Your web presence matters to your customers. It may not seem like a marketing tool that factors into the equation in a world where social media is almost everything. Still, the simple reality is that thousands of potential customers may find your website every single day, and when they do, it should look amazing.
Not sure your site measures up? Thinking about reloading? Thinking about building one for the first time? It may be time to take that step, but the time involved is often a frightening prospect for most people. How many hours does it take to design a good website if you’re working with a professional? How long does it take to build a website in WordPress if you’d rather handle things yourself?
This guide can help you better understand the timelines you’re looking at.
How Many Hours Does It Take to Design a Good Website?
If you’re considering working with a professional company to design your site, you can expect the entire process to take at least two months. Why does it take so long? Here’s a quick overview of what happens when you work with a professional design team.
- Building Purpose: At least the first week that you’re talking to your new team will be spent in goal setting. Every marketing tool you employ should have a clear goal, and that’s as true for your website as it is for anything else. You’ll work with your team to help them understand what you want customers to do when they land on your site.
- Making Deliverables Clear: The next step could take up to two weeks, and it involves making what you want your site to do and look very clear to your team. It may also involve simplifying the timeline a bit so that everyone onboard knows what to expect and when.
- A Closer Look at the Possibilities: At this stage of the game, your design team should have some mockups for you to consider and maybe even some example page drafts to help nail down exactly what you want the final copy to look like.
- The Development Process: Once everyone knows what you want and what it should look like, your site goes into development. This is the longest piece of the puzzle, typically taking up to two months. With great development teams, you’ll be kept in the loop throughout the process so you know what’s happening at each stage of the game.
- Reviewing the Product: The last step is simply reviewing the work they’ve done for you, which can take a couple of weeks. You’ll want to walk through all of it to make sure it accurately reflects your brand.
How Long Does It Take to Build a Website In WordPress On My Own?
If you’re not quite sure you want to take the leap and work with a design team, you may be considering using an open-source site builder like WordPress to help you build a site that looks great, is functional, and can help you attract more users. There’s no harm in doing that, but remember that the process is not significantly shorter.
Remember that you still need great content, imagery, and functionality. You still need to define what you want each site page to do. You still need to optimize it for both people and search engines. More than that, though, you still need to spend time running your company while you’re working on the site. The process only takes as long as the amount of time you want to put into it, but obviously, the longer you put into it, the better your overall site will look.
In most cases, you’ll want to put at least a month into understanding what your customers want, visual design basics, and content building to help make certain that you’ve covered everything on your site that you should have for the most marketing power. After all, you want this to be an effective marketing tool, given the time and effort you’ve already put in, right?
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How many hours does it take to design a good website when you work with us? We can help you get started now. Whether you’re looking to learn the answer to questions like how long does it take to build a website in WordPress with our team standing behind you or you want turnkey design and marketing services, we’re here to make the process easy. Give us a call today to learn more.