Most website projects don't slip because of design or code. They slip on a Tuesday afternoon when nobody can find the login for the domain, the only copy of the logo is a blurry image saved off Facebook, and the list of services lives in the owner's head. Each of those is a five-minute fix at the start of a project and a multi-day delay in the middle of one.
This web design client checklist is for owners who have already hired a designer and want the build to move. If you're still comparing options, start with our guide on how to choose a web designer and come back once you've signed. Below is everything to gather before kickoff, in the order that matters: the items that take longest to track down come first, and the items your designer can work around come last.
The Short Version
Access first / Services and areas second / Photos and proof third. Logins have the longest lead time, your service list and service areas decide the site's structure, and photos and reviews fill the pages once that structure exists.
Why Prep Sets Your Launch Date
On our projects, most websites are completed within 14 days of kickoff. That window assumes the inputs are ready on day one. Design and development are the parts a studio controls. Access, content, and approvals are the parts you control, and they set the pace for everything else.
The kickoff call is where scope, pages, and the job the site has to do get settled. Everything on this list feeds that call. Your service list sets the pages, your service areas shape the local structure, and your photos and reviews fill those pages with proof. When something is missing, the cost shows up in predictable places.
What a Missing Item Actually Costs
- No domain login: the new site can't be pointed at your domain on launch day, and recovering a registrar account set up by a former employee or an old web designer can take days of identity checks
- No real logo file: the header, favicon, and social share images get built from a low-resolution copy and then rebuilt when the real file turns up
- No service list: page planning stalls, because the pages are organized around the services and areas your customers actually search for
- Slow feedback: every day a review round waits is a day the launch moves
Make One Folder, Not Forty Emails
Create one shared place for everything: a Google Drive or Dropbox folder, or the portal your designer gives you. Add subfolders for brand, photos, services, and reviews, plus a short notes file about which accounts exist and who owns them (never the passwords themselves). On our builds that place is the client portal, so nothing gets lost in an email thread.
Step 1: Logins and Account Access
Access goes first because it has the longest lead time. A photo can be retaken this afternoon. A domain registered years ago under an email address nobody can open anymore is a small project of its own. Go through each account below and confirm you can log in today.
Accounts to Find Before Kickoff
- Domain registrar: the company your domain name is registered with. Confirm the account is in the business's name, not a nephew's or a past designer's
- DNS and current hosting: often the same company as the registrar, sometimes not. Your designer needs to know where DNS is managed to launch the new site
- Business email: if your email runs on your domain through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, say so up front. Those mail records live in DNS and have to be carried over when the site moves, or incoming email stops arriving
- Current website admin: the login for whatever runs your site today, so pages, images, and anything worth keeping can be exported
- Google Business Profile: needed to match your name, address, phone, and hours on the new site and to point the profile at it
- Google Analytics and Search Console: if they already exist, your history carries over. If they don't, they get set up at launch
- Connected tools: booking software, CRM, payment processor, email marketing, call tracking, or chat that the site needs to hook into
- Social profiles: the links to every profile you want connected to the site
Invite Your Designer, Don't Hand Over Passwords
Most of these services let you add someone as a user instead of sharing your own login: a manager on Google Business Profile, a user on Google Analytics and Search Console, and a delegate or team member at most registrars. You stay the owner and can remove access after launch. When a password truly has to be shared, use a password manager's sharing feature rather than a text or an email, and change it once the site is live.
While you're in each account, check where the two-factor codes go. A launch can stall for days because the verification text goes to a former office manager's phone. Update the recovery phone number and email now, while nobody is waiting on them.
One more rule: keep the domain in your name. A good designer never needs to own it. On our builds you keep the code, the content, and the domain, and nothing in the build ties you to us.
Step 2: Logo and Brand Files
Your designer needs the real logo, not a screenshot of it. The difference shows up everywhere: a crisp header on a large monitor, a sharp icon in the browser tab, clean images when someone shares your site.
Brand Files to Gather
- Vector logo: an SVG, AI, EPS, or vector PDF file. Include every version you have: horizontal, stacked, icon only, and a white version for dark backgrounds
- Brand colors: hex codes if you have them, or the Pantone numbers from your printed materials if you don't
- Fonts: the names of the typefaces on your signs, trucks, or business cards
- Brand guide: if one exists, even a single page
- Taglines and phrases: anything customers already know you by and you want kept
- Things to avoid: colors, words, or images you never want associated with the business
Where the Vector Logo Usually Hides
Ask whoever printed your vehicle wrap, yard signs, or business cards. Sign and print shops work from vector artwork, so they often still have your file. The original logo designer is the second call. Searching your email for attachments ending in .ai, .eps, or .svg is the third.
