Website development
How to plan a business website before hiring a developer
A practical checklist for defining goals, pages, content, and technical requirements before you engage a development team.
Start with the outcome, not the design
Write down what the website must achieve: generate enquiries, sell products, explain a service, or provide customer access. Design decisions become much easier once the outcome is explicit.
List the pages and their purpose
Map each page to one job: homepage (orientation), service or product pages (explain and convert), pricing (set expectations), contact (reach you), and legal pages (terms, privacy, refunds). Pages without a purpose usually become maintenance liabilities.
Decide what content you can supply
Text, images, product data, and brand assets are usually the longest lead-time item. Prepare or commit to supplying them; this decision materially affects the timeline.
Define technical requirements early
Authentication, payments, dashboards, integrations, and email notifications change the required stack and budget. Identify which of these are genuinely necessary for your first release and which can wait.
Agree scope, deliverables, and handover
Before work begins, confirm the included pages and features, exclusions, milestones, testing steps, handover format, and maintenance arrangements. Clear scope prevents most disputes.