# How long does it take to build a website?

> Realistic timelines for building a small business website by approach, from DIY builders to agencies, and the content and decisions that actually slow projects down.

- Source: https://nerdsharks.com/blog/how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-website
- Publisher: Nerdsharks (Exeter, Devon, UK)
- Updated: 2026-09-19

**Short answer:** A small business website usually takes anywhere from a few days to a few months to build, depending on the approach: a weekend or two on a DIY builder, one to two weeks with a fast specialist, and often six weeks or more with a traditional agency. The building is rarely the slow part. Waiting for text, photos and decisions is what stretches most projects.

Published 2026-09-19. 5 min read. Category: Website advice.

How long does it take to build a website? For a typical small or medium-sized business site, the honest range is anything from a few days to a few months. That is not a dodge: the approach you choose sets the pace, and then the same two or three things slow almost every project down, whoever is building it.

Here are realistic timelines for each route, what really causes the delays, and how to keep your own project short.

## Realistic timelines by approach

These are rough ranges for a typical small business site of five to ten pages, based on how these projects tend to run. Bigger sites, online shops and booking systems take longer on every route.

**How long a small business website typically takes to build, by approach**

| Approach | Typical time to go live | What decides the speed |
|---|---|---|
| DIY website builder (Wix, Squarespace and similar) | A weekend to a few weeks of evenings | How much time you can spare and how quickly you write the text |
| Friend or freelancer fitting it around other work | A few weeks to several months | Their availability, and how often it slips down their list |
| Specialist small business web designer | About one to four weeks | How quickly you answer questions and approve the design |
| Traditional agency | Often six weeks to a few months | Discovery meetings, multiple design rounds and sign-off stages |
| Custom site with bookings, payments or a shop | Usually longer than any of the above | Integrations, product data and testing |

## What actually slows a website project down

Ask anyone who builds websites for small businesses and they will tell you the same thing: the build itself is the predictable part. The unpredictable part is everything that has to come from the business owner, usually someone who is also running jobs all day.

- Text. Service descriptions, the About page, prices. Blank pages are the single biggest cause of delay.
- Photos. Finding decent pictures of your own work, scattered across an old phone, a WhatsApp chat and a Facebook page.
- Decisions. Which services to feature, which towns to list, whether to show prices. Every open question pauses something.
- Feedback rounds. A design that sits unreviewed for a fortnight adds a fortnight.
- Access. Logins for the domain, the old website or the Google Business Profile that nobody can remember.
- Too many cooks. A partner, a brother-in-law and a mate who “knows computers” all giving notes at different times.

## How to keep your project short

You can take weeks off almost any website project by getting a few things ready before you start, or by choosing someone who takes them off your plate.

- Write down your main services, the towns you cover and roughly what jobs cost. Bullet points are fine; a good designer can turn them into copy.
- Gather 10 to 20 of your best job photos into one folder. Our guide to website photos for tradespeople covers what makes a good one.
- Find out who controls your domain name and make sure you can log in. If you do not have one yet, pick it early.
- Decide who has the final say, and make it one person.
- Book in time to review the design properly, the same day or the next, rather than “when things calm down”.

> Rule of thumb: every day a question sits unanswered on your side is at least a day added to the launch date.

## Why agencies take longer, and whether that is a bad thing

A longer timeline is not automatically a worse service. Traditional agencies often run discovery workshops, produce several design concepts, and have a project manager, designer and developer who each hand work on. That structure suits a larger business with a marketing team, a brand to protect and several people who need to sign things off.

For a sole trader or a small firm, most of that process solves problems you do not have. You know what you do and who your customers are, and the site needs to do a narrow job well. The risk with a long project is that it loses momentum: the enquiries you could have been getting in month one are simply lost while the site sits in a staging area.

Whichever route you choose, ask for a date at the start, and ask what they need from you and by when. A builder who cannot answer either question clearly is telling you something about how the project will run.

## The launch-day jobs people forget

A few small tasks around launch can add days if nobody has thought about them:

- Pointing the domain at the new site. Changes to domain settings can take a little while to take effect everywhere.
- Redirecting the addresses of old pages to the new ones, if you had a website before, so old links and search results still work.
- Setting up email so it keeps working when the domain moves.
- Adding the new web address to your Google Business Profile, social profiles and directory listings.
- Testing the contact form and the tap-to-call button on a real phone, not just on a laptop.

## After launch: when will it show up on Google?

Going live and appearing in Google are two different moments. Once a new site is live and submitted, Google says crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, and requesting a crawl does not guarantee a page will be included straight away, or at all.

Ranking well for competitive searches takes longer still, and depends on things like your Google Business Profile, reviews and how clearly each page matches what people search for. A new website is a starting point for being found, not an instant switch, so it is worth launching sooner rather than waiting for everything to be perfect.

## Why a small site can be quick

A good website for a local business is not a complicated thing. A handful of well-written pages, a clear layout that works on a phone, real photos and a phone number that is one tap away. When the scope is that clear and the content is handled, there is no technical reason it should take months.

It is the long, open-ended projects, where the brief keeps growing and every page is a blank canvas, that drag. Deciding up front what the site needs to do, and leaving the nice-to-haves for later, is the most effective way to get it live.

## Our 3-day process, briefly

We aim to have your website live in 3 working days, and it is realistic because we take the slow parts off your list. It starts with a short phone call about your business, the jobs you want and the areas you cover. We write all the copy, so there is no blank page waiting for you. You see the actual design on your phone before anything goes live, and approve it or ask for changes. Then we build it, connect your domain, set up your Google Business Profile, and it goes live.

The one thing we cannot do for you is reply. If the design sits unreviewed for a week, the launch moves by a week. On the Monthly plan it is £299 to set up and £99/month, with a 12 months minimum.

## Questions

### How long does it take to build a small business website?

A small business website of five to ten pages typically takes one to four weeks with a specialist designer, a weekend to a few weeks on a DIY builder, and often six weeks or more with a traditional agency. The biggest variable is how quickly the text, photos and decisions arrive.

### Can a website be built in a week?

A small, clearly defined website can be built and launched in a week if the content is ready or written for you and decisions are made quickly. Larger sites, online shops and booking systems usually need longer, mainly for content and testing.

### How long after launch does a new website appear on Google?

A new website usually starts appearing on Google within days to a few weeks of launch. Google says crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, and requesting a crawl does not guarantee pages will be included immediately.

### What slows down a website project the most?

Waiting for content slows website projects more than anything else: service descriptions, photos and prices from a business owner who is busy running jobs. Slow feedback on designs and lost logins for domains or old websites are the next most common delays.

## Sources

- Ask Google to recrawl your URLs, Google Search Central, 2026: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/ask-google-to-recrawl