Less than you probably think. You do not need to turn up with a finished creative brief, perfectly written copy and a folder containing 40 professionally labelled images. A good web designer should be able to help turn ordinary business information into a website.
What I need first is an understanding of the business.
What do you do? Who do you do it for? Where do you work? What do customers normally ask? What makes somebody choose you rather than the obvious alternative?
Those answers are far more useful than a document saying you want the website to feel "modern and dynamic".
Start with the facts
The basics sound obvious, but they prevent a surprising amount of confusion.
I need the correct business name, phone number, email address and location or service area. If there are opening hours, booking rules, prices or important qualifications, those matter too.
Then I need to understand the services.
Not necessarily beautifully written service descriptions — just what you actually sell and which services matter most.
From there, the content can be shaped into something a customer can understand.
Tell me about the customer, not just the company
Business owners naturally start by describing themselves.
The website needs the other half of the story: who is arriving and what are they trying to solve?
A plumber might say, "We provide a complete range of domestic plumbing services."
A customer may be thinking, "My boiler has stopped working and I need somebody in Longford."
Those are different perspectives.
Knowing the customer helps decide what belongs near the top of the page, which services deserve emphasis and what language feels natural.
What makes the business worth choosing?
This does not need to be a grand "unique value proposition".
Maybe you answer the phone.
Maybe the owner does the work personally.
Maybe you specialise in a particular type of customer.
Maybe pricing is transparent.
Maybe you cover an area competitors do not.
Maybe you have 20 years of experience.
Maybe customers repeatedly mention the same thing in reviews.
That information gives the website something real to say.
Without it, even a beautiful site can become generic.
Gavin's take
I do not think a small-business owner should be handed a blank Word document and told to come back when they have written a website. They know the business; the designer should help turn that knowledge into usable web content. I still need the facts, tone and things only the owner can know, but I would rather draw those out and shape them than make copywriting a barrier to getting the site finished.
What about the copy?
You do not need to write all of it yourself.
In fact, I think one of the worst ways to start a small-business website project is to send the owner away with:
"Write the five pages and send them to me."
That is how projects stall.
You know the business. I can help organise the information and turn it into web copy.
There will still be things only you can provide accurately, particularly personal background, technical claims, credentials, prices and details about how the service works.
But that is very different from expecting you to become a copywriter.
If this is the part holding you back, read how to get a website built when you have no content.
What photographs do I need?
Real photographs are extremely useful when the business is visual or personal.
That might mean the owner, team, premises, vans, completed work, products or customers where appropriate permission exists.
You do not always need professional photography. Good phone photographs can be far better than generic stock photography if they genuinely show the business.
What I do not want is 200 random images with no indication of which ones matter.
A small selection of useful, representative images is a better starting point.
Do I need a logo and brand guidelines?
No.
If you already have them, great.
If you have only a logo, we can work from it.
If you have almost no formal brand at all, the website can still establish a sensible visual direction through typography, colour, spacing and imagery.
That is different from a full branding project, which is a much broader piece of work.
The important thing is to be clear about what the website project includes.
Should I send examples of websites I like?
Yes, but tell me why you like them.
"I like this website" is useful.
"I like how quickly I can see the services and the photographs feel confident without being corporate" is much more useful.
Examples help identify taste. They are not instructions to copy somebody else's site.
Built by Gavin does not use off-the-shelf templates, and I am not interested in cloning another business's website and changing the name.
The reference should help us understand direction, not replace design.
What about my domain and existing accounts?
If you already own a domain, knowing where it is registered is useful.
The same applies to an existing Google Business Profile, analytics account, booking system, email platform or old website.
Do not send passwords in an ordinary email.
What matters at the start is simply knowing what exists, who controls it and whether it needs to connect to the new site.
Domain ownership is particularly important. The business should ideally control its own domain rather than discovering later that the old web provider owns the account.
What I'd do
If you came to me with a business name, a phone number and a rough explanation of what you do, I would start there. I would ask about the customer, services, geography, common questions and what makes the business different, then build a first draft around that. I would only stop the project for missing material when it is genuinely something I cannot responsibly invent — for example qualifications, exact prices, legal claims or personal history.
What if I genuinely have almost nothing?
That is common with new businesses.
We can still start from a conversation.
A business usually exists before its website copy does. There are services, customers, prices, experience and reasons for starting it.
The job is to extract those facts and present them clearly.
You can also start smaller. A small-business website does not need dozens of pages.
The information I care about most
If you want the shortest possible version, tell me what you do, who you want to attract, where you operate and what you want the visitor to do next.
Then give me access to whatever real material already exists — photographs, reviews, social pages, old leaflets or an existing site.
That is enough to have a productive first conversation.
The bottom line
You are hiring a web designer because you need help creating the website.
You should not have to create the website in Word form first.
A good process turns your knowledge of the business into useful structure, copy and design while checking the things only you can verify.
That also makes the project faster. I explain why in how long it takes to build a small-business website.
Ready to start with what you already have?
You can see my website options or simply tell me about the business.
You do not need a polished brief. A rough explanation is enough to start.
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