What Should You Have Ready Before Hiring a Web Designer?

You do not need a finished website plan to make the first call. Bring the business, the problem, the hoped-for change, and whatever real material you already have.

By Penny Fant10 minute read

You do not need a finished website plan before you talk to a web designer.

You do not need to arrive with polished copy, a complete sitemap, a chosen platform, or every photograph arranged in a perfect folder. Those decisions are part of the work a good designer should help you think through.

For the first conversation, bring four things:

That is enough to begin.

More detailed preparation becomes important once the project takes shape, especially when an existing website, business accounts, or working systems are involved. But you should not have to design the solution before hiring the person who is supposed to help you design it.

Start with the business, not the number of pages

A website project can get stuck early when the first question is “How many pages do you need?”

Page count matters eventually. It is not the best place to start.

Begin with the business underneath the website:

That last answer may be to call, inquire, buy, book, apply, subscribe, visit, or understand something clearly enough to take a later step.

A service business, a store, a course library, and a content-heavy site do not need the same structure. The pages and technology should follow the job of the website—not the other way around.

You do not need to translate your answers into navigation labels or wireframes. Explain the business in the language you already use. The designer should help determine how that information becomes a coherent site.

Name what feels stuck

“We need a modern website” is an understandable starting thought, but it does not explain the problem yet.

Try to name what is making the current situation difficult.

Maybe the business has changed and the website still describes an earlier version. Customers keep asking questions the site should answer. The strongest work is buried. The offer is difficult to compare. The contact form is unreliable. Routine edits feel risky. Or perhaps there is no current website and too much business information is spread across social profiles, documents, and conversations.

You do not need to diagnose whether that means an update, redesign, or rebuild. Describe what you see:

The problem gives a designer something useful to investigate. A style preference alone does not.

Gather raw material, not finished website copy

Business owners sometimes delay a website conversation because they have not written all the content.

Finished copy is not required for a useful first meeting. Real source material is more important.

Gather whatever already helps explain the business:

It is fine if those pieces are incomplete or scattered. Part of the website process is deciding what is still accurate, what is missing, and what deserves a place on the site.

If project photographs and reviews are sitting in phones or folders without enough explanation, the guide on what should happen to your project photos after the job is finished offers a small way to begin organizing them.

Explain what the website must connect to

A website is rarely only a collection of pages.

It may need to send an inquiry to the right person, collect an application, take a payment, book an appointment, deliver a download, enroll someone in a course, add a subscriber to an email list, or connect with a system the business already uses.

Before the project begins, list the functions that matter:

You do not need to choose the technical solution. You do need to explain what should happen from the customer’s point of view and what the business must receive or manage afterward.

That gives the designer a real requirement instead of a feature name without context.

Know who will make the decisions

Website projects need clear feedback and approval.

If several owners, departments, partners, or family members will have a say, decide who can make the final call and who needs to be consulted along the way.

This does not mean one person has to make every decision alone. It means the project needs a reliable way to resolve conflicting feedback, approve content, and know when a stage is complete.

It also helps to name any real constraints early:

If you do not know the budget, schedule, or full approval path yet, say that. A named uncertainty is easier to work with than an assumption discovered halfway through the project.

An existing website needs a little more care

Replacing a current site requires different preparation from building the first one.

Before consequential changes are made, someone should account for:

You do not need to complete that inventory before the first call. You should be prepared to identify what exists and who controls it once the project moves forward.

Do not email passwords or give account access during an initial inquiry. At first, name the accounts and systems involved and confirm who owns them. Secure access can be arranged after the scope, responsibility, and working relationship are clear.

If you are unsure how much of the current site should change, start with the guide to deciding whether the website needs an update, redesign, or rebuild.

What you can leave for the designer

You can have preferences without arriving with every solution.

Bring examples of websites you respond to, but explain what you notice. Is it the clarity, restraint, warmth, navigation, photography, pacing, or way the information is organized? “I like this” becomes much more useful when the designer understands why.

Then leave room for the project to answer its own questions.

A web designer should help determine:

Those choices should come from the business, audience, material, constraints, and required functions—not from a generic checklist or a platform selected before anyone understood the project.

A useful first message can still be short

You do not need to attach an enormous creative brief to start the conversation.

A message like this is enough:

That gives a designer a business, a problem, a hoped-for change, and a place to begin asking better questions.

You can bring the site, the idea, the stuck place, or the messy folder of content. The first step is not proving that you have already solved the project. It is making the real problem clear enough to solve together.

See how PennyPine approaches website design and site systems.

Bring the business. We can sort out the website.

Tell me what you do, what is not working, and what you hope the website will help people understand or do. It is fine if the content is not fully organized yet.

Start the conversationSee how I approach website design