In addition to the pricing, the most frequent query we receive from potential clients is, "How long does it take to develop a website?"
It might be challenging to estimate a schedule for website construction, more so if the project hasn't been properly defined yet. In truth, with many inquiries, we frequently don't get a solid brief, which makes it quite challenging to give a deadline.
Sending a well-written brief to your web agency is the first step in assisting them with estimating the development schedule. The brief should specify the size and functionality of the site that you want.
Let's look at the factors you should take into account while preparing your brief for your web agency. The time it takes to create a website will be impacted by all of these factors.
Great branding is the foundation of any website, even though it is not regarded to be part of the website project itself. Without it, you'll find it difficult to establish long-lasting relationships with your customers and effectively convey the calibre of your goods or services.
For new firms and entrepreneurs, branding is especially crucial. Without strong branding, it will be difficult for you to compete with established companies in your industry.
The website's design must be directly influenced by the brand itself. Every piece of marketing content, whether it be online or offline, must have a consistent look and message.
Consequently, before deciding what your new website should be, make sure you have a fantastic brand in place that will serve as a solid basis for your company.
We typically give ourselves somewhere between 2 and 4 weeks to develop a new brand identity, depending on the requirements.
An agency should be aware of the whole scope of the project before even opening Photoshop or CMS Development tools to develop some gorgeous websites.
Before beginning any website design work, Markup Solution always goes through a planning phase. We can create a complete site plan at this point in the project, which enables us to determine the different page templates that we need to create.
The planning stage is also used to describe the features that the website must offer to administrators and end users. Systems connectors, such linking to a CRM, and possibly SEO will be added to this.
Depending on how complex the website is, we typically give ourselves anything from one day to two weeks for preparation.
Consider the time invested during the planning phase as an investment. The time needed for each succeeding stage should be kept to a minimum once the website's requirements have been clearly defined.
In our prior article, we discussed how the quantity of page templates needed will directly affect price. The cost will increase when an agency creates and builds more templates.
The time factor might be considered along the same lines. Building a website with four page layouts will take much less time than one with ten templates because each page template requires time to design and develop.
We constantly advise our clients to use the fewest possible templates. This enables us to achieve more stringent timelines while lowering expenditures.
We offer suggestions on how to reuse templates for other pages and assist our clients in defining the templates that are required.
It is frequently forgotten that both the client and the agency require time to evaluate the website's development.
The customer will have the chance to inspect each page template and make adjustments during the website creation phase. Up to two rounds of modifications are typically accepted.
The client should also assess the website's build, both the front-end and back-end. This is your chance to check that the website's appearance in a web browser and your comfort level with the CMS are both satisfactory.
Small websites for businesses with just one or two users might just require 24-48 hours of review time for each stage. However, larger organisations with a high number of board members can easily take up to a week to review at each level.
Our recommendation is to guarantee that all crucial team members are present during these review rounds. By doing this, it will be possible to minimise the need for unneeded revisions, which could result in delays and extra expenditures once the site is ready to go live or even beyond.
System integrations were described previously in the section on website planning. An agency should be defining the systems that the website needs to link with during the design stages and predicting the time it will take to complete those integrations based on thorough research.
The agency may need to give more time for system integrations during the development stage if the initial specification changes at any point during the project.
The organisation must evaluate each system after it has been integrated. The customer should be involved in this process and should keep track of how data is handled and sent to their CRM or other administrative tools.
The importance of entering material is never to be understated as a client-related duty.
It's a widespread misconception that the web agency will supply all of the content for any website they develop, but this is frequently not the case.
While the website is being built, a web agency will add some content, concentrating on pages like the home, about us, and contact. The customer, however, would need to add more pages, such as product listings.
The proverb "time is money" is the straightforward explanation behind this.
The majority of agencies will be pleased to provide an estimate for adding material, but prices might rise quickly if dozens or even hundreds of pages are needed.
In plain English, if a website has 100 products and it takes up to 15 minutes each product page to add content (text, photos, and metadata), a web agency will probably need to anticipate 25 hours to complete the website's content.
In order for clients to effectively assess site progress, we always populate at least one sample of each type of page. After interacting with us in a CMS, they have a lot better idea of how to populate the website.
Any reputable web design company will take every step possible to assist their client with website content. They may carry it out by:
Providing CMS access as soon as possible and a tutorial for that platform, content migration from an outdated website, provided the content is in a transferrable format.
When switching from one well-established platform to another, it is frequently possible to migrate blog content and product databases. Or even better, from one website to another that uses the same platform, like WordPress, and is being developed.
We frequently transfer product content from platforms like Etsy to Shopify as part of our expertise in WordPress websites.
Depending on the size of the database and the type of content that needs to be migrated, the time required for content migration can range from one day to several days.
The steps a web agency like Markup Solution might use to estimate a website building timeline have hopefully been outlined in this post.
Branding involves developing a logo, colour scheme, and voice.
Site map, wireframes for each template, and a thorough technical specification comprise website planning.
The total amount of pages used in design and development.
Reviews of website design and development - Permitting up to two review cycles for each phase.
Integration of several systems, such as Google Analytics, Tag Manager, CRM, payment systems, etc.
Content input, including all text, graphics, and metadata.
An accurate brief is the best source of information for a professional web agency, which will always make every effort to offer an accurate estimate of both cost and timing.
So, the size and scope of the brief determine the answer to the question "How long does it take to develop a website?"
If an agency wants to go into more information about specific components, don't be shocked. It's a good indicator if this occurs. It just means they need more information to provide the most accurate cost and timing estimates for the website.
Every week, we create quotes for a variety of websites, and no two are ever the same.
Please feel free to fill out our quote form if you have a website project in mind and would want us to provide an estimate. We will respond to you as soon as possible.
