Guides

How long a website actually takes

By Ashton Foran, director. Published 27th August 2026. Updated 6th September 2026.

Most small business websites take one to two weeks to build.

Plenty take three months, and almost never because of the building. The delay is somewhere else, and it is the same place nearly every time.

Where the time goes

Making the pages is the fast part now. A builder who has done it before can have a working version of your site in front of you within days.

What stretches a build is deciding what the site says, getting hold of photographs, waiting on replies, and a handful of things nobody involved controls.

The words are what holds it up

A ten page site is ten pages of writing about your business, and only you know your business. That is the whole bottleneck, and it catches people out because it does not sound like work until you are sat in front of a blank page at half nine at night.

You do not have to write it, only say it.

Talk it into a voice note while you are driving. Answer questions over the phone. Send bullet points and let someone else turn them into sentences. A builder who can take a twenty minute conversation and come back with the copy removes the delay entirely, and it is worth asking whether yours will before you sign anything.

Photographs

Real photographs of your own work will beat anything bought off a stock library, and getting them is where builds stall for a fortnight.

You probably already have them. Your phone camera roll and your own Instagram are usually enough for a whole site.

Three things worth knowing:

• Take the after shot before you pack the van. Nobody ever goes back for it
• A finished room beats a dramatic mid-job one. Dust sheets and tool bags sell nothing
• Daylight, curtains open, main light on. Phone cameras are good now, and bad light is what makes photos look cheap

The back and forth

You will see a working preview and you will have changes. That part is normal and it should not be billable.

How long each round of changes sits decides the calendar, more than how many rounds there are. Two rounds inside a week is a fast build. The same two rounds spread over five weeks is a five week build, and the builder has been ready the whole time.

Block twenty minutes to go through the preview properly rather than reacting to it in gaps between jobs.

Things nobody controls

A brand new domain. A .ie address needs the registrant validated before it will work, and that can add days.

Moving an existing domain. Transfers between registrars have a built in waiting period. Start it at the beginning of the build rather than the end.

Moving your email with it. If your email runs on the same domain, plan the switch for a quiet afternoon rather than a Monday morning.

None of these are anyone's fault and all of them are predictable, so they should be raised at the start and not presented as a surprise in week three.

Going live and being found are different dates

Google takes days to weeks to index a new site, and months to decide where you belong in the results. Anyone promising otherwise is guessing. Our guide on getting found on Google, and now on AI too covers what moves it along.

What a realistic two weeks looks like

• Week one: the conversation about what the site needs to say, a first draft of the words, and a working preview you can open on your phone
• Week two: your changes, photos in, the speed and security checks, then live when you say so

If the words take three weeks, the build takes three weeks.

The question worth asking any builder

Ask what they need from you and when they need it.

A builder who can answer that has planned the job. One who says "just leave it with me" has not, and you will find out in week six.

What we need from you

A conversation, whatever photos you already have, and a reply when we send the preview. We write the words if you would rather not.

Payment is due when the site goes live, not before we start, so a slow build costs us and not you.

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