If you are wondering:
“How long does it take to build a website?”
You are not alone.
Just like figuring out how much a website costs, the answer is it depends!
It actual depends on several factors.
Let’s look at some numbers so you can calculate your own rough time estimate. For this you should have already figured out your sitemap.
Website Build Timetable
As an example, a simple 7-to-14-page custom WordPress website with 1 or 2 unique page layouts (or designs) should take about 6 to 10 weeks. Additional factors including page and layout complexity can then add more time to the project. For larger and more complex custom websites it can take 3 to 6 months.
Remember you are trying to figure out the total length of the project. These times for the individual factors below include the changes in the entire process from discovery, designing, client interaction, developing (building), testing, and launching.
| Factor | Estimated Time |
|---|---|
| Baseline | |
| • Custom WordPress website • Includes 5 base pages (home, search, 404, and 2 legal pages) | 4 weeks |
| Content | |
| • Sitemap not ready | Add 1 to 2 weeks |
| • Content not ready | Add 2 to 6 weeks (or more!) |
| Pages | |
| • Over 10 pages | Add 1 to 2 weeks |
| • Over 20 pages | Add 2 to 3 weeks |
| • Over 50 pages | Add 3 to 6 weeks |
| Page Layouts | |
| • Over 5 page layouts | Add 1 to 2 weeks |
| • Over 10 page layouts | Add 2 to 4 weeks |
| Functionality | |
| • Basic features | Add 1/2 day per simple feature |
| • Complex features | Add 1 to 3 days per complex feature |
| • Collection of related complex features | Add 1 to 4 weeks (or more!) |
| Custom Media | |
| • Over 5 custom images | Add 1 week |
| • Over 10 custom images | Add 2 to 3 weeks |
For an actual estimate on your project contact eSilverStrike Consulting.
Factors that Affect Website Build Times
Let’s look into the factors in more detail that can affect the timeline of both small and large website builds.
Content
This can be one of the biggest issues and cause the timeline to increase for the whole website build by weeks (or months depending on the project size).
In most cases the client provides the media, and our copywriter is used to provide the copy. In other cases, the client provides all the content (text copy and media). While we factor time in for this in the project timeline, delays still happen in either case. The client often gets caught up in the day-to-day management of their business which means less time spent on organizing and preparing the content.
In our process we do try to make it as easy as possible by providing a low-fidelity website mockup with wireframes so the client can visualize where the content goes, and the Content Workbook which organizes what content is needed.
Unfortunately, the Development Phase of the website can’t start until the content (text copy and media) has been completed and approved as it is needed when styling and building out the website.
Pages
The number of pages a website has, is a large factor in the length of time it takes to build a website. The more pages you have, the more layouts, content, testing, and functionality your website will require. It is not as simple as counting pages, as some pages can take 4 or 5 times as long to create as an average page due to the length of the page, the layout, and functionality.
Page Layouts
While each page on a website will have unique content, they can share layouts or designs. For example, if your business has 3 different services, your website most likely will be designed to have 3 different service pages. Since these pages are similar, to save time, cost, and to keep the design consistent, they can share the same layout. This means the overall page design and content locations remains the same for the 3 service pages while the actual content itself (copy and some images) will be different. Other examples of pages that can share layouts but have different content include product pages, articles, and team member pages.
If you look at some small business websites, you’ll see that the homepage has a unique design, but often the inner pages all look the same. While this may have saved the business owner time and money in the short run, it is probably costing him lost revenue now. This means sales lost due to a poor website marketing strategy and uninspiring pages.
Websites that have all different looking inner pages are more complex and typically more expensive. They also take more time to design and develop which impacts how quickly the website can be launched.
Functionality
Functionality of a website deals with how dynamic it is.
This could be just basic things like simple animations on a page to displaying a Google map.
It can refer to more complex functions of a website like a contact form, social media integration, a blog with articles filtered by categories, and signing users up for newsletters.
It even can be a collection of complex related features and functions like accepting donations or an ecommerce store where you sell products and/or services.
Whatever the functionality is you want, it may not be as simple as it seems. Some functionality may only add an hour or two while others may add days, weeks, or months.
Custom Media
Licenses for stock photos and graphics can be purchased for a cheap price as the author is selling them in bulk. Taking photos, manipulating images, and creating graphics take time and cost money. While they can improve the aesthetic of a website and gives a truly custom look, in a lot of cases stock media websites will have something close enough to suit a small business’s needs.
Creating informational videos for your website requires a lot of planning, time, equipment, and resources. The videos need to be shot, edited, and the sound mixed in. Dynamic titles and graphics will also have to be added. This type of project needs to be handled separately from the website.
In Conclusion
If you have someone promising you a website in a week, then it is not custom. It is most likely just a stock design and theme purchased from somewhere that has been sold to many other businesses. We have talked about this before and these cheap websites will do your business more harm than good.
The quickest way to estimate your website project is to create a sitemap. This is a hierarchical chart of the pages of a website. This chart shows how the pages primary interconnect and can include a description of the type of content and sections on the page, and its functionality. Think of it as the blueprint of your website.
Figuring out the sitemap for your website project, defining the number of pages, and which of them will share page layouts will go a long way in defining the scope of your website project and its functionality. In turn this will make it much quicker for a website design agency like eSilverStrike Consulting to estimate the cost and time it will take to build the website. It will also allow you to use the timetable above to do your own rough estimate.
If you are interested in eSilverStrike in looking at your project, you can contact us now and inquire about a design.
