How Long Does a Website Design Take?

If you choose to design your own website, the question of when your website will be ready depends on which approach you take, and your technical ability. If you choose to use one of the high-level design tools which does not require technical expertise, a basic site can be completed within a day, even by a novice. Using an intermediate tool such as DreamWeaver, a novice should allow anything from a day (for someone who has a strong technical bent) to several weekends (for someone not very technical). If you create your website in HTML direct rather than using one of the web design tools, it will take longer due to the time required to learn HTML, combined with the fact that coding in HTML is slower than using a design tool.

If you choose a professional website designer to create your website, you should allow at least a week for a very simple site where you know exactly what you want, but several weeks is more typical. Although an experienced designer can create a website much faster than a novice, this is largely offset by the designer working to a much higher standard. For example, while a novice might take five minutes to upload a photo for the banner, a professional may invest several hours of graphic design into the banner. The designer may then present the banner to the client for review and if the client is not completely satisfied, it may take days and several more sample banners before the client is happy with the banner. A second factor is that the designer is often waiting on the client to comment on or approve given elements of the design. Likewise, while a designer may quickly create a page (e.g. a 'Contact Us' page), a busy client may not supply the associated text or information (e.g. phone number, mailing address) for days or weeks. Furthermore, a designer may be working on more than one project at once.

The main steps of creating a website are:

• Domain Name. If you know what domain name you want, and it is available, it can be registered immediately. If you don't know what domain name you want or how to choose it, some designers can advise you on suitable names based on the nature of your business. In some cases people decide immediately, in other cases they think about it for a number of days. As discussed in domain name, getting this wrong is one of the few uncorrectable errors, so one should choose carefully.

• Website Structure. Are you looking for a 1-page website or something larger? If something larger, can you give a list of topics or pages that you would like to appear on your website? If you are unsure, a designer can provide some guidance on the standard pages (e.g. home page, contact page) but it is the business owner that needs to determine what product-oriented pages are required.

• Page Structure.  Normally each page would have a banner, a navigation menu and a footer. Within this structure there are quite a few options in terms of layout and appearance. Deciding how you want the page to look is often more time consuming than actually writing the software.

• Text. Each page will have text on it. For example, the 'Contact Us' page will likely have an EMAIL address and may have a phone number and mailing address, depending on your preferences. Adding text to a web page is relatively quick; it is usually deciding what to write that take time.

• Revisions. It is difficult to buy clothes without trying them on and seeing what they look like in a mirror. The same is often true of website design; one only gets a true impression once the website is up and running. At this stage it is quite normal to change one's mind about certain aspects and require some changes.