A website project can take anything from 1 week to one month. In this article, we look at how long your project will really take depending on various factors.
- A simple website can take one week.
- Anything advanced can take from 2 weeks to 1 month to complete.
Let’s see why.
A simple blog
A simple blog should take no more than a week. This is especially if you’re more concerned with content than the overall design of the website.
This is possible because there are great prebuilt tools. You will just need to change or add the placeholder content.
Example situation: You want easy writing experience; where you can post using a smartphone or a computer. You’ll want to use WordPress.org.
A WordPress website is simple to run because the core part of it is ready for you to start posting. The only thing you’ll need is to find a reliable Web host and be up and running in a few hours.
Since WordPress comes with prebuilt themes, you can choose one of those to have a unique style for your website. You don’t even have to edit code if you are feeling that the existing theme is good enough for you.
Other than the pre-existing themes, there are thousands of free ones on the Wordpress.org Themes Repository. In fact, you’ll be surprised by the huge amount of modern styled themes available there; all for free.
Paid themes are also available from websites like Themeforest among others.
The advantages of premium themes is the support you’ll get while running your website and also the relative uniqueness of the site you’ll end up with.
The advantages of premium themes is the support you’ll get while running your website and also the relative uniqueness of the site you’ll end up with.
Most of the premium themes also come with execisively simple to use website builders. Website builders allow you to drag and drop stuff here and there and come up with a unique website you will be proud of.
A good example is Divi Builder from Elegant Themes.
An excellent thing about Divi builder is the simplicity and excellent preview. It even comes with more than 40 prebuilt website templates. You’ll simply need to change the content of the prebuilt layouts.
In case you feel like the burden of learning to use the website builders might get on the way of your coming up with a good website, you’re in luck because YouTube exists and all you have to do is type the name of the builder your theme comes with and you’ll be greeted with a handful of tutorials to help you get started.
You can also hire somebody to do the customization for you. For example, you could draw up a sketch on a large plain piece of paper with a pen and of course a ruler. Place everything in its rightful place and then send it to the person creating your website to use it as a guideline. That way, you will not be tied down by somebody’s creativity. You’ll be leading them to give you something you really want.
Something more than a simple WordPress blog
Let’s say you want something more. Something more than a prebuilt website and a little more than what a website builder will conjure up. In this case, you want something so customized that no prebuilt solution exists yet.
Well well, the number of days it will take to launch your website will add up.
An advanced website will take anything from 2 weeks to 1 month as someone comes up with the functionality you want to derive. The functionality can still be built on top of WordPress, however.
Note WordPress is more than just a collecting of free and premium themes. It gives you the power to create content with divine flexibility. You can post from anywhere, even from your phone using their app.
A fully fledged website with additional functionality such as online booking
For a fully fledged website, you can still use WordPress. In this case, you’ll need a custom theme built for you.
The Web developer you hire will work on implementing those cool features you desire to have on your website. These can range from online booking to online shopping and many more. Of course you could use a plugin plus a free theme to solve your problems.
In Wordpress, themes present you with the cool looks and basic to advanced functionality. Anything not available from the theme you choose can always be supplemented by a plugin. There’s always a WordPress plugin for anything you can think of.
However, you should use plugins with a lot of caution. For example, not all plugins play well together. Secondly, some of the plugin developers will expose your website to online brutes whose sole purpose is to turn your website upside down and have it throw up countless of times. Hackers love WordPress websites for a reason.
An ecommerce website
This is where you always here people talk of Web applications. Web applications are special in that, other than serving up Web pages, there’s so much else going on behind the scenes. In most cases, RESTful APIs are used.
We’ve talked about WordPress and all. You should realize that WordPress places everything in one place. Your code and your content live in the same place somewhere. It’s not always true, but it’s the case by default.
For example, the theme of your website and the plugins write to the same database. What happens when one plugin you use is compromised? The website will be compromised from head to toe.
When you want something more, you have APIs to the rescue. Using an API means what a visitor to your website interacts with a completely independent bit from what your developer and content creators are working on.
This helps you a lot if you want a website that works everywhere.
Case: post once but the same content is available from the Web to the mobile app to anywhere else you can think of.
WordPress offers such functionality only that dealing with huge traffic, like running an ecommerce website makes you regret the day your website was born because your Web host won’t treat your it like a normal kid.
So for an ecommerce website, there will be functionality that runs on a server somewhere and these functions allow mobile apps and your website to consume data from.
Something like this should take at least a month and a few more weeks of testing before you can launch your delightful product.
Additional information about website functionality
When making a website, you will want to take care of a few things.
The basic features
The most basic feature of any website is to allow you to interact with your prospects. People visit your website to find information about your services or to contact you.
Advanced features
Ecommerce, online communities and so on are some of the advanced features.
Critical feature: Security
Security is a critical feature. Every minute, attackers are trying to find vulnerabilities in web applications or websites.
Several things can happe:
- You lose traffic
- Your website gets defaced
- Your website is taken offline
- Your user data is stolen
The above are just but a few things that a hacker will want to achieve when they successfully get past the security measures guarding your website or web application.
To mitigate such risks, you can take several measures:
- Use HTTPS all over your website
- Prefer a static website over a dynamically generated one
- Hire a security expert
- Always update your website plugins and the core. This applies mostly to WordPress
- Always monitor traffic and consider services such as Cloudflare CDN
- Choose your Web host carefully. Rely on Web hosting companies that have been there for years. These hosts always have good security measures in place and have learnt from past mistakes.
The above security reasons will be variables when deciding which website technologies to use when making your website and consequently the time the project will take.
For example, a static website will in most cases be coded from scratch. That means more money and more time. However, you are going to enjoy the added security because you are not dealing with any databases.
Also, you will be in luck because static websites are lightning fast. They are fast because they are not generated dynamically but served directly. In fact, your website’s response time will be super improved because you can use a CDN to take the content closer to your users.
Conclusion
Well, a website can take a week, 2 weeks or 1 month to have. It all depends on what you need and how much you are willing to invest. Also, it all depends the future you want for your business.