How long a Fervor project takes, in business days

The honest reason agencies avoid publishing timelines is that they cannot control the client half of the project. A build waits on photos, on a logo file nobody can find, on somebody signing off on copy while they are on a roof. So the agency writes "typically 8 to 12 weeks" and lets the range absorb the risk.

We would rather tell you what our half takes and be specific about what yours takes, because a project that runs late almost always runs late for one of three reasons, and all three are avoidable if you know about them in week one.

What happens in each stage

A Booked by Design build runs in four stages and only the first one needs much of your time. Discovery is where we go through your numbers, your current site, and the Site Inspection findings if you have had one. That is one call and a questionnaire, and it is the stage where being slow costs you the most, because everything downstream is waiting on it.

Then architecture, which is wireframes and the conversion path before anything looks like a website. You approve structure, not colours. Contractors find this stage strange because it is deliberately ugly, and that is the point: if the layout only works once the photography is in, the layout is not working.

Then build and copy, which is the longest stage and the one you hear least from us during. Then launch week: hooking up call and form tracking so you can see where enquiries come from, pointing your old page addresses at the new ones so nothing you already rank for breaks, testing every form actually arrives, and making sure each page opens fast on a phone. Launch week is short and it is the stage most agencies do half of.

The three things that make a project run late

Photography. Almost always photography. If you do not have current photos of your own crews and your own finished work, the build will stall at the exact point where it needs them, and stock images will quietly get proposed instead. Book the photographer in week one, not week six.

Second, approval by committee. If your spouse, your ops manager and your brother-in-law who "knows websites" all get a veto, add two weeks. One named decision-maker keeps a project on schedule better than any project management tool.

Third, waiting for a rebuild to fix something a fix would fix. If your current site is leaking on one page, a Leak Plug Sprint gets that fixed in weeks rather than parking it behind a full build. And you can run the sprint while the build is in progress, which is what we usually suggest.

What we do not promise

We do not put a date on results, and you should be suspicious of anybody who does. A site can go live on schedule and still take a full season to show what it changed, because your buying cycle is your buying cycle. Roofing after a storm moves in days. A kitchen remodel takes a homeowner four months to decide on.

What we will do is tell you at launch what we changed and what to watch, so the first month is a measurement instead of a wait.