What to prepare before hiring a web designer
The client-side checklist most designers won't give you. Prepare these six things before your project starts and you'll get a better site for the same money.
The difference between a website project that goes smoothly and one that drags on for months almost never comes down to the designer. It comes down to how prepared the client is before the project starts.
Designers publish plenty of advice about how to vet us. Here's the other side: the checklist that makes you a great client, speeds up your project, and gets you a better site for the same money. This checklist is part of my complete guide to hiring a web designer.
1. Your copy, drafted
This is the single most important item on this list and the one most people skip.
Every page on your website needs words. Not perfect, polished, final copy. A draft. Who you are, what you do, who you help, how your service works, what it costs, how to get in touch. In a Google Doc, one section per page.
Writing about your own business is harder than it sounds, and most people put it off until the project has already started. That's when it becomes the bottleneck that stalls everything else. Write your drafts before you book anyone. They will change during the design process, and that's normal and fine.
If writing about yourself genuinely makes you want to hide under your desk, that's useful information too. Tell your designer upfront, and either they can help shape rough notes into real copy (some include this, many charge extra), or they can recommend a copywriter. The worst option is silence followed by missed deadlines.
2. Your images
Real photos beat stock photos, every time. Visitors can feel the difference even when they can't articulate it. If you're a service provider, that means a professional headshot at minimum. If you have a physical space, photos of it. If you have a team, photos of them. If your work is visual, your best examples.
You don't need a professional photographer for everything, a recent, well-lit phone photo of your office is better than a stock image of a random conference room, but invest in a proper headshot. It's the single most-viewed image on most service business websites.
If you have nothing yet, schedule the photos before you book the designer, not after. "Waiting for photos" is the second most common project delay after waiting for copy.
3. Your logins and accounts
Gather these in a password manager or a secure document before the project starts:
- Domain registrar (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Google Domains, wherever you bought your URL)
- Current website platform login, if you have an existing site
- Google account (for Analytics, Search Console, and Business Profile setup)
- Email marketing tool login (MailerLite, Mailchimp, or whatever you use)
- Scheduling tool login (Acuity, Calendly, SimplePractice)
- Social media accounts you want linked
Projects stall for days over a forgotten GoDaddy password or a domain registered on an old email address nobody can access. Five minutes of gathering logins now saves genuine frustration later.
4. Three websites you like, and why
Not a 40-image Pinterest board. Three specific websites with one sentence each about what you like about them.
"I like how calm and uncluttered this feels."
"I like that this one gets to the point immediately."
"I like the way this practice shows their team."
This tells a designer more about your taste and goals than any mood board, and it takes ten minutes instead of ten hours.
5. One decision-maker
If you have a business partner, a spouse who has opinions, a board, or a friend who "knows websites," decide now who gives final approval on design decisions.
Collaboration is fine. Multiple perspectives can improve a site. But when three people with different tastes all have equal say, the project takes twice as long and the result is a compromise that pleases nobody. Designate one person as the final decision-maker. That person reviews, gathers input from whoever they like, and sends one consolidated response.
6. Your one sentence
What should a visitor do on your website?
Book a call. Buy a product. Join a mailing list. Download a guide. Request a consultation.
Pick one primary action. Your designer will build every page to point toward it. If you can't answer this question, you're not ready to hire a designer yet, and that's a perfectly fine realization to have. Spend a week getting clear on your business goals first, then come back.
A short note on what NOT to prepare
You do not need a wireframe, a sitemap, a mood board, a brand guide, or a list of specific Squarespace features you want. Those are the designer's job. Hiring a designer and then handing them a finished blueprint defeats the purpose and usually produces a worse result than letting them do what you're paying them for.
Come with the what (your content, your goals, your taste). Let the designer figure out the how.
The actual impact of being prepared
I've been doing this for over a decade, and I can tell you the pattern clearly: clients who show up with these six things finished are, without exception, the ones who get the best sites. Not because they're easier to work with (though they are), but because the project's energy goes into design decisions instead of logistics. The site benefits directly.
You don't need to be perfect. You need to be ready. Why does content matter so much? See how long a website build takes. Still deciding between template and custom? Read the comparison.