7 Things to Consider Before Building a Website

You’re ready to build a website. You’ve flirted with a few templates, maybe dragged and dropped your way toward greatness, and now you’re knee-deep in tabs, platform comparisons and that YouTube tutorial from 2017. The overwhelm is real.

Here’s the thing: you’re not just building a site, you’re laying your brand’s digital foundation. Get it wrong and you end up with either a pretty brochure that converts no one, or a Frankenstein’s monster of plugins and pixelated regret. Whether you build it yourself or hand it to someone else, these are the seven things to get right before a single pixel goes live.

1. Choosing your hosting

Hosting sounds boring, right up until you realise choosing the wrong one is like opening a café with no electricity. Hosting is where your website lives on the internet, and it quietly decides your speed, uptime, security and, yes, your Google rankings. You’ve broadly got two paths: custom hosting (SiteGround, Cloudways and the like) that gives you control and speed, or an all-in-one builder (Wix, Squarespace, Shopify) that trades some of that for ease and support.

Want the honest platform comparisons? Start with Shopify vs WordPress, Squarespace vs WordPress for SEO, and our best website creators for small business.

2. Custom website vs using a builder

Do you want the freedom to build anything, or do you want training wheels? A custom website (usually on WordPress) is built from the ground up with full flexibility over design, SEO and integrations. A builder hands you drag-and-drop templates and gets you live fast. Your choice shapes everything after it: cost, design freedom, SEO ceiling and how painful the site is to change later.

Go custom if you’re scaling, want real design freedom, or need proper integrations. Go builder if you’re just starting, tight on budget, and allergic to code. Not sure? We break it down in custom websites vs templates and which website builder is right for you.

3. Web design principles that actually work

You don’t need to be a designer to know Comic Sans and neon green are a crime. But great design isn’t about taste, it’s about guiding behaviour. Good design decides how much someone trusts you, how long they stay, and whether they act. It’s not vibe, it’s revenue. The fundamentals worth getting right:

• Hierarchy — make the important stuff impossible to miss.
• Balance and contrast — use space and colour on purpose.
• Consistency — keep the branding tight across every page.
• Typography — fonts people can read, and that make them feel something.
• Responsiveness — it has to look sharp on mobile, not just desktop.

Go deeper with maximising web design impact and our guide to typography.

4. Conversion rate optimisation

Pretty websites are fun. Profitable ones are better. CRO is the science and art of turning visitors into customers by making your site more persuasive, intuitive and easy to use, which means more revenue without spending more on ads. Build it in from the start:

• Understand what your users actually want, then design around it.
• Test, don’t guess, A/B test the things that matter.
• Keep navigation simple. Confused people don’t buy.
• Use strong, specific CTAs that tell people exactly what to do.
• Show trust signals: reviews, testimonials, guarantees.

New to it? Here’s the plain-English version of what conversion rate optimisation is, and how we run CRO as a service.

5. Content and copywriting, your site’s secret weapon

Design gets attention. Copy closes. Content is everything your visitor reads, watches or listens to, and copywriting is the version of it built to persuade, not just inform. Good words answer objections, paint the picture and make people believe your offer is the one. To get it right: speak directly to your person (drop the buzzwords), obsess over your headlines because they do most of the work, use story where you can, and never try to write for everyone. If your words aren’t pulling their weight, here’s how to fix your website copy.

6. SEO: get found or get forgotten

You can build the Mona Lisa of websites, but if nobody sees it, does it matter? SEO is how you show up on Google when people search for what you sell, and organic traffic doesn’t come with a cost-per-click. The starting points: keyword research, genuinely useful content, clean meta tags, headings and URLs, compressed images, and a fast, mobile-friendly build. The best time to think about SEO is before you build, not after.

Get the fundamentals in our plain-English SEO guide for beginners, and if you’d rather it was handled, that’s our SEO service (including local SEO and technical SEO).

7. Analytics and tracking, because guessing isn’t a strategy

If you’re not tracking what happens on your site, you’re flying blind. Analytics shows you who’s visiting, what they do, and whether the thing actually works, which is how you make smarter decisions and prove ROI. At minimum, install GA4 for behaviour and traffic, and the relevant ad pixels (Meta, and TikTok or LinkedIn if you advertise there). Heatmap and session tools like Hotjar or Microsoft Clarity are worth it too. One caveat: privacy laws apply, so get your consent mechanisms sorted before you start collecting.

From the studio
The most expensive websites we rebuild aren’t the cheap ones, they’re the ones where nobody thought about hosting, SEO or tracking until after launch. Every one of these seven is far cheaper to get right at the start than to retrofit later. Decide them up front, whether you’re building it yourself or handing it over.

So, what’s next?

If you’ve made it this far, you’re already ahead of most business owners googling “how to build a website” at 11pm. But knowledge is only half of it, execution is the other half. You’ve got two honest options: go DIY, smart, armed with this guide and our blog library, or bring in a team that builds sites designed to convert.

Weighing that up? Here’s how we approach web design and development, and if you’re choosing anyone external, read the 9 red flags to watch for when picking an agency first.

Related reading

Worth a look while you’re planning: the top web design problems small businesses hit, how much a website actually costs, and what to budget for when developing a website.

Before-you-build FAQs

What should I consider before building a website?

Seven things: hosting, whether to go custom or use a builder, design that guides behaviour, conversion optimisation, persuasive copy, SEO, and analytics. Each is far cheaper to get right at the start than to retrofit after launch, whether you build it yourself or outsource it.

Should I use a website builder or a custom website?

Use a builder if you’re starting small, on a tight budget, and want something live fast. Go custom (usually WordPress) if you’re scaling, want real design freedom, or need proper integrations and headroom to grow. Most serious businesses land on custom, or a custom design built on a flexible CMS.

Do I need SEO from day one?

Yes. SEO is far easier to build in than to bolt on. Site structure, page speed, clean URLs and useful content all start at the build stage, so deciding your SEO approach before you build saves an expensive redo later.

Should I build my website myself or outsource it?

DIY works if you’ve got the time and you’re happy to learn, especially for something simple. Outsource when the site has a real job to do (leads, sales, scale) and you’d rather it was done properly the first time. Either way, nail the seven considerations above first.

How much does a website cost?

It ranges widely, from under a few hundred dollars for a DIY template to five figures for a strategic custom build, depending on scope and who builds it. We break the numbers down in our guides on website cost and what to budget for.