Why does preparation decide how smoothly the work goes?

The scope and the timeline are agreed on the first call, and the second step of the process is about material: you send texts, photos and a logo, and I help put them in order. If those arrive late or change halfway, the site waits, however fast the code is written. Most of what follows is not technical. It is the information only the owner of the business has.

Which decisions about the business should come first?

Before any page is planned, answer four questions in a few lines each.

  • Which services do you want customers to find, and which of them deserve a page of their own? A service with its own page can have its own wording and its own way to reach you.
  • Who is the customer, and what do they ask before they call? Write down the five questions you answer most often.
  • Where do you work? A local service needs a clear list of places, and the list must be true.
  • What is the one action you want a visitor to take: write, call, book or request a quote?

The Fedenko brief shows how much these answers shape the build. The Swiss company has two services, cleaning and interior renovation, and asked for each to have its own page and its own enquiry path. That decision was made before design started, and everything else followed from it. Read it in the Fedenko case.

Which facts do you need to confirm?

A business site is a set of statements, and every statement needs an owner who can stand behind it. Prepare the exact company name, the address if it is shown, opening hours, the languages you serve, the list of places you cover, the services with a plain description of what each includes, and the ways to reach you.

Fedenko is a good example of discipline here. Its brief asked for only client-confirmed facts on the pages, with no invented reviews or statistics, and its service-area section is built from the client's confirmed list of municipalities. A district that is not on the list does not appear on the site. Reviews are the same: show them only if they come from real customers who agreed. The testimonial carousel on Ann's Decor shows reviews from the client's own customers.

What can you collect from your own messages and calls?

You already hold the best research material for the site: the messages and calls from your recent customers. Open your inbox, your messenger and your call notes, and go through the last customer conversations. The questions that come up again and again belong on the pages. The ones that cost you the most time to answer belong in a short FAQ. The words customers use for your service are the words the page should use as well, even if you would describe the work differently yourself.

Add two or three websites you like and two or three you do not, with one sentence about why. That is far more useful than “make it modern”, because it shows your taste and your customers' habits in concrete terms and gives the first call something specific to discuss.

What do photos and a logo need to look like?

Send originals, not screenshots or images saved from messengers. A logo is most useful as a vector file or a large image on a plain background. For photos, the rule is simple: they should show your real work, premises or team, and you should have the right to publish them, including the consent of anyone recognisable in them.

For some businesses the photos are the content. Ann's Decor is an event decor and floristry company that had no website before. Its first site needed to put finished work first and let visitors filter the gallery by category, so the useful preparation was sorting finished work into categories before the build. See the Ann's Decor case.

Who writes the texts, and what should they answer?

You know your services best, so the facts should come from you. I help arrange them into a clear structure on each page. Whoever writes, a service page should answer the same short list: what is it, who is it for, what is included, what is not included, what happens after the first message.

If the site will have two languages, decide now who provides the second one. Each language is a real set of pages, not a button, so the second set needs texts that read naturally for that audience. A third language is quoted separately.

What if some of the material does not exist yet?

It is common. A company that has never had a site rarely has an organised photo library, a finished logo or written descriptions of each service, and that is fine. Say so on the first call. The scope then includes the missing pieces, or we agree on an order: structure first, then the texts you can write quickly, then the photos you still need to take. What does not work is to start the build and hope the material appears. A missing item that is discovered halfway is a common reason a site slips.

Tell me early which pieces depend on other people, such as a photographer, a translator or an accountant who has to confirm a detail. Their schedule becomes part of the plan.

How should customers contact you?

Choose the route your customers already use: a form, WhatsApp, a phone number, e-mail, or a combination. Then decide who receives each enquiry and who replies. On Fedenko, the forms collect only the details a quote needs, which are the type of service, the kind of property, the date and the contact details, and an enquiry can end in a prepared WhatsApp message. The client also decided against a price calculator and a budget field, and the forms follow that decision.

What does a business website owe visitors about their data?

As soon as a form collects a name and a phone number, you handle personal data. The European Commission's page on what information must be given to individuals whose data is collected lists the essentials: who you are, why you use the data, the legal basis, how long you keep it, who receives it, the person's rights and the right to complain to a supervisory authority, all in clear and plain language.

For Switzerland, the Swiss SME portal's page Business site and data protection recommends a data protection declaration in an easily accessible part of the website and notes that the revised federal law has applied since 1 September 2023. This is not legal advice. What I need from you is the factual input for the notice: the legal name of the business, a contact address for data questions, what the forms collect and which tools receive the data. Fedenko has legal pages and a cookie banner for this reason, and analytics loads only after the visitor accepts.

Which accounts should exist before the build?

Decide where the domain will be registered and which hosting will be used, and make sure both accounts are in your name, because domain, hosting, code and every access belong to you. The reasons and the checks are in a separate article, how not to lose your website. If you already have a domain, find out who the registrant is before the first call.

Who approves what, and when?

Name one person who can say yes. A site approved by three people with three opinions stalls at the review step. Agree the stages too. On Fedenko, the client approved a design system before the build started. On Oskar, the client approved the mockup of the five main pages first, and the sixth page, Promotions, is reviewed separately. Approving in stages keeps a late change from touching everything at once.

The checklist in one place

  • A list of services, with the ones that get their own page marked.
  • The five questions customers ask most often, with your answers.
  • Confirmed company facts: legal name, contacts, hours, places you serve.
  • Logo and original photos that you have the right to publish.
  • Texts or a decision on who writes them, in every language.
  • The contact route and the name of the person who answers enquiries.
  • Facts for the privacy notice.
  • Domain and hosting accounts in your name.
  • One person who approves, and the stages of approval.