What you need before your website can be built
Most projects don't slow down during the build, they slow down waiting for material. This list prevents that.
You need access to your domain, a few usable photos and your real opening hours and prices. I write the copy — you don't have to wait on that.
- Access to your domain
Or the information that there isn't one yet.
- Five to ten photos
Of your business and your work. A phone is fine.
- Your real opening hours
Including holiday arrangements.
- Your prices or price ranges
- The details for the imprint
Address, legal form, tax number.
- Access to the Google Business Profile
If one already exists.
The short list
That's all. Every item can be gathered in one afternoon:
- Access to your domain — or the information that there isn't one yet
- Five to ten photos of your business and your work
- Your real opening hours, including holiday arrangements
- Your prices, or at least price ranges
- The details for your legal notice
- Access to the Google Business Profile, if one already exists
Domain: the most common delay
A great many businesses don't know where their domain sits. Often a family member registered it years ago, or an agency that no longer exists.
Find out early. Whoever controls the domain controls your address online. If it's untraceable we buy a new one — unpleasant, but not a disaster.
Photos: five images are enough
You don't need a photographer. A current phone in daylight is entirely sufficient if the subjects are right:
- The outside, so people recognise you
- The interior, so they know what they're walking into
- Your work — the result, not the process
- You or your team. Faces work harder than anything else
- One detail that's only like that at your place
What only you know
I write the copy, but the substance comes from you: what do you do differently from the business two streets away? Which question do customers keep asking? What annoys you about your trade?
A conversation is enough for that. You don't have to write anything down — spoken, it usually comes out better.
Legal: small, but mandatory
For the legal notice I need your full address, your legal form, your tax number or VAT ID and, in some professions, the relevant chamber.
This isn't trimming. In Germany a missing legal notice can be formally warned off by competitors, with costs attached.
What you explicitly don't need
No finished copy. No design ideas. No technical knowledge. No colour preferences.
If someone sends you a ten-page list before starting, they're shifting their work onto you.
I don't have a domain yet — now what?
Then we buy one during the project. You decide whether it runs in your name or whether I hold it and run the hosting. It costs ten to twenty euros a year and takes minutes.
Do I have to write the copy myself?
No. I write it, you read it once. What I need is a conversation — only someone running the business knows the substance.
How long does it take once I have everything?
About ten days to launch. The most common delay isn't the building, it's waiting for feedback.
Between 300 and 3,000 € — and three things decide where you land.
For a first impression, yes. As your only home, no — and there are two solid reasons.
Written by Florenz Hardt, Berlin. If any of this stops being true, tell me — I keep these up to date.