Website Content Checklist: What to Prepare Before Your Website Build
“Just send us your content” is where most website projects quietly stall. This is the complete list of what a web team actually needs from you — copy notes, photos, logo files, reviews, business facts, and logins — and the fastest honest way to gather each one.
Before a website build, gather seven things: your exact business facts (name, address, phone, hours, and service area — written one consistent way), your logo and brand files, a complete list of your services in plain customer language, real photos of your business and your work, your best reviews and proof, rough notes for what each page should say, and the logins for your domain and Google Business Profile. Nothing needs to be polished — a good web team turns accurate raw material into finished pages. What no web team can do is invent the facts, the photos, and the story that only you have.
Business facts first: your NAP and the details that must be exact
NAP stands for name, address, phone — the three facts search engines cross-check between your website, your Google Business Profile, and every directory that mentions you. When those three match everywhere, character for character, Google treats your business as one confident answer. When “Smith & Sons Plumbing LLC” on the site doesn’t match “Smith and Sons” on Google, you’ve planted doubt in the one system deciding whether to show you to local customers.
So before anyone designs anything, write the canonical version of your facts once and treat it as law. Put these in a single document:
- Business name — the exact display version you use everywhere (decide now: “&” or “and”, “LLC” or not).
- Address — one format, including suite numbers. If you work from home, note that you’re a service-area business instead.
- Main phone number — the one you actually answer, written one way.
- Hours — including seasonal or holiday variations, and whether you take after-hours calls.
- Service area — the cities and neighborhoods you genuinely serve, not the ones you wish you did.
- License and insurance numbers — if your trade requires them, customers and some directories look for them.
- Email, year founded, and payment methods — small facts that fill footers, about pages, and profiles.
Ten minutes of decision-making here saves weeks of correction later — inconsistent NAP is one of the most common problems we untangle on existing sites.
Your logo and brand files: what a designer actually needs
The single most useful thing you can send is the original logo file — a vector format like SVG, AI, or EPS, or failing that the largest PNG you have with a transparent background. A vector scales to any size without going blurry; a screenshot pulled off your Facebook page does not. If someone designed your logo years ago, email them and ask for “the source files” — most designers keep them and expect the request.
If you have a brand
Send the logo source file, your brand colors (hex codes if you know them, a photo of your signage or van if you don’t), any fonts you’ve used consistently, and one or two examples of materials you like — a business card, a brochure, a truck wrap. The site should feel like the same company customers already meet in person.
If you don’t have a logo
Say so — it’s common and it’s not a blocker. A clean typographic wordmark in your brand colors can be part of the build, and it beats a rushed clip-art mark you’ll want to replace in a year. What matters is deciding before the build, so every page is designed around the same identity.
One warning: never send a logo you’ve screenshotted from another website or generated around someone else’s artwork. If you can’t trace where an image came from, you don’t have the right to put it on your site.
Your service list: the raw material for the pages that rank
Your list of services isn’t just content — it’s the site’s architecture. Each core service typically becomes its own page, because a page about one specific thing answers a search for that thing far better than a paragraph buried on a general “Services” page. (Our guide to how many pages a website should have covers the structure side.)
So write the complete list, and write it the way customers say it — “AC repair”, not “HVAC climate solutions”. Then, for each of your top services, jot three quick bullets:
- Who it’s for — the situation a customer is in when they need this.
- What actually happens — the process from first call to finished job, in a few plain sentences.
- Why you — the honest reason customers pick you for this: speed, guarantee, specialization, experience.
Mark which services make you the most money and which you’d rather phase out — the site should sell the business you want, not just the business you have. And note anything seasonal, so those pages can be ready before the season hits.
Photos: what to gather and what to shoot this week
Real photos of your actual business outperform generic stock in the way that matters: a customer deciding whether you’re real, local, and trustworthy. You don’t need a photographer — a modern phone in good light is enough. Work through four shot groups:
The outside
Your storefront, signage, building, or wrapped vehicles — shot in daylight from across the street and up close. These anchor your homepage and contact page and confirm you’re a real local business.
The inside
Your workspace, showroom, chairs, or kitchen — tidied, lights on. Customers want to see where they’ll be or where the work happens.
You and your team
The owner and the people customers will meet, in work attire, doing normal things. Candid beats posed; a genuine face on the about page is one of the strongest trust signals a small-business site can have.
The work itself
Jobs in progress, finished results, and before-and-afters if your trade has them. Get the customer’s okay before publishing photos taken at their property.
Phone technique, in one breath: shoot landscape, use daylight instead of flash, tidy the frame before you shoot, step closer instead of zooming, and take several of everything — you’ll keep one in five. Send originals at full size, not compressed through a messaging app.
The same rights rule applies as with logos: only send photos you took or have written permission to use. Images saved from a search result are someone else’s property, and copyright claims against small-business sites are genuinely common.
Reviews and proof: build the trust file
Every claim your website makes gets stronger when someone other than you says it. Before the build, collect your proof into one folder:
- Your best reviews — copy the exact text and the reviewer’s first name from Google or wherever customers rate you. Exact words, real names; edited “testimonials” read as fake because they usually are.
- Direct testimonials — if a customer praised you by email or text, ask permission to quote them. Most say yes, and they’re flattered you asked.
- Licenses, certifications, and insurance — the credentials your industry expects, with numbers where relevant.
- Memberships and associations — chamber of commerce, trade bodies, manufacturer certifications. Only ones that are current.
