What to Prepare Before Someone Builds Your Website

The short answer

Before anyone builds your website, gather six things: your logo, 10 to 15 real photos, the text about what you sell, your opening hours and contact details, a short list of the pages you want, and access to the accounts you already own (domain, Google profile, social pages). Most delays in a website build are not technical. They are a missing photo or a price nobody wrote down.

Think of it like building a house

A builder can pour the foundation without you. But the moment he asks "which colour for the kitchen?" and you answer "let me think about it", the whole site goes quiet. A website is the same. The builder is fast. Waiting for you is slow. This guide is the list of answers to have in your pocket before the first question arrives.

Imagine a riad owner who spends one quiet afternoon with a coffee, a phone and a folder. By evening she has everything below. That afternoon saves weeks of back-and-forth messages. And the checklist works whoever builds your site: a freelancer, an agency, or you.

1. Your logo, in the right files

Find the original file, not a screenshot of it from WhatsApp. A screenshot is blurry the moment it is enlarged, and your header will look tired on day one.

• Ask whoever designed it for the original files (often PNG with a transparent background, or SVG).
• If you have two versions (one for light backgrounds, one for dark), keep both.
• No logo yet? Say so early. It is much better to settle this before the build than to squeeze a quick one in at the end.
• Note your brand colours if you have them. If you do not, point at a sign, a menu or a bag you like and say "this colour".

2. Photos: real beats pretty

Visitors can tell in two seconds whether a picture shows your real place or a generic one. Real photos build trust that stock pictures cannot.

• The place: the entrance, the room, the terrace, the shop front, in daylight.
• The products or the work: the dishes, the rooms, the finished pieces, the tools laid out on the bench.
• Hands at work: a baker shaping dough, a mechanic with a wrench, a tailor measuring cloth. No faces needed, and they feel alive.
• Quantity: 10 to 15 good photos is plenty to start. Ten sharp ones beat forty blurry ones.

How to shoot them with only a phone: wipe the lens, shoot near a window, keep the phone level, and hold it horizontally for wide pictures. Send the original files by email or a cloud folder, not through WhatsApp, which shrinks every picture.

3. The words: what you actually say

Pages built around empty placeholder text always look empty. You do not need to write like a poet. You need to answer, in plain sentences, what a stranger would ask you at the counter.

1. One sentence: what you do and who it is for. ("A family bakery making fresh bread and pastries every morning.")
2. Your services or products, each with two lines of description.
3. Prices, or at least a starting price. If you do not want to publish prices, decide that now and tell the builder.
4. Your story, in a short paragraph: who you are, why you started, what you care about.
5. Frequent questions: the five things customers ask you every week (parking, booking, payment, delivery, languages spoken).

Write it the way you would say it out loud. If your customers speak Arabic and French, tell the builder which languages the site needs and who will check the translations. A rough draft in a note on your phone is a perfectly fine start.

4. The practical details, written once and correctly

These small facts appear on almost every page, and one wrong digit costs you real customers. Write them in one place and copy from there.

Detail	What to prepare
Business name	The exact spelling and capital letters you want shown
Phone / WhatsApp	The number customers should use, with the country code
Email	An address you actually read
Address	Street, number and a landmark that helps people find you
Opening hours	Every day, including the break and the closing day; plus special days like Ramadan or holidays
Social pages	The links to your Instagram, Facebook or TikTok
Map pin	The link to your location on Google Maps

5. The pages you want, on one sheet of paper

Most small businesses need fewer pages than they think. A typical starting set: Home, About, Services (or Menu, or Rooms), Gallery, Contact. Write the list. If you want something extra, such as online booking, say so now, because it changes how the site is planned.

Also collect two or three websites you like, and one you do not. "I like how this one feels" tells a builder more than a page of explanation.

6. The accounts you must own

This is the boring part that saves you later. Whoever builds your site, your business name should be on the domain. A domain is your web address (like yourbusiness.com), and it should be registered under your name or your company's, never only the builder's.

• Do you already own a domain? Find out where it was bought and who holds the login.
• Do you have a Google Business Profile? Keep the login ready so the address, hours and photos can match your new site.
• Do you have social media pages? Make sure you are the admin, not an old employee or a cousin who helped once.
• Which email address will receive messages from the site's contact form?

If you have none of these yet, that is fine. Say so, and ask that everything be opened in your name.

Your checklist

• Logo in its original files, plus your brand colours if you have them
• 10 to 15 real photos: the place, the products, hands at work
• One sentence about what you do, plus a description of each service or product
• Prices (or a decision not to show them)
• Your story in one short paragraph
• Five frequent customer questions with their answers
• Name, phone, email, address, map link, opening hours, social links
• The list of pages you want and two sites you like
• Logins for your domain, Google profile and social pages

FAQ

What if I do not have professional photos?

Start with phone photos taken in daylight. A clean, honest picture of your real place is better than a polished picture of someone else's. You can add professional ones later and swap them in.

Do I have to write all the text myself?

No, but you are the only one who knows your business. Give the facts in rough notes (what you do, your prices, your story) and let the builder help shape the wording. What you cannot delegate is the accuracy: hours, prices and contact details must come from you.

Who should own my domain?

You. It is your address on the internet, in the same way your shop's lease is your address on the street. Ask to see the registration in your name before you pay for anything else.

What if I do not know what I want on my website?

Then bring the photos, the contact details and two sites you admire. That is enough to start a useful conversation, and the rest can be decided together.

Do this now

Open the notes app on your phone and write down your opening hours, phone number and address exactly as they should appear online. It takes three minutes, and it is the single detail that appears on almost every page.

If you would like us to build the site, see how it works on our pricing page: the professional website is 1,500 DH HT once, which covers the first year of domain and hosting, then 1,000 DH HT/year. Send us what you gathered through the contact page. And if you would rather keep learning first, the Academy has more practical guides like this one.