Getting started
Five things to have ready before anyone builds your site
Website projects rarely stall on design. They stall waiting for photographs, and for somebody to write three paragraphs about what the business does.
Gather these five things first and the build goes quickly. Gather them halfway through and it does not.
1. Your logo, in the original format
Not a screenshot, not a JPG pulled off Facebook. The original file — usually .ai, .eps, or .svg. If you cannot find it, ask whoever made it, today, while you still remember their name. If it does not exist, that is what the $250 logo work is for.
2. Photographs of real work
Twenty of them, more than you think you need. Your work, your building, your hands, your team. A decent phone in good light beats stock photography every time, because customers can tell the difference immediately. Shoot in the morning or the late afternoon, never at noon.
3. Words about what you do
You do not have to write them well. Write them badly, in a note on your phone: what you do, who for, what makes you different, what you will not do. Someone can shape rough honest material. Nobody can shape nothing.
4. The facts, verified
Hours. Service area. Phone number you actually answer. Email you actually read. Licence or insurance details if your trade requires them. Prices, if you are willing to publish them — and you usually should be.
5. Proof
Three or four things customers have said about you. Screenshots of texts count. A Google review counts. Ask permission and use their real first name and town, because "J.S., satisfied customer" reads as invented.
The one that is not on the list
You do not need to know what you want it to look like. That is the part I can help with, and the part people spend the most time worrying about. The materials are what actually decide the timeline.
If you want a structured way to pull this together, the project brief on my site walks through it question by question, and you can email it back before we talk.