Plan before you hire
Plan a website a good designer can price.
Turn “I need a website” into a clear brief. Define who it serves, what it must do, what content exists, and what should wait. Your answers stay in this browser.
Start with a preset or build from scratch.
Business and audience
Give the project a decision-making center.
Live project brief
Use this summary to align vendors before proposals.
Pages and priorities
Choose what launches now and what can wait.
Features and requirements
Separate launch essentials from future improvements.
Quality requirements
Content inventory
Mark what is ready, partial, or missing.
Visual sitemap
A clear hierarchy prevents accidental page sprawl.
Build in sensible stages
A phased roadmap that protects the launch.
Not every idea needs to become launch scope. Phase work according to customer value, operational readiness, and dependency risk.
Scope-risk signals
Before requesting proposals
Compare more than aesthetics
Interview vendors with the same questions.
Good proposals explain ownership, accessibility, maintenance, analytics, content responsibility, and what happens after launch.
Interview question bank
Proposal comparison rubric
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Local comparison
Saved brief versions
Save a version to compare scope, readiness, cost, and timeline.
Know what you are buying
The terms behind a durable website.
A clear contract should say who owns the domain, code, content, accounts, analytics, design files, and ongoing responsibilities.
Domain and hosting
Your domain is the address; hosting is the infrastructure serving the site. Keep the domain registered in an account the business controls, and document renewal access.
CMS and ownership
A content management system lets non-developers update content. Confirm whether you can export content, move hosts, and retain source files if the relationship ends.
Maintenance
Clarify security updates, backups, uptime monitoring, bug fixes, support response times, and which changes count as new billable work.
Accessibility
Accessibility is a design and engineering practice, not a plugin. Ask how keyboard use, contrast, labels, motion preferences, and screen readers are tested.
SEO and conversion
SEO makes pages understandable and discoverable; conversion design helps visitors take the next useful step. Neither replaces a clear offer or useful content.
Analytics and privacy
Collect only data that supports decisions. Document consent, retention, access, third-party scripts, and deletion responsibilities before installing trackers.
Avoiding lock-in
Prefer accounts owned by the business, documented integrations, exportable content, standard technologies, and a handoff package with credentials and operating notes.
Proposal boundaries
A proposal should define deliverables, assumptions, rounds of revision, content ownership, acceptance criteria, payment milestones, launch support, and exclusions.