No vector file and no brand guide? That's common, and it doesn't have to stop the project. Say so at kickoff so the logo can be redrawn or refreshed alongside the build instead of after it. Our brand style guide template shows what a simple guide covers if you want to put one together.
Step 3: Photos and Video
On a service business website, photos do more selling than most of the copy. Visitors want to see the crew that will show up, the truck that will park in their driveway, and finished work that looks like the job they need done. Real photos of your business beat stock photography almost every time.
The Shot List
- You and your team: a clear photo of the owner, plus team or crew shots in uniform
- Vehicles, equipment, and your shop or office: anything with your logo on it
- Finished work: your best jobs, grouped by service
- Before-and-after pairs: shot from the same spot and angle so the difference is obvious
- Work in progress: the crew on site, doing the job properly and safely
- Short video clips: a 20 to 30 second walkthrough or time-lapse can anchor a homepage or a service page
Getting the Files Right
- Send originals: full-resolution files from your phone's camera roll, Google Photos, or iCloud. Images saved from Facebook or Instagram have been compressed and often look soft on a large screen
- Shoot some horizontal: wide images fit page headers, while vertical images suit galleries and phones. Send both if you have them
- Sort by service: one folder per service, so the right photo lands on the right page
- Get permission: ask customers before showing their home or vehicle, and blur house numbers and license plates when in doubt
- Skip heavy filters: daylight and a wiped lens do more than any editing app
If your camera roll comes up thin, plan a shoot rather than falling back on stock. A focused half day covering the crew, the trucks, and a few current jobs can supply a site for years. Photography is part of our branding and media production work, but a good local photographer does the job too.
Step 4: Your Service List
Your service list becomes the site's structure. Customers and search engines both look for pages about specific jobs, so a site built around a vague "Residential and Commercial Solutions" page loses to one with a clear page for each service people actually call about. Your designer can plan the pages, but only you know which services pay the bills.
For Each Service, Write Down
- What you call it and what customers call it: you might say HVAC maintenance while your customers search for a furnace tune-up or AC service
- What's included: the steps, the materials, and what the customer can expect on the day
- Who it's for: homeowners, property managers, commercial accounts, or all three
- Price range or starting price: if you're comfortable publishing one. Even a range filters out calls that were never going to book
- Timeline: how long the job takes and how far out you're currently booking
- The questions callers ask: the five you answer every week are the start of that page's FAQ
Rank Your Services Before You Send Them
Mark each service as grow, keep, or phase out. The ones you want more of get the most prominent pages and the strongest calls to action. The ones you're phasing out can be mentioned without a page of their own, or left off entirely.
You don't need finished copy. On our standard web design projects we provide content guidance and page-by-page outlines, so your job is the knowledge, not the final wording. A rough spreadsheet, a few pages of notes, or a recorded voice memo walking through each service is enough to start.
Step 5: Service Areas and Contact Details
Where you work shapes how the site is built for local search. "We serve the whole state" is hard to plan pages around. A short, ranked list of the towns you actually want work in is easy. A contractor based in Hooksett, NH, for example, might list Manchester, Concord, and Bedford as primary areas and the Seacoast as larger jobs only. That's specific enough to plan around and honest about where the business really goes.
Service Area and Contact Details
- Primary towns or cities: where most of your jobs are and where you want more of them
- Secondary areas: places you'll go for the right job, and roughly how far you'll travel
- Areas you don't serve: so the site doesn't attract calls you'll turn down
- Storefront or service-area business: do customers come to you, or do you go to them? It decides whether your street address appears on the site
- Name, address, and phone: written exactly as they appear on your Google Business Profile, down to the abbreviations
- Hours: regular hours, plus emergency or after-hours service if you offer it
- Where leads go: the email addresses or CRM that should receive form submissions, and who answers the phone number on the site
Step 6: Reviews, Credentials and Proof
People hiring a service business are trusting a stranger with their home, their car, or their health. Proof closes that gap, and for most businesses it's scattered across Google, Facebook, old emails, and a filing cabinet. Pull it into one place.
