Short answer: a couple of weeks for most local service businesses, measured from the kickoff call. Long answer: the calendar depends far less on the code than on how fast content comes back to me. Here is what the weeks actually look like.
Week one: the call and the drawing
We spend fifteen minutes on the phone talking about what you sell, who buys it, and what is broken about how people find you now. Then I draw the pages. You see real layouts with your business in them, not a mood board and not a stock template with placeholder text. This is where changes are cheap, so this is where we make them.
Week two: the build
Once the design is agreed, I write the code. Forms, booking links, galleries, and the mobile layout all get built and tested on real phones, not just a browser window squeezed narrow. You get a link to watch it come together, and you can send changes as you spot them.
Launch: the short part
Going live is the easiest day. The domain gets pointed, search setup and analytics get connected, and I walk you through how to update anything you might want to touch. You leave with the keys — domain, files, and accounts all in your name.
What actually causes delays
Content. Almost always content. Photos that live on someone's phone, service descriptions nobody has written down, a logo file that only exists as a screenshot. None of that is a crisis, but every day it sits in someone's inbox is a day the site does not launch.
- Gather your photos before the kickoff call, even if they are imperfect.
- Write a rough sentence about each service. Rough is fine, I will tidy it.
- Find your domain and hosting logins early, not on launch day.
- Pick one person on your side to give final approval.
Why I will not promise you a site in 24 hours
You can generate a website in an afternoon. You cannot make a considered one in an afternoon, and speed is a strange thing to compete on when the site is going to represent your business for the next five years. The build phase includes as many revisions as it takes, and nothing goes live until you are happy with it. That is worth an extra week.
What to do next
If you want a real timeline for your specific business, book a fifteen-minute call and I will give you one on the phone. You can also look at the finished work first — everything there launched on the schedule we agreed at the start.
Written by Max Brown, who designs and builds every site. See the work or talk to me directly.