BUILDING A WEBSITE A CHECKLIST

Why does the site exist? To inform, collect leads, sell products or book appointments. The goal determines the page structure, the platform and the budget. “A nice site” is not a goal; “a visitor filling in a form” is.

• Corporate site. A site designed and coded specifically for the brand is fast, flexible and ready to grow.
• E-commerce. Ready-made platforms such as Shopify or ikas provide payments, stock and order management out of the box; a custom design in your brand language can be built on top.
• Campaign page. For ads or a launch, a single-purpose landing page is often more effective than the whole site.

A corporate site usually goes live in 2–4 weeks, an e-commerce site in 4–8 weeks. The timing depends on the number of pages, whether the content is ready and the integrations. Most of the time the real cause of delays is content (text, images, product information) arriving late; plan for this from the start.

• Mobile speed. Most visitors come from phones. How many seconds does a page take to load, and are images optimized?
• Technical SEO. Are the heading structure, sitemap, redirects and structured data set up from the start?
• Admin panel. Will you be able to update text, images and products yourself, and is training provided?
• Multilingual. If you plan to publish in several languages, is the structure built for it from the start?
• Measurement. Will visitor behavior be tracked with a tool such as Google Analytics?
• Privacy and cookies. Is there a compliant privacy notice and cookie management?

It is very important that the domain and hosting accounts are opened in your name and that you have access to the site’s source code and admin panel. Otherwise, if you part ways with the agency, your site can be held hostage. Ask about this explicitly in the proposal.

To avoid losing the visibility the existing site has earned on Google, old addresses should be redirected to new ones, the content of important pages should be preserved and the new structure should be submitted to search engines. If these steps are skipped, traffic can drop even when the new design looks great.

• The scope in pages and features is not written down.
• SEO, speed and mobile support are not mentioned at all.
• Post-delivery support, training and update terms are unclear.
• Domain and code ownership are not discussed.
• The timeline is too short or vague.

We run web projects with design, code, SEO and launch in one team; for details see our website and e-commerce page.

How long does it take to build a website?

A corporate site usually goes live in 2–4 weeks, an e-commerce site in 4–8 weeks. The timing depends on the number of pages and integrations.

A ready-made theme or a custom design?

A custom design lets the site carry your brand’s language. On platforms such as Shopify and ikas, the store can also be shaped and customized to your brand.

Can I update the site myself later?

Yes. We set up an admin panel where you can update text, images and products yourself, and give a short training at handover.

Will I lose my Google rankings when the old site is rebuilt?

Done properly, they are preserved. Old addresses are redirected to the new ones, and search visibility is treated as part of the rebuild plan.