What Your Web Developer Wishes You Knew Before Starting a Website Project

1. “We need a modern website” is not a goal

A lot of projects start with vague statements like “our site feels dated” or “we just want it to look more professional.” Those are valid observations, but they’re not targets a developer can design and build towards.

Before anyone talks about platforms, colours, or how many pages you need, it’s worth answering a few specific questions:

• Why now, and what has changed since you last updated your site?
• What would make this project feel like a clear win 6–12 months after launch?
• How will you measure whether the website is actually working?

Clear goals sound more like:

• “We want to increase qualified enquiries by around 30% over the next year.”
• “We want customers to book jobs online instead of calling the office.”
• “We want to sell a specific product or package directly through the site.”

Once that kind of clarity is in place, decisions about structure, calls‑to‑action, content, and budget all become easier and more grounded in reality.

2. Content is the fuel, and it usually arrives last

From a developer’s point of view, a website is basically structure, design, words, and images working together. The technical build can move quite quickly; it’s the words and visuals that most often slow everything down.

Some honest truths:

• Your developer doesn’t need perfect copy, but they do need something solid to design around.
• Clear, straightforward text and real photos often outperform clever animations or gimmicks.
• If you’re overwhelmed, hiring a copywriter is usually cheaper than dragging the project out for another month.

You’ll save a lot of time by preparing the basics early:

• A simple list of the pages you think you need, for example: Home, About, Services, FAQs, Contact.
• Bullet‑point “talking points” for each page, even if they’re rough.
• Your logo in good quality, brand colours and fonts, and any existing guidelines.
• A plan for imagery: existing photos, a photographer, or thoughtfully chosen stock images.

To make this easier, I provide clients with a practical web project brief they can fill in page by page. If you want a head start, you can use my version here: Website Project Brief Template .

3. The “boring” wireframe stage is where the real decisions happen

Early in a project, you might see very plain layouts: grey boxes, simple text, minimal styling. That’s intentional. These wireframes exist so everyone can agree on the story each page tells, and how users will move through the site.

Moving a section around at this stage is quick and painless. Doing the same thing after the design is final and content is integrated can mean several hours of rework, additional testing, and sometimes new costs.

When you’re looking at early layouts, focus on questions like:

• Does this page make sense for the person landing on it?
• Is it obvious what we want them to do next?
• Is anything important missing, or buried too low on the page?

Colours, fonts, and visual polish come later. Think of wireframes like a floor plan: you agree where the rooms go before choosing tiles and paint.

4. How you give feedback matters as much as what you say

Most website projects don’t derail because of one catastrophic mistake. They drift off course because of lots of small delays and miscommunications:

• Feedback arriving days or weeks later than expected.
• Different people on your team giving conflicting opinions.
• Endless rounds of “one last small change.”

Developers typically schedule work in blocks across multiple projects. When approvals slip or feedback arrives in fragments, it can throw that schedule out and introduce delays you weren’t expecting.

A few simple habits make everything smoother:

• Nominate one main point of contact who gathers feedback and makes final calls.
• Batch comments into rounds, one clear list per review stage works far better than scattered messages.
• Be open about your timing, if you know you’ll be slow to review, say so upfront so the plan can adjust.

Clear, consolidated feedback keeps your project on track and makes it easier for your developer to give you accurate timelines and costs.

5. You don’t have to launch with everything on your wishlist

It’s common to start a project with a long list of features: blog, bookings, complex forms, member area, multiple languages, and integrations with every tool you use. Some of those features might be essential, but trying to launch with everything usually means more time, more cost, and more things that can break.

A phased approach often works better:

• Version 1.0: Focus on the core goal, enquiries, bookings, or sales.
• Later phases: Add nice‑to‑have features and advanced ideas once the core is live and working.

A simple way to sort your ideas:

• Must‑have: Without this, the site doesn’t do its basic job.
• Nice‑to‑have: Useful, but you can comfortably launch without it.
• Later: Interesting, but best explored once you’ve seen real user behaviour.

You’re not abandoning ideas by doing this. You’re sequencing them so you can get live faster, learn from real visitors, and avoid turning version 1.0 into an endless project.