The pandemic left people with a lot of time on their hands, which led a lot of people into investigating or starting side hustles. Launching a side hustle or even taking your side hustle over into a full-time business almost invariably means you need a website.
Your website acts as the backbone of your online presence and is often the central point of your business. Of course, most people don’t have web programming skills. That makes building a website an open mystery.
You may ask, “How long does it take to build a website?” Keep reading for some of the factors that affect website build times.
Complexity
Some websites are pretty simple things. They have the usual pages, such as:
- Home
- Products
- Services
- Blog
- About Us
- Contact
These types of websites usually support a small business that does most of the work or conducts most sales in person. These kinds of small business websites are common and typically fall on the shorter end of the build timeframe.
Let’s say you want an eCommerce site with a real-time connection to your inventory control system, shopping cart, and payment processing. Maybe you also want some custom functions.
All of those extra features add complexity to the site and time to the overall build.
Custom Vs. Non-Custom
There is also the question of custom vs. non-custom sites. With custom sites, you typically work with a company like junocreative.net.au that specializes in business websites. There is a whole process for designing the website so it meets your specific needs.
The other option is a non-custom site. For these, you typically use a content management system. The basic site software is set up already.
You use themes to change the look of the site. If you want extra functions or eCommerce options, you typically get those using plugins.
Brand Collateral
Newer businesses often lack visual brand collateral. That means things like:
- Logo
- Header images
- Brand colors
If you don’t have these things ready to go when you start your website design or build, it can also add time to the process.
How Long Does It Take to Build a Website?
The exact timeline for building a website will vary based on things like the above factors. Fully custom sites with a lot of complexity can take months to complete.
A non-custom site with only a few bells and whistles added via plugin may only take a week.
Your Website Creation
The question of how long does it take to build a website depends on what you want from your small business website. If you want a fully custom website with unique functions, you should expect a wait while a website company or freelance web programmer builds it from the ground up.
If you want a non-custom site that gives you a place to put up your logo and talk about your business, you can potentially get a site up in a week or two.
Looking for more web design insights? Check out our Web Design section for more posts.