- Awards and press — only real, verifiable ones. A fabricated badge does more damage when discovered than a bare page ever would.
- Notable projects or clients — with permission to name them.
If your review count is thin, that’s a fixable problem worth starting on now — ask your last ten happy customers directly. Reviews compound, and the site will display them for years.
The copy: notes beat nothing, and nothing beats waiting
Here’s the reassurance most owners need: you do not have to write your website. Waiting for finished, polished copy from a busy owner is the number-one reason website projects run months past their timeline. What your web team needs from you isn’t prose — it’s the raw truth, in bullets:
- For each page: the three things a customer must know before they’ll call.
- The questions people actually ask you on the phone, and how you answer them — this is FAQ gold, and nobody but you has it.
- Your story in a few honest sentences: how the business started, who runs it, what you refuse to compromise on.
- The phrases customers use when they thank you — that’s your value proposition, in their words.
If you enjoy writing and want to do it properly, our guide on how to write website copy walks through structure, tone, and the mistakes that make small-business sites sound like everyone else’s. If you’d rather not, a done-for-you service like our web design plan writes the pages from exactly the kind of notes above — you review and correct facts instead of staring at a blank page.
That’s normal — start with what you have
Most owners arrive with the business facts, a decent logo, some photos, and nothing else. That’s enough to start: we build the site, write the copy from your notes, and tell you exactly which gaps matter. The checklist is a head start, not an entrance exam.
Account access: the logins that stall projects
The least glamorous folder is the one that causes the most delays. Track down these before the build starts, because hunting for a domain login mid-project can freeze everything for weeks:
- Domain registrar login — where your domain name is registered (GoDaddy, Namecheap, and similar). If a long-gone web guy registered it, start recovering access now. No domain yet? Our guide to choosing a domain name takes ten minutes.
- Current hosting login — if you have an existing site, whoever builds the new one needs to reach the old one.
- Google Business Profile access — so the new site and your profile can be linked and kept consistent.
- Analytics access — if anything is tracking your current site, the history is worth keeping.
- Social profiles — the exact URLs of the accounts you actively use (only those; a dead profile linked from your site hurts more than none).
- Email or newsletter platform — if you collect emails anywhere, note where they live.
The ownership rule underneath all of this: your domain should be registered in your name, with a login you control. Everything else is recoverable; a domain held hostage by a former provider is a genuine crisis.
The one-week gathering plan
None of this needs a free weekend — it needs spare moments and a shared folder. Here’s the sequence that works:
Days 1–2: facts and logins
Write your canonical NAP document and hunt down the domain, hosting, and Google Business Profile logins. Start any recovery process immediately — it’s the only step with a waiting period.
Day 3: brand files
Find the original logo files or email the person who made them. Note your colors and fonts, or photograph your signage.
Days 4–5: photos
Shoot the four groups — outside, inside, people, work — in daylight, several takes of each. Drop the originals straight into the folder.
Day 6: reviews and proof
Copy your best reviews word for word, list your credentials, and send two or three permission requests for testimonials.
Day 7: copy notes
One page of bullets per core service, the phone-call FAQs, and your story in a few sentences. Rough is fine — rough is the point.
Do this before the project starts and you’ve removed the single biggest cause of delay — content that arrives late or never. It’s the difference between a site that launches on schedule and one that drifts (see how long a website really takes to build).
Frequently Asked Questions
What content do I need to prepare before a website build?
Seven things: your exact business facts (name, address, phone, hours, service area), your logo and brand files, a complete plain-language list of your services, real photos of your business and work, your best reviews and credentials, rough bullet-point notes for each page, and the logins for your domain and Google Business Profile. Accurate and rough beats polished and late.
Do I have to write my own website copy?
No — and waiting for owner-written copy is the most common reason projects stall. What a web team needs is raw material: bullets on each service, the questions customers ask you by phone, and your story in plain sentences. A done-for-you service writes the finished pages from those notes. If you want to write it yourself, our guide to writing website copy shows how.
What photos should I send my web designer?
Four groups, all shot on a phone in daylight: the outside of your business (storefront, signage, vehicles), the inside (workspace or showroom, tidied), you and your team in work attire, and the work itself — including before-and-afters if your trade has them. Send full-size originals, and only photos you took or have permission to use.
What if my business doesn’t have a logo?
It’s not a blocker — say so upfront. A clean typographic wordmark in your brand colors can be created as part of the build, and it looks better than a rushed clip-art logo you’ll regret. The important thing is settling the identity before pages are designed, not after.
Why does my name, address, and phone number have to match everywhere?
Search engines cross-check your NAP between your website, your Google Business Profile, and business directories to confirm you’re one legitimate local business. Mismatches — “&” versus “and”, an old phone number in a directory — create doubt that can cost local visibility. Decide the canonical version once and use it identically everywhere.
How long does it take to gather content for a website?
About a week of spare moments for most small businesses: two days for facts and login recovery, a day for brand files, two days of phone photos, a day collecting reviews, and a day of bullet-point notes. The only step that can genuinely drag is recovering a lost domain login — which is exactly why you start there.
Related guides
- How to write website copy — if you’re taking the writing on yourself, start here.
- What do you need to build a website? — the technical half of this checklist: domain, hosting, and platform.
- 12 questions to ask a web designer — vet the team before you hand over the folder.
- How long does it take to build a website? — where content prep fits in the real timeline.
Rather hand the whole folder to one team and review finished pages instead? That’s our done-for-you web design service.