Proof to Collect
- Your best reviews: six to ten that mention a specific service, town, or problem solved, with the reviewer's name as shown and a link to where it was posted. Don't edit the wording
- Testimonials from emails or texts: ask the customer's permission before they go on the site
- Licenses and insurance: license numbers where your state requires or customers expect them, and proof of coverage
- Certifications and memberships: manufacturer certifications, trade associations, and training
- Warranties and guarantees: the exact terms, in writing
- Numbers you can back up: years in business, jobs completed, typical response time. Only use figures you could prove if a customer asked
- Project stories: two or three jobs worth telling in detail, with the problem, the fix, and the result
If your review count is thinner than you'd like, start asking now. Reviews collected during the build are reviews that can launch with the site. Our guide to getting more Google reviews covers how to ask without making it awkward.
Step 7: The Decisions Only You Can Make
Some items aren't files at all. They're decisions, and a designer can't make them for you. Settle these before kickoff and the first call becomes a planning session instead of a list of open questions.
Decide Before the Kickoff Call
- The one action that matters most: call, request a quote, or book online. Every page will point toward it
- How quotes and bookings work: if jobs need a quote calculator or an online booking flow, say so now, because it changes the scope
- Who signs off: one person with final say. Feedback from five people with five opinions is the fastest way to lose a week
- How fast you can review: block time for feedback during the build. Turning each round around in a day or two keeps a two-week build at two weeks
- Sites you like, and why: two or three websites from any industry, with a note on what you like about each, plus the competitors you're up against
- Your story: why you started, who's on the team, and what you do differently. A few honest paragraphs beat a polished mission statement
- Pages that must survive: if you're replacing a site, list the pages that bring in calls today
That last item matters more than it looks. If your current site already ranks, the new one has to protect those pages and their addresses. Our website redesign SEO checklist covers how that's done.
One Decision-Maker on Each Side
You name one person who signs off, and we bring one too. There are no account managers and no handoffs at Heck of a Website, so the person on your kickoff call is the person you work with through launch.
If You Sell Online
Selling products adds its own list, and product data takes longer to assemble than most owners expect. If you're building a store, start this part first.
E-commerce Extras
- Product spreadsheet: name, SKU, price, description, variants such as size or color, and weight and dimensions for shipping
- Product photos: consistent background and lighting across the catalog, plus a few in-use shots
- Payment processor: an account in the business's name with a provider such as Stripe, Square, or PayPal
- Shipping and tax rules: where you ship, what it costs, and any free-shipping threshold. Have your accountant confirm where you need to collect sales tax
- Policies: returns, exchanges, shipping times, and privacy
See how we approach e-commerce website design for boutique and small retail brands.
The Full Checklist on One Page
Copy this into a note or print it out, and check items off as they land in your shared folder. The first list is what the opening days of a build depend on. The second can arrive while the design comes together.
Before Kickoff
- Domain registrar login confirmed, with the account in the business's name
- DNS, hosting, and business email providers identified
- Designer invited to Google Business Profile, Google Analytics, and Search Console
- Two-factor recovery phone numbers and emails updated
- Current website login, if you have a site
- Vector logo, brand colors, and font names
- Ranked service list with notes on each service
- Ranked service areas, plus name, address, and phone exactly as on Google
- Email addresses or CRM for form leads
- One decision-maker named, with time blocked for feedback
During the First Days of the Build
- Photos sorted by service, or a shoot on the calendar
- Six to ten favorite reviews, plus any testimonials you have permission to use
- Licenses, insurance, certifications, and warranty terms
- Your story and team details
- Sites you like and the competitors you're up against
- Product spreadsheet, payment account, and store policies (online stores only)
Don't hold kickoff hostage to the second list. Access and the service list are what the early work depends on. Photos and proof can follow a few days behind without moving the launch.
What You Don't Need Before Kickoff
Finished copy, a sitemap, page titles and meta descriptions, or an Analytics setup. Those are the studio's job. Every custom web design build we deliver includes on-page SEO setup and connects Google Analytics and Search Console before launch.
Every business deserves a heck of a website, and the fastest ones to launch start with a well-stocked folder. If you've worked through most of this list, you're ready for a kickoff call.
Ready When You Are
Strategy-led design / No lock-in / Built to scale. Schedule a free consultation and we'll go through what you have, what's still missing, and what your first two weeks would look like.