Send all of this in one batch before the build starts, and your project finishes close to its quoted date. Send it in pieces over six weeks and it won’t. Content is the largest single cause of delayed websites — and it’s the one part a developer genuinely cannot do for you.
About ninety minutes of work. Grammar doesn’t matter; completeness does.
Part 1: The facts only you have
Record these as a fifteen-minute voice note if writing is the blocker. Any competent developer will work from audio.
☐ What you do, in two sentences. As you’d say it to a stranger at a wedding.
☐ Your services or products, listed — with a price or a range against each. If you won’t publish prices, say “from ₹X” or “quote on request”, but decide now.
☐ Your full postal address, exactly as you want it shown. Not just the city.
☐ The phone number you want on the site, and whether it should be the same on WhatsApp.
☐ Business hours, including which days you’re closed.
☐ How long you’ve been operating, and any registration or certification worth naming.
☐ One specific reason someone should choose you over the next option. Not “quality service” — something checkable.
☐ The five questions customers ask you most. These become your best-performing page content.
☐ What you don’t do. Saves you unqualified enquiries.
☐ GSTIN, if you sell B2B or bid for tenders — verification processes check it.
Part 2: The files
☐ Logo file — and this is where most people stop.
Most businesses hold a printed visiting card, not a usable file. Check what you actually have:
| What you have | Usable? | What to do |
|---|---|---|
.ai, .eps, .svg, .cdr |
Best | Send it |
.png with transparent background, large |
Good | Send it |
.jpg from a signboard photo |
Poor | Ask your printer or signboard maker — they usually still have the file |
| Only a visiting card | No | Photograph it, send it, and ask about redrawing cost |
Your printer, signboard maker or the person who did your last brochure almost certainly has the original. That one WhatsApp message saves a redraw fee.
☐ Any brand colours you use, if you know them. If not, send a photograph of your signboard and let the developer pick from it.
Part 3: The photographs
☐ Fifteen photographs, taken on your phone, in daylight.
Not stock images. Photographs of unrelated foreign offices are recognised instantly and are the single biggest thing that makes a site look cheap. Your own imperfect photographs beat them every time.
What to shoot, in one session:
- Your work — five to eight of finished jobs, products, or results
- Your premises — outside with the signboard, and inside
- Your team — even just you. A real face outperforms a stock one
- Your products — on a plain surface, in daylight, one per shot
- You at work — mid-job, not posed
Three rules that do most of the work: shoot in daylight near a window or outdoors, hold the phone steady and take three of each, and name the files as you go if you can — product-code.jpg beats IMG_4471.jpg and saves real time during the build.
Part 4: Page-by-page text prompts
You don’t need to write polished copy. Answer these and a developer or writer shapes it into pages.
Home page
☐ One line: what you do and where
☐ Three or four things you offer
☐ One reason to choose you
☐ What you want a visitor to do — call, WhatsApp, or fill a form
About page
☐ When and why the business started
☐ Who runs it
☐ Anything that builds confidence: years operating, projects completed, a named client, a certification
☐ Skip the mission statement. Nobody reads it
Services / Products page
☐ Each service named, two lines about it, and a price or range
☐ Who each one is for
☐ How long it takes, if relevant
Contact page
☐ Address, phone, WhatsApp number, email
☐ Hours
☐ Nearest landmark — genuinely useful in NCR
☐ Where enquiries should be delivered — name the inbox you actually check
Part 5: If you have products to sell
☐ A spreadsheet, one row per product:
Product code | Name | Category | Price | Variants | Description (2 lines) | Photo filename | Stock
Entry is roughly five to fifteen minutes per product and is almost never included in a build quote. Two things worth asking before you start typing:
- “Can you bulk-import from a spreadsheet?” If your catalogue already exists in Tally, Excel, a billing system or a marketplace listing, this can turn a week into an afternoon.
- “What’s the per-product rate if I don’t do the entry?”
And launch with your best thirty, not everything. A live store this month beats a complete catalogue that never goes live.
Part 6: Accounts and access
☐ Domain registered in your own account, with your own email — ideally before the project starts
☐ The email address where enquiries should arrive
☐ Your Google Business Profile login, if you have one and want the site linked to it
☐ Payment gateway details, for a store — registered under the same email you control
How to send it
One batch. Not in pieces.
The pattern that stalls projects isn’t refusing to send content — it’s sending it across three weeks while the build waits. So: block ninety minutes, do all six parts, send everything in one message or one folder link, and say so:
Sending everything now — text for all pages, fifteen photographs, logo file, and the product sheet. What’s the date to be live?
That message restarts stalled projects more reliably than anything else, and it starts new ones on schedule.
The honest note on why this matters
Content delay is the largest identified cause of website overrun, and it produces a specific misunderstanding: from your side it looks like the developer went quiet; from theirs it looks like you did. Both are partly right, and neither is dishonest.
We’d also be careful not to over-claim. The idea that content stall accounts for a large share of “developer disappeared” stories is our working hypothesis from watching projects, not something we can prove with numbers — complaint records document vendor-side failure directly and in volume. Treat it as a question worth asking about your own project rather than a verdict on anyone else’s.
What to do this week
- Block ninety minutes and record the fifteen-minute voice note.
- Message your printer or signboard maker for the logo file.
- Shoot fifteen photographs in one daylight session.
- Build the product spreadsheet if you sell products.
- Send everything in one batch and ask for the live date.
If you want it done the certain way
Send us a voice note answering Part 1 and fifteen phone photographs — we’ll write the pages from it and tell you upfront whether that’s included in your quote or priced separately. We publish what we need from you before starting and chase it twice a week, because a timeline that ignores content is fiction. WhatsApp us; we reply in about five minutes between 9am and 7pm.
Related reading
- The content stall that delays most websites
- Who writes the text for your website?
- How to actually hand over website content
- Do you actually have your logo file?
- What photos do you really need?
FAQ
What content do I need to give my web developer?
The facts only you have (services with prices, address, hours, one reason to choose you, your five most-asked questions), your logo file, fifteen phone photographs of real work, page-by-page text answers, a product spreadsheet if you sell products, and the email where enquiries should arrive.
I don’t have my logo file — what now?
Ask your printer, signboard maker or whoever produced your last brochure; they usually still have the original. Failing that, photograph your card or signboard and ask what a redraw costs.
Do I need professional photographs for my website?
No, but you do need your own. Fifteen phone photographs taken in daylight outperform stock imagery of unrelated businesses, which customers recognise and discount immediately.
Why does content delay a website so much?
Because the build genuinely stops until it arrives, and it usually arrives in pieces over weeks. Sending everything in one batch before the build starts is the single biggest thing you control about the timeline.
