pdf), which stay sharp at any size, plus a PNG with a transparent background. A logo copied off your old website or Facebook page is usually too small and blurry. If you have brand colors, note their codes (they look like #1F4E79). If you have no logo yet, a simple brand kit covers a logo, colors, and fonts.

6. Your domain name

Your domain name (yourbusiness.com) is your address on the web and the end of your email address. It's the one piece of your online presence you must control yourself.

If you don't have one yet

Keep it short, easy to spell, and easy to say out loud. Picture reading it to someone over the phone.
Choose .com if you can get it; it's the one people assume.
Avoid hyphens and numbers, which people forget or mistype.
Make sure it isn't another company's name or trademark.

Who owns it: the most important part

Register it in your name, in your own account, with your email address. Not your web designer's, not an employee's.
Turn on auto-renew, with a card that won't expire soon. When a domain lapses, the website and email stop working, and a lapsed domain can be bought by someone else.
Keep the login in a password manager, and switch on two-step verification.
Keep privacy protection on, so your personal details aren't published. Most registrars include it.

If you already have one

Find out where it's registered and whose name it's in. ICANN's lookup tool (search "ICANN lookup") shows the registrar and the expiration date. If it's in a former designer's or employee's account, move it into yours now, while everyone's still on good terms. It gets much harder later.

7. DNS, in plain English

You don't need to become technical, but knowing four words will save you from the most common website disaster.

Registrar: the company you pay for the domain name each year.
DNS: the settings that tell the internet where things for your domain live. Think of it as an address book. One entry says where your website is; others say where your email should be delivered and prove to other mail servers that email from your domain is really from you.
DNS host: the company whose address book is in charge. Often the registrar, but not always.
Web host and email provider: where your website runs and where your mailboxes live.

Those can be four different companies. Your domain might be registered at one company, your DNS managed at a second, your website hosted by a third, and your email with a fourth. That's normal, but it means every one of them matters.

The disaster: someone moves the DNS to a new company, or changes it to point at a new website, and doesn't bring the email entries along. The website works, and email quietly stops arriving. Days of lost messages later, someone notices.

The rule that prevents it: before anyone changes your DNS, save a copy of every entry that's there, usually a screenshot or an export from the DNS host. Anyone changing it should carry the email entries over, then send a test message to and from your business address right after. DNS changes can also take from a few minutes to several hours to reach everyone, so make changes when a short delay won't hurt.

8. Business email

An address at your own domain (you@yourbusiness.com) looks more established than a free email address, and it stays with the business if people come and go. A few things to know:

Mailboxes come from an email provider, such as Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, which usually bills per person each month.
Setting it up means adding the provider's entries to your DNS: the ones that deliver mail to you, and the ones that prove your email is really from you (you'll see them called SPF, DKIM, and DMARC). Without the second set, your messages are more likely to land in customers' spam folders.
Decide which inbox your website's contact form should send to, and make sure someone reads it daily.

If you'd rather not fiddle with it, business email setup is a $49 add-on. Your provider still bills the mailbox directly.

9. Features: now, or later?

Every small-business site should have:

A contact form that reaches your inbox.
A phone number people can tap to call.
Directions or a map, if customers visit.
A design that works well on phones.

Then there are the tools that can save you real time: online booking, quotes and invoices, card payments, a client portal, a newsletter signup, a blog. For each one, ask: will it save me time or bring in customers this year? If yes, include it. If you're not sure, leave it for later. A good site can add tools as you grow. See business tools for what's possible.

10. The less exciting basics

A privacy policy. If your site collects anything (a contact form, a newsletter signup, analytics), you need a privacy policy that describes what you collect and why. Don't copy another business's; it won't describe what yours does.
Terms, if you sell online or take bookings or deposits.
Accessibility. Your site should work for people who use screen readers, keyboard navigation, or larger text. That means describing images for people who can't see them, using enough color contrast, and writing links that make sense on their own. It's the right thing to do, and it reduces legal risk.

This isn't legal advice. If your business is regulated (health care, finance, legal, anything involving children), ask your attorney what your site needs.

11. Budget for the whole year, not just the launch

The quote for building a site is only part of the cost. Before you compare offers, add up everything for the first twelve months.

One-time costs

Design, build, and setup.
Writing, if you're not doing it yourself.
A logo or brand kit.
Photography, if you're hiring a photographer.

Ongoing costs

Hosting.
Domain renewal, every year.
Email, usually per mailbox, per month.
Updates, security, and backups. Somebody has to do them.
Changes after launch, and what they cost.
Subscriptions for any tools (booking, invoicing, newsletter).
Card processing fees, if you take payments.

A low build price with expensive or unclear upkeep often costs more over a year than a clear monthly plan. As an example, here's the first year of my Starter plan, which includes hosting, SSL, backups, and updates:

Monthly, setup paid up front: $399 setup plus $19 a month, $627 for the first year.
Monthly, $0 down: $19 a month plus $34 a month toward setup for the first 12 months, $636 for the first year.
Yearly: $399 setup plus $190 for the year, $589 for the first year.

Your domain and any email mailboxes are billed separately by those providers. Whoever you choose, ask for the same kind of first-year total, so you're comparing like with like.

12. Timeline, and who decides

Content is usually the bottleneck, not design or building. Set your launch date around when your words and photos will be ready, not the other way around.
Choose one decision-maker. Feedback from a committee takes longer and tends to water everything down. Gather opinions, then have one person approve.
Plan around your busy season. Launching in your slowest month gives you time to review properly and fix small things before customers pour in.

13. Questions to ask any web designer before you sign

Whose name will the domain be registered in, and who controls the account?
Who owns the design, the words, and the photos once it's paid for?
If I leave, what do I get to take with me, and is there a cost?
What exactly is included each month, and what costs extra?
How often is the site backed up, and have you ever actually restored one?
Who applies security updates, and how often?
Can I make my own edits? What can I change without calling you?
How quickly do you reply when something's wrong?
What will this cost in year two, after any setup is paid off?
Who handles my DNS and email settings, and will you save a copy before changing anything?

A good answer to every one of these is short and specific. Vague answers about ownership or leaving are a warning sign. My own answers are on the hosting and care page.

Your planning checklist

The one job the site has to do, in one sentence.
A description of your best customer, their search words, and their top three questions.
Your page list, with one page per main service.
Words or notes for each page, following the outlines above.
Real photos, as original files, plus your logo files and brand colors.
Your domain: registered in your name, auto-renewing, login saved.
A saved copy of your current DNS entries, if you have a domain already.
Your business email plan: provider, mailboxes, and which inbox gets form messages.
Features you need now, and a list for later.
A privacy policy plan, and a note to check with your attorney if you're regulated.
A first-year budget covering everything, not just the build.
A realistic launch date, and one person who approves.

When you're ready

Bring whatever you have. Nobody arrives with every box ticked, and part of my job is helping you fill the gaps. When we work together, I send you an online website brief that walks through these same questions, saves as you go, and shows an estimate before you commit to anything.