A lot goes in to the process of building a new website. Discovery, content migration, SEO set up, design, development, testing, training … on and on. And it can take longer than you’d like! A solid plan keeps us all on track, but it helps everyone to have realistic expectations before going in to the project. So, what are the variables?

Below is a transcription of the video for those who prefer to read rather than watch!

Okay, how long will it take to build your website? Right. I’m trying really hard not to say it depends. Okay.

So, a deceptively long time. I would say the actual development, the actual coding, even the designing, probably not very long, say six weeks. For both of those, what takes the time is organising the content, mapping all of your professionally copywritten content with the site map, making sure we have got content that converts people, whether they are donating, purchasing, enquiring, making sure that we have the right content to support those decisions along the way, making sure that we’ve undertaken a thorough discovery process at the beginning to ensure that we are building a website that solves the problems of your users, not just a website that’s a vanity project. Let’s make sure we’re solving real problems for people.

So those are the things that kind of take the time, even at the end of it.

Creating a video library for training, something that takes a good bit of time. The handover, the launch process. These are things that you want to get right and you don’t want to be rushing.

So if you’ve got an averagely sized website, an averagely sized project, give yourself three months minimum to work through it.

And if you can give more time, then do, don’t rush it. This is something that you want to be living with for the next five, six years maybe. So don’t rush the development. Give it the time it needs.

And it’s the old axiom. If you’re given a day to cut down a tree, spend the first six hours sharpening your ax, and that’s where the time goes. I don’t know how long it actually takes to cut down a tree. Depends on the size of the tree. Okay, I hope that helps.