The projects that go most smoothly almost always share one thing: the client arrived with a rough sense of what they wanted and the raw materials to hand. None of it needs to be polished — that's our job — but a little gathering up front saves time, keeps costs down, and makes the whole thing calmer. Here's what's worth having ready.
A sense of what you want it to do
Before design or content, the most useful question is: what should this website achieve? Bring in more enquiries? Show off your work? Save you answering the same questions on the phone all week? One or two clear goals shape every decision that follows, so it's worth a few quiet minutes' thought before anything else.
The words
Content is the part clients most often underestimate, so a head start here helps more than anything:
- A short description of your business — what you do, who for, and what makes you different.
- Your services, ideally each with a sentence or two.
- The basics customers always ask for — how to contact you, where you are, your hours, the area you cover.
It doesn't need to be well-written. Rough notes are plenty; shaping them into something that sounds like you is what we do.
The pictures
- Your logo, in the best quality you have — even a large original file beats a screenshot pulled off Facebook.
- Photos of your work, your team, your premises. Real photos of your business beat stock imagery every time.
- Anything with your brand on it — a business card, a sign, a colour you love — to anchor the look. (More on how we turn that into a design that's genuinely yours.)
The accounts
If you already have a domain name (your web address) or a business email, dig out where they're registered and who controls them. If you don't have them yet, no problem at all — we'll set them up in your name from the start, because owning it all outright matters.
Don't worry about getting it perfect
This is a checklist, not an exam. Whatever you can't find or aren't sure about, we'll work out together — bring what you have, and we'll fill the gaps between us. The point of preparing isn't to do our job for us; it's to make the build quicker, and the finished site more you.