The question comes up constantly, and the honest answer is that it depends on a few things. But "it depends" is not useful, so here is a proper breakdown of what a typical small business website project looks like week by week and where it can go wrong.
Week one: brief, quote and kickoff
A well-run agency will respond to your initial enquiry within 24 hours, ask you the right questions and come back with a fixed quote within a few days. Once you accept and pay the deposit, a kickoff call or questionnaire follows to nail down what the site needs to do, who it is for and what content you already have. This stage usually takes three to five working days. If an agency is taking two weeks just to send a quote, that is a warning sign about what the project management will look like.
Weeks two and three: design
Design is where the visual direction is established. You will typically see a homepage design first, then a few inner page templates. A focused small business site can move through this in one to two weeks. Where it stalls is feedback. If you need sign-off from three people in different time zones or you keep changing your mind about the colour palette, design can stretch to a month on its own. The fastest projects are ones where one person owns the decisions.
Weeks three and four: build
Once the design is approved, the developer builds it out. For a standard brochure site of five to ten pages this takes one to two weeks. E-commerce or bespoke functionality adds time. The other thing that adds time is content. If you do not have your copy and images ready when the build starts, the developer ends up waiting. This is the single most common reason projects overrun their timelines.
Final week: review, fixes and launch
You review the completed site, request any changes and the developer makes them. For a straightforward project with reasonable feedback, this takes three to five days. Then there is a pre-launch checklist: redirects from old URLs, meta tags, Google Analytics, Search Console setup, sitemap submission. A thorough agency does all of this before handing over. Launch day itself takes a few hours for DNS to propagate.
What makes it faster
Having your content ready before you start. One person making decisions. Clear answers to the brief. A developer who is not juggling ten projects at once. At Wellington Web Co. we start every project with a content checklist so you know exactly what we need and when we need it. That alone cuts the average project time by a week.
What makes it slower
Missing content. Decision by committee. Scope creep (adding features mid-project). Slow feedback turnarounds. An agency that is overbooked. Any one of these can turn a four-week project into a ten-week one. If you want a fast launch, come in prepared and be responsive during the process.